Snowy Red Poll Girls

It's been a rugged winter so far but often the cows won't come into the barn when I call. When that happens, I sometimes just close the grain bin and walk back to the house, but other times I carry bowls of grain out to the girls who wouldn't come inside:

And every two days or so I bring them all a new hay bale. The bales are wrapped in mesh and covered in thick ice, so unwrapping them has become a major chore:

The bale feeder will stay on the east side of the barn until the weather moderates:

I move the feeder for each new bale lest it get stuck in frozen hay and ice. I learned the hard way:

And each time I go out to the barn, I look out the back door to make sure they are all OK:

There is about a 3" layer of frozen, moldy hay around each bale and I do my best to break it off before I return to the barn:

The cows eat more or less continually, stopping only to chew their cuds, a necessary step in their digestion:

And the places where the old hay bale had been become places the girls can lie down and get comfy:

During one storm they all turned their faces to the south. The wind was not coming from the north, so I never was sure why they did it. They are good at taking care of themselves, though, so I'm sure they had a good reason:

I had just dropped a new bale into the feeder, then climbed off the tractor to work on removing the frozen layer on the outside of the bale:

When I climbed back up on the tractor, sweet Gracie looked up as if to ask if maybe there was perhaps someplace warmer she could go for the winter:

Alas, we live in the north country and it gets cold in February: