Happy Harvest Blog
Snow In May!!?
Quite a surprise to wake up to several inches of snow in the morning.
Gorgeous, just unexpected for Mother’s Day.
The pigs were non-plussed. Maybe they’ve seen snow before, but it doesn’t seem like it.
The squirrels were very funny, bounding around in the snow, tunneling and popping up through it like gophers. Competition is heightened since I blocked squirrel access to the bird feeders, and…
The return of winter
Winter was back for a few days. The wild birds descended in clouds for something to eat, including a few new birds. There was a purple finch. This is sad because it's the first purple finch sighting of the year, when normally there would be many of them all winter. Here's a sad robin. I don't eat seeds. Now that the rain has come and washed away the snow, she's eating well, if she survived her three day fast. There was a red-breasted nuthatch, tiny and adorable in a little badger mask.
magical christmassy snow
There was an unexpected veil of snow settled on everything yesterday (I wasn’t expecting it). It was warm, too, and that kind of snow that falls in huge, feathery flakes gets heavy. Awful to drive in. It’s very hard on my bird protection. Surprise, no birds are outside! I have to untether the netting when it snows like this and drop it down inside the fence. I’ve learned to tie quick release knots, so it’s not much slower than walking around the garden. Then I hoist it back up when it melts.
forecast: slush
Yesterday we had a beautiful snow. The kind where the flakes pile up in delicate balance like they're weightless. Right this minute, it's snowing and raining at the same time. Ugly! It's "supposed" to just rain, and wash away all this snow, but instead, it's precipitating slush. Inside, it's tropical, the little birds are growing up, four Silkie hens are insisting that they are broody, and I'm insisting that they're not allowed to be. Everyone needs some entertainment, so I have to get in there and build and shuffle stuff.
I won't forget to close the doors again
Forecast: Snow changing to ice pellets then developing to rain later in the afternoon. In other words, gross. This morning at dawn already there were a couple of inches of snow accumulated, and it was eerily dark in the greenhouse, but also very warm, with the blanket of snow. To my horror, only one guinea was walking around. What the? I started closing up the drafty holes in the wall for the chickens to access their yard. I could see by the snow that there were no footprints using them.
Real snow, and one lucky keet
Real snow, and one lucky keet:After a long patient wait, finally all the birds were back enclosed. Until an hour later, just before dark, when I went in the yard to close the greenhouse door, disturbed them, and three guineas escaped again! And the keet. Good grief.This time I propped the fence open, waited until I saw the keet make its run out of the brush pile to reunite with the others, and they were all milling around by the open gate. I left them to it, confident they were fine.After dark I closed all the coops, and all the guineas were back in the greenhouse. No keet. You're kidding me. I rarely do see the keet at night, it tucks itself away somewhere, so I told myself it may be in there but it's hiding. Worst case scenario it didn't find its way back in, it's in the brush pile, but it will most likely be able to survive the night, since it's got a full suit of feathers now.
Chicken Vay Cay Day!
On warm days, I let the chickens out to play. Whoohoo!They resent their incarceration in the greenhouse in the winter. They glare balefully. We are bored out of our tiny skulls! They do not buy that it's for their own good. We've got survival skills, yo!
Time to feed the birds!
This means, what's in the recycling right now I can make a feeder from?It's always fun to see how long it takes for the birds to find it. Under an hour for a full banditry of chickadees to show up.
Look who I found crossing the path today
I'm sad for all the animals; this weirdly long winter must be so hard on them. The robins are in a high-profile crisis, and I've noticed the dwindling numbers and variety at my feeder, leaving the dauntless corps of constant chickadees and woodpeckers.
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