In the bleak midwinter ...

And by the way, it's just barely winter!

While the neighbors are on vacation, we are doing their chores for them. Yesterday being Sunday, DH fed the cattle and poultry before church. He thought he left everything done up "ship-shape in Bristol fashion" all but gathering eggs. Neighbor and the kids have a big flock of poultry for 4-H including ducks, guinea hens and chickens -- all sorts.

In other years with nice weather the kids and I have walked down the road there to chore for them.

This year, though, a winter storm went through. Only a few inches of snow and a quarter inch of ice but a stinging cold wind howled all day. County highway ran as few snowplows as possible. Thus we almost didn't make it home from church and dinner in town with the out-laws due to all the drifts.

At home we added layers, took some hot water just in case we needed it and headed down there. I found the water frozen in the shed for the ducks and guineas. Somewhere along the way I misplaced my gloves. On the way over to the chicken house the wind caught my "magic scarf" and blew it all around my head. I could still see but not very well and blundered into crusted drifts that were more than knee deep when I broke through. When I made it to the chicken house, I found they'd been fed and assumed DH and DS1 had finished gathering eggs. But when I checked the water, found no one had been over there yet.

Well, what was going on? I hated to leave the warm chicken house but ...

When I made it to the cow barn the wind was behind me and I could not pull the walk-in door closed for a minute or two until that gust passed. I went in the cow barn and found ... well, things were no longer ship-shape. DH and DS1 had cornered a drooling panicky steer who had gotten a gate over his head and was running around with it. It was a walk-in gate . He looked like he had a four-foot metal ladder over his head. He was panting and drooling as though he'd been stuck like that for quite awhile, clanking around and banging into things. DH and DS1 had moved the other cattle out of his pen and replaced that gate and finally had him cornered.

I thought of a cutting torch but in a straw-filled wooden barn ... bad idea. When one of the kids got their arm wedged in teh carved back of the dining room chairs and panicked, we got the kid out by soaping their arm. What about soap? My next idea was that, like a horse collar, we'd have to turn it while trying to get it over the widest part of his head, right across his ears. If the animal would hold still for that. If he got his head in the gate, surely we could get it out. DH thought if he broke the welds we could pop the steer loose. We decided to try that, first. DH got a sledge hammer and took a couple of whacks. One bar bent slightly. While pulling on it to hold the steer still, he got one ear through. The gate hung up behind the steer's poll, the bony knob on top of his head. DH grabbed the gate and twisted again and the steer finally pulled back hard enough to get loose.

As far as I know he's OK this morning.

Well, what did we learn here? Sometimes the best solution is very direct -- a few whacks with a hammer and pull -- but it's a lot of hard work. Are we sometimes scared to be that direct, thinking there must be an easier way?

Also, we need to be thankful that the steer survived and no one got stepped on, maimed or even broke their glasses with that combination of large panicky animal and metal gate caving around.

Back at teh house I did my own chicken chores. My feet were numb with white blotches when I got in, so had to soak them in warm water. Boy, did they hurt when they warmed up!

This would all seem a lot more do-able at 25 or 30 degrees.