Dead of Winter
Nothing in this photo of junked vehicles congregating around an empty granary stirs warm memories in me. On our farm over a half century ago the month of January tested the will of family members and the very lives of our chickens, pigs and cows.
The golden warmth of summer and fall were small objects in the rear view mirror of our memories during winter. My dad kept a couple dozen Leghorn hens over most winters and we were lucky to get enough eggs to have for breakfast a couple of mornings each week. When I entered the ammonia atmosphere of the hen house their welcoming clucks were unenthusiastic and their few eggs were cold, sometimes frozen on especially bitter days.
Pigs and cows set aside animosity toward each other and slept as close together as they could in order to share body heat.
One of my coldest tasks in the dead of winter came when my dad told me to go to the granary and get a couple of 5 gallon pails of shelled corn for some animals. It took me until my teen-age years to realize that he usually gave me those instructions from his heated shop where he was working on something “pretty important.”
(Photographed near Mora, MN)
Dead of Winter
Nothing in this photo of junked vehicles congregating around an empty granary stirs warm memories in me. On our farm over a half century ago the month of January tested the will of family members and the very lives of our chickens, pigs and cows.
The golden warmth of summer and fall were small objects in the rear view mirror of our memories during winter. My dad kept a couple dozen Leghorn hens over most winters and we were lucky to get enough eggs to have for breakfast a couple of mornings each week. When I entered the ammonia atmosphere of the hen house their welcoming clucks were unenthusiastic and their few eggs were cold, sometimes frozen on especially bitter days.
Pigs and cows set aside animosity toward each other and slept as close together as they could in order to share body heat.
One of my coldest tasks in the dead of winter came when my dad told me to go to the granary and get a couple of 5 gallon pails of shelled corn for some animals. It took me until my teen-age years to realize that he usually gave me those instructions from his heated shop where he was working on something “pretty important.”
(Photographed near Mora, MN)