Let the thawing begin

January 16, 2011January 17, 2011Leave a comment

Today the sun came out and melted quite a bit of the snow. This made everyone happy. Especially me! Even the chickens were no longer afraid to walk in it.

The bees came out for recon and some house keeping duties. Considering the temperatures we’ve been experiencing I thought their losses were minimal.

The geese, now able to come back to their own stomping grounds, found buried treasure beneath the snow.

I was surprised to see that left over collard greens, abandoned the day it began snowing, looked perfectly delectable. The geese sure didn’t pass them up!

Though not entirely melted the snow was thinning quickly. We needed to lay down straw to keep the mud from sticking to everyone’s feet and thereby keep it out of the house.

It felt good to be outside working!

What did you do this weekend?

Oh look… MORE snow

January 10, 2011January 10, 201114 Comments

It was deep! Seven and a half inches of pure powder!

We even had icicles on the back of the Silkies hutch!

Oh, and the snow-covered thing in the foreground is my new potting bench that Bob and I built at the end of summer. It even has a dry sink on the right side. I am looking forward to better weather in spring so I can put it to good use!

OK, I should be all excited about a snow day and Bob being home and all, but the fact is, it’s nice to look at but you don’t want to be in it for working. Which is precisely where I found myself at 6:45 this morning! Well, at least I wasn’t the only one who was less than impressed with it all…

Claus’s solution to getting though the snow? Jump!

Bertha confers with Little Red Hen, “What do you think? Shall we dive in?”

Little Red Hen, “Oh sure thing Bertha, you go first!”

Meanwhile, I shoveled a small path from the gate to the barn for the geese. Did they use it? NO. They waddled through the chest deep snow anyway!

Well OK, it did make it easier for me to get through and was a bit less cold on my toes.

While I worked, a little squirrel made a bee line for the maple tree and disappeared into the top! Can’t say as I blamed him!

Maybe I shouldn’t complain, after all, it could always be worse!

Photo link: http://www.strangedangers.com/content/item/15279.html

Growing up

January 7, 2011January 7, 20118 Comments

You may recall that earlier in the summer I had a little event on the Farmlet. The hatching of the first chick (that’s her above in the headlines) was quite exciting for me, and over the next few days I watched as two more babies arrived into the world.

Well, as all babies must they continued to grow, and they are now about half the size of their parents!

They tend to hang around together and never really interact with the parent group. I have no explanation for this. I would have thought that as soon as Mama Roo and the Baby Roos were released into the yard that they would all have been one big happy family, wouldn’t you?

By the way, if you have an answer for this strange, standoffish behavior please enlighten me! I’d love to know!

Now I originally got the Silkys to help me with hatching, and wouldn’t you know, I now have three laying hens that have been showing decidedly broody tendencies. Ah well, better five broody hens than none!