Driveway and Drifts

So I've been meaning to share some pictures from our last snowfall. We generally don't get a couple feet of snow at once, nor do we get much wind, so drifts are not an issue. We have had probably three feet or more of snow over the course of the winter- before this last snow fall, and I hadn't done any shoveling on farm paths yet, just the stairs, to the driveway and the porch. This is because we get a few inches here and there, and just pack the trails down daily as we do chores.

Dustin spent a couple days outside working on the driveway clearing all the snow with the snow-blower, and then we got the wind that blew all the snow back over the driveway, making it impassable for a few days. The drifts in some spots were chest high.

The other problem we had was that our three year old hoop-house is on it's last leg and it can't support more than a few inches of snow. So I was getting out constantly to shovel the snow before it collapsed all over our hay, grain and tools. In past years I had a horse on the property and she ate sooo much hay. We would fill the hoophouse from one end to the other and then some and she would slowly eat her way thru the pile and we would work on both edges so that the center of the hoophouse always had hay under it come spring. Well our seven goats do not eat as much hay as she did, and we've got the hay divided, with some up top by our does, so the hoophouse does not have as much support this winter. This is it's last year. This summer we are going to rebuild it with rebar.


Oops! This was our garden hoop-house. I was worried that it was going to collapse but we were so busy with the driveway and the hay hoop-house that this was neglected. We should have taken the plastic off in the fall but we were using it as a place to milk the goats until December and by then the snow had already built up along the sides. Now we will have to build it all over before planting this spring. On a positive note, now Dustin can improve upon the design and frame out the ends so we have a real door.