Watering Livestock; Log size
The reported windchills for yesterday were between -30F and -50F, the latter at higher elevations.
Stunningly cold for here, and our farm is extremely windy.
Doing outdoor chores in this weather is not pleasant. The trouble is that the animals need water and all outdoor spigots are shut off to prevent pipes and hoses from bursting. Jerricans of hot water have to be filled in the house and carted across the farm in a wheelbarrow. If the water source is out of the wind, the warm water will remain liquid for quite a while, giving the animals time to drink.
Keeping a house warm using a wood stove in this weather is also a bit of a challenge. A very high temperature has to be maintained, and in my experience this is only possible if a constant supply of smaller, thinner logs are used. One might think the opposite -- I certainly did once -- that larger logs would be better because they technically contain more BTUs. The trouble is the surface area. A larger log will burn longer, but for a hot burn you want a lot of surface area and good air volume. So you pile up the thinner stuff and just feed it in. So far so good, but even so we were all wearing wool caps at breakfast this morning.
We've almost certainly lost dozens of potted trees to the cold. The most valuable nursery stock we put in the greenhouse, which even without heat should be warm enough to protect the roots. Most of the lost trees are failed grafts or potted root sprouts; either way it's at the very least a loss of invested labor.
All the animals have survived the worst of it. The chickens were even feeling up to laying eggs -- which froze and cracked immediately. I've put the sheep in the barn to protect them from the wind. They could probably handle it, being a very cold-tolerant breed, but no reason to expose them to it unnecessarily.
The best thing I can say about this weather is that it will provide us with a lot of useful information about what some of our experimental plantings can and can't tolerate. I'm particularly interested to see if the fruiting buds on the nut trees will survive, since we will probably not get temperatures this cold again until the trees are mature.
Stunningly cold for here, and our farm is extremely windy.
Doing outdoor chores in this weather is not pleasant. The trouble is that the animals need water and all outdoor spigots are shut off to prevent pipes and hoses from bursting. Jerricans of hot water have to be filled in the house and carted across the farm in a wheelbarrow. If the water source is out of the wind, the warm water will remain liquid for quite a while, giving the animals time to drink.
Keeping a house warm using a wood stove in this weather is also a bit of a challenge. A very high temperature has to be maintained, and in my experience this is only possible if a constant supply of smaller, thinner logs are used. One might think the opposite -- I certainly did once -- that larger logs would be better because they technically contain more BTUs. The trouble is the surface area. A larger log will burn longer, but for a hot burn you want a lot of surface area and good air volume. So you pile up the thinner stuff and just feed it in. So far so good, but even so we were all wearing wool caps at breakfast this morning.
We've almost certainly lost dozens of potted trees to the cold. The most valuable nursery stock we put in the greenhouse, which even without heat should be warm enough to protect the roots. Most of the lost trees are failed grafts or potted root sprouts; either way it's at the very least a loss of invested labor.
All the animals have survived the worst of it. The chickens were even feeling up to laying eggs -- which froze and cracked immediately. I've put the sheep in the barn to protect them from the wind. They could probably handle it, being a very cold-tolerant breed, but no reason to expose them to it unnecessarily.
The best thing I can say about this weather is that it will provide us with a lot of useful information about what some of our experimental plantings can and can't tolerate. I'm particularly interested to see if the fruiting buds on the nut trees will survive, since we will probably not get temperatures this cold again until the trees are mature.