The thaw is near, we think. We can catch whiffs of mud season, the smell of the earth waiting to be released from snow and ice. The past few years the thaw has come quickly. For the farm, which sits on top of shallow soils, rock ledge, and perched water tables, usually the thaw has meant water quickly moving across the pastures, down the hill, and toward the farmyard–often times infiltrating the foundations of the barns and making for a mucky, icy, muddy mess of the lower Harwood and Small Animal barns.
With all of this year’s cold and feet of snow, Tim was starting to get a nervous look on his face in mid-February. You could see him calculating: Lambs were to be due in a month, Peggy Sue has piglets, and depending on the weather the horses may be in their stalls or outside in pasture. If it was a quick thaw, this year could be a particularly muddy mess, and wet, damp stalls are not conducive to keeping animals healthy. Time to plan ahead.
The farm ordered thick hemlock boards to fit to the floor of the horse stalls. The way the historic barn is banked against the hill, heavy runoff moves through the foundation and sometimes collects right where the horses are kept when inside. The boards are elevated, and they will hopefully keep the horses from any unwanted wet hooves.
A raised sleeping platform was built for Peggy Sue and the piglets in the Small Animal Barn. Quick thaws sometimes bring flooding into that space too, but with full range of the pasture and an elevated platform, the pigs should quite literally stay high and dry.
The lambing operation has been set up in the Outside-In (the west room of the Harwood Barn, now aptly dubbed the “Maternity Ward”). It’s a much better space for visitors to walk through and see the lambs, and it doesn’t have the same challenges with water that other rooms in the barn do.
With all the the planning and action in anticipation of a very dicey mud season, so far we’ve been thawing slowly. This year might prove the adage, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
If it wanted to warm up any time now though, I think we are all more than ready.