A Snowy New Year's

The addition of another 3 inches of snow on top of what we got last week made for a quiet, hard-working New Year. We were able to get out on Saturday to do the regular chores... grocery store and feed store runs. We stocked up... the wild birds have been eating poultry feed as well as the feed we have been putting out for them, to the tune of 150 pounds last week! We don't begrudge them in this time of very low temperatures and snow covered ground. Looking out the window any time this weekend brought 200 or more birds at the feeding stations, and your blogger is about to go out yet again to fill the feeders and spread seed for the ground-eating birds. When we open the door to the big henhouse, starlings fly in every direction. Lilly Ann stands up to the door with the torn screen... any starling foolish enough to try to exit that way is easy prey for her, as she can bring them down in flight! We dislike the starlings in the henhouse, as their poop goes everywhere, on the feed cans, the rabbit hutch, the birds, the walls... it's disgusting, but we understand why they are trying to get out of the cold.

We spent a quiet New Year's Eve, and finally got the new blu ray working on Saturday, but were too tired to go rent movies to watch. Maybe next weekend. We are facing a week of sub-zero temperatures and more cold misery. The big gander who can't fit in the house with the other three geese is bedding down with the ducks, and we put as much straw as we could in their fort so that they could try to burrow in it to stay warmer. So far, we have not lost anyone, but we don't know what the week will bring. Full work schedules are a problem when the weather is like this. We dream of a big barn where everything can get out of the temperatures and be warm, with warm water.... maybe next year.