Yes, the snow is gone, but I just had to show you the pic of Molly playing out in the snow a couple of weeks ago. She loved it! She kept running back and forth on her leash and running circles in the freshly fallen snow.
There's just one problem. She has hair, not fur and when she is out in the snow, it tends to stick to her belly and legs and any other area that touches the snow. When she comes inside there are little snowballs meshed into the hair on her belly and legs. Sometimes the only way we can get rid of them is to rinse her in a warm bath! Or use a hairdryer to try and melt them. Um, yea....
that's loads of fun!
This particular day we tried using a large towel to dry her off and that worked fairly well as she wasn't covered in large snowballs this one time. She is so patient and simply stands there and let's us do anything we need to do to get her dried off once again. I guess she knows we're trying to help her stop shivering.
Because there isn't any fresh grass during the winter, I try to get some greens out to our chickens everyday. You know, things like leftover lettuce, wilted veggies, the ends of carrots and celery that you cut off when making a salad. It's amazing how much we normally throw away when preparing meals that can go to the chickens. They even like eggs shells!
The rooster on the left of this pic is Joel's prized rooster, King George. I know, I know, but Joel is the one that takes care of the chickens and he has named a few of them. His other prized rooster, Prince Edward, was taken by a fox several months ago. That made Joel really sad as these two roosters are part of our original flock of chickens and he has gotten pretty attached to them.
Well, when we got home at dusk this past Saturday night after a day in town, Joel went down to make sure the chickens were all in their coop and as he was preparing to close their door he made a horrible discovery. King George was stuck in the poultry net that surrounds their pasture. And the net is electrified. And the poor rooster was convulsing with each pulse of electricity. I won't go into any more detail, but suffice it to say that Joel was horrified. He quickly turned off the fence and rushed to release the animal.
That is when he discovered that there must have been a terrific cock fight between the 2 young roosters and King George. And King George lost. Joel had to get his gun and put King George out of his misery. And the following day the two remaining roosters were fighting again, so, now one of them has also gone to chicken heaven. Lesson learned, there can only be one "top dog" in the chicken coop.
Yes, sometimes the lessons we are learning are hard ones, but we won't soon forget how things work in the animal hierarchy on the farm.
Live and learn,
Debbie
