Winter in Manitoba

I am a southern girl who is learning to have peace with the cold, snow, and ice. Canada is the coldest place that I've been to, and I usually have icicles on my eyelashes from just going outside. The moisture from my breath freezes on my eyelashes and on the fleece gaiter or ski mask over my face. The cows have white frosty beards from breathing, and when I'm working near them I can hear several coughs in the crowd of fury bodies. They itch their bodies on corral rails, and slurp up the heated water from the troughs. A fuse blew in the barn, and the heaters turned off last night. The texture of the ice on the calve trough fascinated me this morning. I tried to break it with my foot, star shaped ice crystals were woven thickly together like fiberglass and it wouldn't break without the ax. The cow trough was frozen all the way through, they were thristy this morning and had to be held back in a line that reminded me of us kids standing in line for the drinking fountain in school, each small group of cows taking their turn to drink.
My dog looks at her paws, wondering why they hurt after walking on the iced over roads. She digs in the snow with her great nose and I'm afraid she will dig up one of the two dead barn cats that lost their ninth life while warming up on the tractor engine and staying too long that it was started again with them still in it. The old tom cat sits in his barn window just like summer, wise and still alive after many years of barely missing tractor fan belts and fat with summer barn swallow chicks and left over breakfast bacon.
Ice fishing villages popped up on top of lakes out here, and Canadians curl and play hockey to enjoy the weather. Old trucks and cars are buried beneath the snow on the ranch, a sports car is barely visible at all. All the roads have a sheet of ice under the snow, and the ditches on the sides of all the roads have disapeared completey. Someone not from the area would be surprised if they tried pulling over on the side of the road, they would realize too late that their truck fell into a five foot drop off veiled by snow.
The flower pots sit on top a disgarded stove, full of sticks and snow instead of the summer marigolds. Nine hay bales remain stranded in a field, almost forgotten after last fall's first snow, pulled out now with a tow strap and a tractor to feed the cows. The rubber on my snow boots cracked, the liners sit ontop an indoor wood pile next to the stove to dry. The windows have plastic on them to prevent frost from blocking the view and light. The farmhouse is warm and cozy, like summer, with card games and puzzles to pass the time indoors.

My Cowdog

Ayla studies my calf Clover in front of the barn.


I can see the sparkle in her eye, the wag in her tail, my dog is happy. In fact she hasn't stopped wagging her tail since we came back to the ranch after several months of her being sad and depressed. She loves the snow too and likes to eat it and run around in in, and mostly likes to dig in it for treasures like droped sandwiches. Canada is so cold though that she keeps looking at her feet like they hurt after running around outside, something I never saw her do in cold Wyoming. I will make her some socks, and the real cowdogs will probably laugh at that. She is a mix of border collie and German shepard, with a thick fluffy fur coat that keeps the rest of her warm, and actually pretty hot and panting when the temperature is above freezing.

I opened the gate to a pen holding cows for the winter to let the tractor in with a straw bale for the cows to makes their beds in. I held most the cows back, but one escaped and Ayla sprang to action after hours of watching them through the corrals. Instinct had her running behind it, nipping at the surprised cow's heels, she gave a bark and the cow ran back inside. Then me and Ayla moved the cows to the other side of the pen, and she helped me hold them back away from the tractor bringing hay bales for feed by lying down in front of them to keep guard. If a cow tried to walk forward towards the hay, she would bark at it or stand up and chase it back. She did get distracted a bit while she discovered that chewing on frozen cow shit was fun, but overall she did a good job. She is as green to this ranching stuff as me though, and she got to warm her paws in front of a fire while real cowdogs only have a cold doghouse to sleep in outside.