Several days ago when we walked down to the chickens I noticed new bird tracks in the snow. Sometimes it's the simplest things that look the prettiest to me.....like these tiny angular footprints that make a slight impression in the snow, shadowed by the struggling sun.
I'm not sure what kind of birds made these tracks, but there are definitely 2 different sized birds walking around here, wouldn't you say? Some of the tracks are much further apart than the others. Bah-ha-ha-ha....and that's the sum of my tracking knowledge. Wasn't that enlightening?
We have a neighbor, June, who lives alone down in the hollar behind our chickens. For some reason she occasionally has her son's 2 beagles hanging around at her house.....and they roam free. The first couple of times they came up to our farm Joel wasn't too happy about it. Dogs tend to chase chickens....and then chickens run until they die....or something like that according to Joel. (Hey, what do I know?) So you can imagine why we weren't too pleased to see them again.
Well, I told them to go home and we tried to chase them back to where they came from. Ha! One of them submissively rolled over onto his back as if to say,"Scratch my belly, pleeeeeease!" After that we both giggled and decided they were probably pretty harmless. So they hung out with us as we tended to the chickens. Eventually they both ran off into the woods, howling and baying as they chased a rabbit thru the thick stand of trees.
Can you see Henny Penny sitting in the middle nest? And check out our morning cache of eggs in the right box. Yup, just another productive day at the hen house. We're still getting anywhere from 8-11 eggs most days. Thank goodness we have friends who love our eggs as much as we do or we would be overrun with the lovely brown orbs.
One of the dangers of the severe weather we've had lately is the possibility of frostbite on the chicken's red combs at the top of their heads. Can you see the darkened area at the tips of this poor sweetie? Chickens are ok outside down to about 19 degrees, but any colder than that and they need to be kept in their coop to protect them from the effects of the cold.
Well, some days when the weather was severe we've kept them inside where they have a heat lamp to boost the temp inside their coop. But on the days we let them out, we didn't account for the wind chill and that may have been what caused this little bit of frostbite. So far the few birds that have blackened tips are doing fine, but we're keeping a close eye on them to make sure they don't show any signs of distress or illness.
Here's the last view of the main garden asleep under a blanket of snow and leaves. Pretty soon it will be time to work the soil again, plant seeds and transplants, and weed the beds.
The chickens love when we toss leftover lettuce and veggies into their yard. They scurry around to make certain they get a choice piece or two before the other girls come out of the coop and gobble up the fresh treats.
Whew! I hope these are the last pics of snow for this winter season. As much as I enjoy walking our land in the snow, I've had enough for this year, thank you! While I sit here typing this post it is 51 degrees and drizzly, so the snow and ice are finally all melted. I even found that the red tulips in our front planter bed are already about 3-4" high. Yippee! Spring must be right around the corner here on the Plateau.
It's a good thing, too, that the ice is finally melted. One day when Joel walked down to the workshop, he had his hand on the door handle and was gingerly walking up the ramp to get inside when, wham! He took a header and landed on the icy incline on his nose. Yea.....that hurt. So he's especially glad we have warmer weather once again.
And this should be the last time this year that you see the studio with snow on its roof. Hopefully the next time I show you the studio it will have a covered front porch on it and maybe even some flower beds surrounding the porch. But that's going to take a while, so don't hold your breath. Ha!
I hope that wherever you are today the weather is pretty and you're gearing up for Spring.
Debbie
