Jack Frost Nipping

The week began with a foggy Monday morning. The temperature was well below zero, which always puzzles me. Why doesn’t the humidity all freeze out of the air? Puzzlement aside, I love cold, foggy mornings because the whole world is turned into a crystal fairyland.

Frosted river birch

The bright blue sky made the frost on the old oaks particularly beautiful.

Oak branches against the blue sky

Each berry of the Michigan holly was bedecked with white sparkles.

Michigan holly berries

The frost burned off soon after the sun hit it. It is an ephemeral pleasure. Much of the rest of the week was awfully windy. Terry put up the bodies of the reindeer in the lawn, but he can’t put on the antlers because they just blow off. Thus, we have mostly bald-headed reindeer, which look a bit weird.

Bald reindeer

We got our Christmas tree put up. It took three days to find the time to decorate it.

Decorated at last

For the first time in seven years, we sorted the ornaments into sturdy, damage-resistant “cat ornaments” and the more fragile ones. The cat ornaments are providing endless entertainment to the boys.

Fun with ornaments

The Dominique hens are still slackers. Haven’t laid one egg among the three of them for over a week. What’s the deal with them? I know this because the only brown eggs are pullet eggs, which much be coming from the Wyandott pullets. If one or more of the Ameraucana are slacking, I’d never know because we are getting big blue eggs and little blue eggs. As a matter of fact, we got one enormous blue egg this week.

Extra large egg

When Terry saw the egg, he asked, “Are you raising emu?” Ha ha. All I can say is, “OUCH!”