Building Unity Farm - Managing Snow

We had a foot of snow last week and got our first experience with managing significant snow and ice on the farm.Our previous home had a 30 foot driveway, which I shoveled by hand during and after each snow fall.The farm has a quarter mile entry and 15 acres that need paths to support feeding/watering/animal management.We maintain 4 cords of oak/maple/cedar stacked neatly in wood racks we designed (next week's Thursday post will be about managing wood) and we need paths between our wood processing area and the forest.Finally there are about a mile of walking paths that we use for exercising the Great Pyrenees and for managing the property.What did we do during our first major snowfall?We hired a farm hand with a plow from the farm next door to clear our lane and driveway.  We mapped out the best location for snow piles so that predators would not use them to jump our fences into the llama/alpaca paddocks.We hand shoveled paths through/around all the paddocks, wood processing area, chicken coop, forest border, and trailheads.We cleared the areas around the hay feeders and created a broad area for the chickens/guinea fowl to gather.   We placed several logs upright in the snow for the birds to perch on during the day, keeping their feet out of the snow and ice.We found that the alpaca/llama created their own paths from the barn to the feeders and their favorite places to congregate.The dogs loved the snow - they rolled in it, jumped in it, ate it, and had no problem na...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - Category: Technology Consultants Source Type: blogs