Brrrr. . . while it isn’t as cold as last week, we did have sleet accumulation. Straight cold is easy to deal with, a sheet of ice covering everything is a different story.
Last night I went out to milk. Heading out wasn’t too awful, just had to watch your step. Once in the stanchion my hands got wet, of course. It happens when you are milking by hand. While working with the warm udder, it wasn’t a problem. It was when I had to venture out into the still falling ice pellets and unlatch the chains holding the gates closed that I found a bit o’ pain.
It felt as though my wedding rings (yes plural) had frozen to my flesh. I had dried my hands off while still in the barn, but the lingering coolness still clung and touching any metal sent the tip of my fingers burning. I could only feel the stinging hot sensation by the time I returned to the house. And being in a house full of boys, there was no sympathy.
Before filtering the milk, I had to get th purple off my fingers. Which gratefully warming my fingers back up was not as painful as the initial freezing.
I filtered and bottled the fresh milk, then skimmed the cream off the top of the day old milk. I enjoy making butter. I priced it the other day while at the grocery, $4.00 for a pound of butter! Better be some very special butter. It has doubled in price within a year. Milk prices here seem to be stable at a little over $3 a gallon. Speaking of cow products, I remember a time when ground beef was the cheap meat. What has happened there? I can purchase ground pork or turkey for almost $2 less. I guess it can be all blamed on feed prices, but I can’t see it here. Locally our prices haven’t gone up, they seem rather stable even with the price of gas. But then if you add in all the expenses it does cost a pretty penny. Still, personally I feel the prices are high because people will still pay those prices rather than opting for the less expensive ground meats. Oh wait I feel a tantrum coming on.
I am avoiding going outside right now. Delaying my chores. I don’t have anything too pressing. Everyone got extra rations last night, so I am able to wait until it warms up a bit more before venturing out. The ice was so bad last night that many cars flipped on the highway. Husband was telling me about it once he got safely home. He put a horse blanket over the windshield to keep the ice off.
Hope the rest of you are fairing well.
4 comments:
That dang song [your title] has been going through my head all week. Christmas is over Skippy!
Anyway - so sorry about your rings - that is painful. Perhaps next time leave that back at home. I don't like taking mine off for anything but in that case I definitely would.
Can you carry the milk pail and work the gate chains with gloves on. That might help.
Try and stay warm sweetie. :D
yes yes, the gloves. If I could find my milking gloves I would happily wear them. But right now they have gone awol.
When we milked in the winter I remember washing and my hand being cold, then once dry and on the warm udder not so bad. I wore my winter gloves after I was done milking and cleanup.
Maybe invest in someof those glo-mits, they are a mitten but you can pull back the mitten part and expose your fingers.
Sounds as if you are cold. We have ice too because it rained and then the temps dropped well below freezing.
Outside today it's almost 20F but with the windchill they are saying it is -18F Our house is hard to keep warm when the wind is blowing as well, old windows and poor insulation in the walls*sigh* part of owning a 101 yr. ol farmhouse.
Stay warma nd be careful on that ice,
Kelle
I'm afraid that is just too cold for me! This old fat man is better off here in the deep south!
You stay warm, my friend!
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