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Eldon had a pretty good spot out there for the cows.

yeah, natural protection from north winds and decent from the west...hel i musta been about 3 or 4 when he gave them up and Hanks started pasturing on his place....

Great photo Sam!

Yeah, frozen twine isn't something I miss. We switched to netwrap a few years ago and it got a decent bit easier.

I read an article a little while back about a rancher in northeast MT who tries to graze his cows all year long. Doesn't seem like itd be possible, judging by the pics you post.

most years we dont get much snow is what makes it possible....our average is 36 inches of dry snow, usually in a bunch of small drops with wind keeping most places less than 6 inches deep.....it is possible to do.....

edit: average is less than 36 inches....our record used to be 36....phug up on my part.....we must average about 18....

Sal, coming to a freezer near you......grin

Ben, some guys run 'em out in the hills year round and get by with grazing. Mostly south of the Missouri and west of here.

Much lower operating costs but you can really get in trouble during a bad winter if there isn't a big enough 'haystack'.

My thought was if you ended up having to feed them and buy hay. You'd spend quite a bit of money pretty quick.

Finding decent hay at a decent price could indeed be a major problem.

back when I was a "lumberjack" the owner of the outfit would park the skidder where he could get his pickup close in the morning.
he had some quick connect adapters on the heater hose of the pickup, and on the skidder.
Plug the two machine together, and circulate the hot coolant between them for a few minutes, and a cold skidder would start right up, even in the sub -20 temps.
it was so cold, we had to start a fire , and boil water, then place the bar oil jugs in it, to heat the oil so it would come out.

I feel sorry for the guys working out on oil rigs.

The coldest I have ever seen is -26 F at 3800 ft ASL in the NC mountains back in he mid 1980's.

After living in interior Alaska for 12 winters Ive seen sub -60 weather on many occasions. As a fireman, the coldest I have ever worked a structure fire was -52, that sucked big time, we limped our fire truck home with many things no longer working!

Lived my entire life in NE Nebraska . . . until 2002 when we moved to NW Arkansas. Endured a lot of cold winters in those 50+ years. BUT the coldest I remember was the winter of 2000-2001 as the coldest. We had snow on the ground continuously from the first weekend in Oct until the last week of April. In the Dec to Jan time frame, we went a full 30 days below zero, with some nights getting near -30. The snow I could deal with, the cold I could deal with, I couldn't deal with the incessant, brutal and continuous wind . . . that is why we live here now.

I have a cat that lost half of one ear, the tip on the other and about an inch of it's tail when it was a kitten. That was about 8 years ago and it hasn't wanted to leave the house since. In winter it won't even get close to the door. Who says animals are dumb.

my dog lifts his paw/s as they get cold.. 1 leg then 2 legs ...we go in before the next leg is to go !

I've seen/felt actual temps a bit below -50 when I lived in eastern Montana around 94.

While in college in Bozeman, we had a stretch of 4 or 5 days where the low was in the mid -40s and it might warm up to minus 30 or so during the day. Left my pickup running 24 hours a day during most of that stretch. Had to do shores and check sheep multiple times a day to keep from losing any.

Went out one morning and hopped in the truck which had been running. As I got to the stop sign to turn onto the highway between Bozeman and 4 Corners, I tried to brake. No luck. The pedal wouldn't budge. Was frozen. That was an Oh Sh/t moment. Drove into the berm of snow along the gravel road to slow down while furiously pushing on the brake. Finally got stopped before blowing the stop sign and running into the cross-traffic.

Lived in a crappy old farm house that was cold. Our main heat was a wood stove and all we could get to burn was cottonwood. Try splitting frozen cottonwood and minus 40. Sucked big time. Living in that house provided some serious stories based on the cold and poor condition of the house.

Numbers don't really tell the tale. It's the effects,

like when you forget to put winter-weight diesel in the generator and it gels in the tank. Forget about setting a propane heater next to it: the propane won't flow. It takes a white gas catalytic heater.

like whacking a knot in spruce with your axe and the metal is so cold a nickel-sized chunk comes out of the blade.

Like stopmping a number 2 long spring trap open and the movement kills the temper in the spring so that you can depress the spring with just your forefinger and thumb.

like having an old Ford truck with the gas tank behind the seat and being the only guy with a truck that'd start becaue you could put a catalytic heater in the cab to get the gas to flow.

like not being able to see across the street because the moisture from vehicles freezes in the air to cause ice fog on a clear day.

The deaths from hypothermia mostly occur in above freezing temps.

If I remember correctly we hit a low of -40 wind chill in the Boone, N.C. area in the winter of 1994. We had very high winds and low temps. I lived in western Michigan for three years and never experienced anything as brutally cold.

I can relate to that , but what about the rest of the day after 10 a.m.?

Work-wise I mean. No question on the beer....

11* is the coldest I can remember, but that was no problem. When it hoovers around 30* for a week, or so, and rains, it gets bad.