Whooo hooo!! I woke up to 40 degree, rainy weather this morning. Never have I been so happy to hear it raining!! The piles of snow are shrinking nicely, and while there isn't any green grass yet to be seen, it can't be far behind. Above is our oft-pictured deck off the office. You can see my pitiful yardstick listing to the west. It used to measure 21" of snow (see previous blogs) but its job is about over now.
How nice to see wet, non-icy pavement! The chicken coop wall is just on the left and you can see that my worries about flooding are so far unfounded. The water appears to be sinking into the earth rather than flowing over the concrete and into the coop. Yeah!
The "dome o' death" has fallen into the run, making a drift that is higher than the chicken's little door. Luckily, all chickens are accounted for, so there is no worries about there being a flat hen under all that snow. The girls have continue their good laying streak at 5 or more eggs per day, but I'm afraid they might go on strike as I took their heat lamp away from them today. They surely don't need it when it's above freezing. I'm sure I'll get those chicken cranky looks and grumbles about it though!
The big snows and cold weather have caused my hay supply to be seriously depleted. I think I'll be OK, though, maybe only cutting it close in March when the grass starts really growing.
Sandy loves the fact that there is hay missing off the stack, especially since it's pretty much a big stair step to the top of the pile. She was racing up and down to the ceiling, then rolling on the bales and rooting in the cracks, then back to racing up and down again. It's hard to believe that this girl is over 13 years old! She's a happy, active dog.
This is my favorite picture today!! I know most of you won't appreciate it, but with Frank unable to help with the chores this week (thank you so much for all you do, honey!) I am thrilled to get the hose back in action today (Frank was bucketing water to everybody) and the poop-wagon is in place. Frank had been carting the wheelbarrows through thick snow down into our dump spot in the lower pasture, and there is no way I would have been able to do that. So our neighbor kindly is letting us use his utility trailer on which to collect the cleanings and then he'll take it back to enrich his garden. We are blessed with wonderful neighbors. With all of us being pretty much stuck in place, we had some great time carrying by foot our cookie plates to the neighbors. We were invited to one home on Christmas Eve (where we had PRIME RIB!! Sandy is still enjoying the bones!) and another on Christmas day for turkey dinner. We so enjoyed the time spent with these great families. Even though the weather was trying, it brought some wonderful blessings as well.
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