Snow's no joke

The cold weather here has been a catastrophe.

 

A young farmer who started on his own only last year, and so is up to his ocksters in debt, has found his entire herd of 40 cows lying dead on the hillside. He is now on suicide watch.

 

Another farmer can’t account for any of his sheep. They are almost certainly dead and buried in the huge snow drifts.

 

A lady smallholder can’t find her 28 sheep. They too are bound to be goners.

 

And it will be some time before we know the full extent of the stock losses. On a more uplifting note the response of the community has been amazing. Hundreds of people have turned out to help dig out sheep from deep snowdrifts and to carry feed to places inaccessible by vehicles. This is pretty dangerous work, up there in the hills, because of the risk of getting lost or of falling down hidden gullies and ditches.

 

The Manx just shrug and say ‘ It ‘appens!’ Tough old birds.

 

This gives you a flavour of the IOM at this time.

This is the glen just above our house. It looks more like Norway. And this is part of the TT course.

We have been fortunate. We only had about 2 inches, and we have been able to move around normally. A mile down the road the snow is up to 4 feet deep. Many houses in the neighbouring village have been without heat and light since last week. Fortunately there has been no more snow, but we are still getting below-zero temperature forecasts for the next 10 days.

This is the scene across to our little town of Ramsey, a mile away.