The Beauty Of A Big Snowfall

Winter got off to  relatively slow start here. There was just a dusting of snow the day before the big snowfall when I saw these Cottontail tracks going past my porch. I wondered what a wild bunny could find to eat in winter but then remembered all the apples still visible, and with bites taken out of many of them. After the big snowfall I suppose a rabbit could eat at the hay bale feeder with the cattle:

But then we got a big snowstorm and I went to do morning chores, stomping through a good 18" of snow. The cows were outside, eating hay. I called them in and fed them their grain. They were covered in snow and had icicles hanging off their faces:

I considered the snow on the cows a good sign, indicating that their winter coats had grown in and were insulating them well enough to keep their body heat from melting the snow:

Their appetites were ravenous and I gave them extra grain to help them keep their internal fires stoked:

Cow number two, Scarlett, has been the most fearful and reticent cow - but these cold days make her so hungry she throws caution to the wind:

When the girls were finished with their grain, they trotted back outside to continue eating hay:

I cleaned the manure out of the barn and drove across the field to dump it. On the way back, I noticed the exquisite beauty of Milkweed pods above the snow:

I got off the tractor and hiked over to snap a few photos which, I later thought, looked like Japanese art:

The tall grasses were almost all buried in the deep snow:

It had been snowing for at least 18 hours and the was still coming down. I stopped to enjoy the quiet beauty of it all:

The cows munched hay for awhile and then hunched their backs against the cold wind:

I made one last trip off the tractor, tracking through the deep snow to get to this old fencing. It looked so rustic and picturesque that I wanted a photo. You can see the the cows at their hay bale feeder in the background: