Those were the famous last words of a Hoosier Girl to her DH on the phone this morning. Her DH is on the road to Hollywood, Florida-where it's nice and sunny and warm.
Meanwhile, here in Indiana, I am still digging out from the 20 inches + or - that God blessed us with last week. That snow was the first we've ever had that drifted around our automatic chicken coop door, preventing it from closing properly. So we worked to get it closed and then disabled the door until the snow melts off. (If you're interested in the automatic door installation, just click on the "Chicken Coop" label on the left side of this page.I love that little door!!!) Anyway, the chickens and guineas have been cooped up since that big snowfall and my plan was to let them out for a break today. I had good intentions-honest!
But after I voiced my plan to my DH and had a cup of wake-up, I checked the temperature. Thirteen degrees. Yikes. Not only would the chickens have no interest in wandering in that cold but I would have to leave the big "people door" open for them to come in to warm up and lay. That would make the coop too cold.
So, I slipped in the door to feed and water without letting any birds out-just like we've been doing all week. Only this time I found the waterer had frozen over. Our heated base had been doing a lousy job for a while but this was the first time the water had completely frozen. So I had to take the waterer to the faucet across the yard to run water over it and try to thaw it out. And as I was taking it out the coop door, I had an escapee. One little hen decided to make a run for it. Oh brother! Why can't they just stay put when you tell them to?
So, off I was, in the knee-deep snow chasing a chicken who really was bewildered at all the white stuff she was sinking in. It was really comical to see her reaction to it. First she took off for the hay shed to plant herself in all the straw that had built up around the door. Ahhh. But as soon as she saw me coming, she took off again. This time she landed on a downed pine tree branch.
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| Downed pine branch |
Let me tell you it wasn't an easy task convincing her that her new perch wasn't the place to be. Next she headed for the rabbit cages. She ran right under them into the frozen straw and frozen poo and frozen- anyway you get my drift. That was a fun few minutes of running back and forth from one end to the other (lining the front of that shelf of cages is a big patch of ice where we've packed down the snow while tending the rabbits.) I was slipping and sliding. And I gave that hen a few new not-so-nice names. Finally, on the last pass from cage to cage, she rounded the corner and I was able to herd her back into the coop and slam the door. Shew!!
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| Dashing through the snow |
