enjoying life

… in the winter sun.

Easy for both humans and animals to enjoy life on days like in the picture above, with mid-day temp­era­tures hovering around freezing, and not even half an inch of snow on the ground. At night we have temp­era­tures down to around -12°C (10°F) right now, which isn't a problem for well-fed cows.

The low winter sun is only shining at the farmyard a few hours a day now in January, as the woody hills around us do not only keep the wind at bay but also keep the low winter sun out. Our house is built and oriented to make the most out of the sun to heat up the rooms in the winter while keepin it out in the summer, and an hour of direct sunlight mid day is enough to make it almost uncom­fort­ably warm indoors even on the coldest winter days.

give us each day…

Our small herd need their fill of silage/​hay and mineral- and vitamin-enriched con­cen­trate, spread at at least two, some­times three, servings a day. At which times we also check that the indi­vid­ual animal behaves normal and shows all signs of being in good health and mood – espe­cial­ly the last.

Cows grow natural insu­la­tion against the winter cold; a not very thick but very effi­cient two-layer coat that keeps their body-heat in and prevents snow falling on the outer layer of long hairs from melting. Not quite as impres­sive as we picture us the woolly mammoths, but it serves them well in our Norwegian climate.

Not a parti­cu­larly cold or harsh winter so far in our part of the world, and we won't mind too much if it stays like this until spring takes over and grass starts growing.

and that's it?

Pretty much, yes … just us living a quiet life on a small farm in Southern Norway. With a bit of luck my next posting will be some­what along the same lines, with varia­tions to go with the time of year, etc.

We make small plans for ourselves, mainly focused around how best to live in peace on this small farm until our days are out. All we need is here, and all that will ever be is too. This is how we like it, and as long as we can keep it up we're happy with life.

sincerely 

Hageland 28.jan.2021
last rev: 01.feb.2021