Yesterday, chores were a struggle against the snow.
Today, it was the wind. It blew coldly from the north and west. The geese wouldn’t budge from under the mower. We are thinking of relocating their hut under the carport, where they seem to prefer to be anyway.
Our major issue came with the sheep. The bitter cold did not spare the sheep barn. While I was preparing the barn so we could bring in new haybales, I touched my bare skin to a bit of metal and tore some holes in my hand! I have a bad habit of not wearing gloves. I’ll resume wearing gloves now.
After that, it was time to bring in the bales with the tractor. We plugged in the engine heater for the tractor to warm up the diesel fuel and de-congeal it. After an hour of warming, the tractor started and Matt drove up the hill. Soon, the steady chugging of the engine slowed..and then stopped. Cold diesel has paraffin, and solid paraffin was blocking the fuel filter.
The sheep were hungry and needed to be fed to keep warm. We can’t move 600 lb round bales ourselves, and the little Ford tractor had a frozen snowblower attached where a bale-fork would go. So we went to town where we purchased square bales. Matt ran into the auto-parts store, where a temporary pyramid of bottles of Diesel 911 greeted him. He bought the half-gallon size.
Once home, we fed out the hay to grateful ewes. It took another hour and a half to get the tractor moving. We had to use an electric space heater to heat the fuel filter, but it did the trick and our tractor didn’t catch fire. It was 7pm before we were all done with our day.