The cold we experienced a few weeks ago was intense – to say the least. At the time, we hadn’t dried the cows off and the only way to keep my fingers from freezing was to warm them every so often on an udder during the milking. You could see the steam rising from the muck and the yard was like one of those “dancing on ice” places, though I learned I’m not suited to pirouetting in my wellies. The cows did a bit better, but that’s only because they have two extra legs. Luckily, we escaped things like frozen pipes during the cold spell. I did make one mistake, though – I forgot to turn down the cooler in the bulk tank. As we were nearing the end of milking, I came out one morning to a friendly note from the milk man: “Your milk is frozen; we don’t take ice pops.”