Got snow?!?! Yikes!!! (part1)

As predicted we got atleast 17 inches of snow and wind.  Our property is situated as such that we do OK with a north and west wind , but from the east we get buried.  Bruce crawled out of a warm bed and trudged through 4 ft. drifts, only to find that the door on the south side was drifted shut.  Off he went all the way around the barn to the milkhouse side to get in.  A storm like this creates a number of issues.  Belts on the elevators slip.  Elevators are full of snow and have to be dumped into the mixer and then the feed cart so it can be dumped in the gutter. He even had to shovel snow out of the feed alleys in a couple places where it blew in by the doors and also where there is a hole between the stones in our barn wall.  I really don't ever remembering having that problem with the wall before. The overhead door in the feed room doesn't seal tight on the bottom so everything is covered in snow in there too. When he got everything mixing he was nice enough to take the skid steer and create a path from the milkhouse door to our front porch for me. In this weather the skid steer and snow blower tractor are always plugged in and our generator is easily accessible just in case we need it.  By the time we were half done milking  there was a new calf coming.  Bruce read that if you feed your dry cows in the evening they will tend to have their calves during the daytime.  We have found this to be true and very helpful.  The heifer! calf was here before we were done!  This morning the neighbor thought he would get lucky and make it down the township road.  He is stuck but smart enough to be dressed to walk so he went home (nearly a half mile) and will come back on his snowmobile when we are done with breakfast.  The bull calf that didn't want to eat yesterday was much more receptive to our suggestions this morning.  He still doesn't entirely grasp the concept of sucking but he did manage to get a whole bottle down, it just took awhile.  Bruce has now gotten the neighbors car safely in our driveway and out of the road.  Turns out he had spent the night at another neighbors about a mile north of here because he had gotten stuck.  The plowing adventure has begun here...

Storm fences in place.

This mornings fun

This is our spreader pit area, under roof and protected on 2 sides.

The steer bunk was shoveled out twice yesterday.

The neighbors car....optimism didn't quite do it

Bruce just left to plow out our other place about 1/2 mile from here.  There are 8 ft drifts across the county road, a delivery van stuck and a county grader trying to cut a hole through so he decided to go check things out at Ed's instead.  The township plow got within a half mile of here and couldn't get through so Ed isn't plowed out yet either.  Since the road to the west also has a reputation for drifting badly I think its probably still full also.  Guess we won't have to worry about unexpected company today : )