Posted by Tim – CNP, OHP
BellMar Ranch & Gardens
December 19, 2025
BellMar Ranch & Gardens
December 19, 2025
Technically, winter doesn’t start until December 21.
Someone forgot to tell the weather.
It feels like it’s snowed every day — or at least every other day — for the last month.
The driveway is a permanent sheet of ice.
The paths to the barn are glazed over.
Moving snow has become a second full-time job, keeping me out until 2 a.m. some nights this week.
Temperatures have been –20 °C or colder for days on end, with wind chills pushing –30 °C and lower.
Getting equipment started is a nightmare — batteries dead, diesel thick, everything fighting you.
We’re trucking water every single day for the cows.
The barn pipe is still frozen solid.
Fixing it means working outside, barehanded in –25 °C or worse, because gloves don’t fit in the tight spots.
Three dairy cows in the barn mean moving tons of manure by hand with pitchforks.
The spreader is frozen, so we’re building a pile beside the barn that we’ll have to move again in spring.
This isn’t “winter is coming.”
Winter is already here — and it’s not even winter yet.
But the cows are fed.
The tanks are broken open.
The fires are lit.
We keep going.
Because that’s what you do.
Tim - CNP, OHP
(The guy who’s ready for spring… yesterday)
(The guy who’s ready for spring… yesterday)