Oh, Christmas Tree

 It is hard to imagine a drearier day. All of Chicagoland is socked in with freezing rain. Freezing rain is the worst. The football players on both teams are baubling the ball around at Soldier Field like it’s a hot potato. I bet they are all thinking of a hot shower right now.

We’ve had a rather eventful week here. I finally, finally used the last of the 20 pounds of carrots I harvested at the end of summer. I pulled the first carrots from the high tunnel Tuesday morning. They are so beautiful! They will last all winter in the soil. They are biennials, after all. Their reproductive cycle is two years long. They store energy in their roots the first year and use it to set seeds in the second year. I have one raised bed of carrots. I am looking forward to finding out how long that will meet my needs. I don’t think I’ll probably get through the whole winter without buying some. I assure you, the carrots from the high tunnel are much better, so crisp and fresh.

How lovely art the high tunnel carrots!

Tuesday afternoon, we cut our Christmas tree. Terry showed me several trees from the first planting up by the house. They are getting crowded and all are lopsided. It’s not a terrible thing. The flat side can go toward the wall. Here’s the one we selected; its flat side is where the lilacs blocked its growth in the back.

Our free range Christmas tree in its natural setting

Terry crawled down in the dead leaves with his chainsaw.

Terry cuts the tree

Soon the deed was done.

And drags it to the house

We put it up in the living room upstairs. There’s more space, and we’ve been going up there to watch TV in the evenings. We will be moving up there for good after we get some renovations done.

The tree in the stand

We put on our usual decorations.

Decorated

And turned on the lights.

Lit up

As I was unpacking the decorations, I saw that the “J” had fallen off one of the wall plaques. Now we’re ready for Hanukah!

Oy to the world!

The last momentous event of the week was the arrival and installation of an automatic coop door. I have been dreaming of one for years. Jane was kind enough to do some research for me, and I finally found the time last weekend to make a spreadsheet of features and decide which one to order. I went with the Omlet Automatic Coop Door—Green. It has three control options—manual, timer, and light sensor—as well as a safety function to prevent it from decapitating any chickens. I could also get an adapter to plug it into an electrical outlet instead of relying on batteries. (Not everyone has electricity in their chicken coop. Batteries seem to be the default for automatic doors.) The thing that sealed the deal was that it had the best ratings for low temperature operation. I had hoped we would get through more than three days without worrying about the channel getting clogged up with ice. When I was out earlier, it seemed like it was staying pretty dry, but I will definitely have to check it tonight.

The new automatic coop door with light sensor (above right)

Once we had it installed, the hens all stood around outside, eyeing it suspiciously. When the sun when down, though, in they went! That was one hurdle. The door closed all by itself when it got dark enough.

It opened up in the morning, just as it should have. When I went out to do the chores, however, all the chickens were still in the coop. The new door is about half the width of the old door, and it seemed like they couldn’t quite figure out how to get through it single file. My presence in the coop was alarming enough that they were motivated to use their limited problem-solving skills. Saturday morning, they went out on their own, but there was a great deal of confusion. Where are the scratch grains we get every morning when the door opens? They dashed around the run in a tight group, not wanting to miss out if someone found the cache. They are so funny! They will just have to learn to wait until I finish my tea. Because I can.

The best part of the coop door is that we can now go out for the day without worrying about getting home by dusk, a particular problem now that the girls go in at 4:15. It’s like a whole new world has opened up for us!