Problems just piled up in the snow on the farm on the M62 - Jill Thorp
It’s been a “big coit” kind of week with our home fires burning day in, day out.
The shrieks of delight that rung through the house when the little guy’s school announced it was unable to open due to the snow were short lived when he realised he was in for days of hard labour on the farm.
I was sorely tempted to ask the school if I could keep him home all week, as with the heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures, an extra pair of hands would have been welcomed.
Despite providing a change from the relentless rain and mud, the snow has given us a real headache. Whilst it’s ethereal beauty, covering the landscape in a cloak of glistening white snow is infinitely more preferable to that of the mud splattered battle fields we’ve looked upon for months on end, it’s arrival has been far from embraced.
It’s perhaps difficult for anyone outside of farming to fully comprehend the extent of problems any prolonged period of snow and ice can cause.
Frozen water pipes, desperately hungry sheep and in our case, the dreaded winter colic threatening to cause real misery with our Mountain ponies are some of the hurdles we’ve faced, all with frozen fingers!
It doesn’t take much for everything to grind to a halt up here. Perhaps we’re just not used to it and definitely not prepared for it, as deep snow accompanied by weeks of sub zero conditions were the norm, not that long ago.
My Grandpa’s weather charts, that he meticulously filled in during his lifetime recorded temperatures regularly well below zero and long periods of being snowed in. Frost on the inside of our bedroom window in the old, stone cottage we lived in was not uncommon during the winter months.
However, the briefest wiff of a snowflake these days sends news desks into an apocalyptic melt down, with scare mongering filling every broadsheet and social media page.
The ongoing chest infection that Paul had been struggling with since before Christmas suddenly became the least of our problems.
As the week progressed and the snow kept falling along with the temperature, the problems kept rolling in. Whilst carefully trying to extract my car from its snow bound tomb one morning, Paul lost his footing on the black ice covering the yard and landing on the edge of a stone trough, managed to fracture his ribs.
Not to be outdone, the little guy, also took a tumble whilst moving some sheep. As Paul lay groaning in the yard, gasping with every breath, the little guy hobbled up the yard, tears streaming down his cheeks, his dog, Bess glued to his side.
Sheep of course were out again, the phone was ringing constantly, I had two soldiers down, a very sick mare who had succumbed to the dreaded colic and all the while, I was trying to figure out how on earth we were going to get hay to the hundreds of sheep miles away from home on winter keep.
The answer of course is always found in a brew and once a cup of Yorkshire’s finest tea was warming our insides, we pulled ourselves together and like all the other indestructible farmers out there, we quite simply got on with it.