Winter Storm Olive

 In our last episode, Brownie and Goldie were hogging the dust bath. I finally saw a Dominque in the dust bath today, which is good because they have the worst mite infestations on their feet. Terry added another bucket of sand this morning, which I dutifully dusted with diatomaceous earth. I hope the girls are at least feeling less itchy.

Dominique in the dust bath

The excitement for the week was winter storm Olive. She was highly efficient at finding every weak branch or trunk, but she did a messy job pruning. The storm started Wednesday and carried on through the night. Our power flickered a few times Wednesday afternoon and went out for real at 8:15 Thursday morning. It stayed out until 9:45 a.m. Friday. The temperature in the house got down to 51°F. I went down to Jane’s for the night, but Terry would not abandon ship.

The sun came out Saturday morning, but it stayed cold. The only ice that came off the trees blew away with the wind. Not much melting went on, even with the sun out. The deck was lined with icicles as was Mr. Long Arm®, the telescoping brush we use for getting snow off the satellite dishes and solar panels.

Icicles on the deck and Mr. Long Arm

The birches leaned WAY over, “Like McDonald’s Golden Arches,” Terry said.

North birches

South birches, Before (compare to After, below)

Every spruce needle on the east side of the trees were encased with ice.

Spruce needles

With this kind of weight on needles, it is small wonder that several of our white pines lost their tops.

Pines with their tops snapped off

The magnolia buds were also covered.

Magnolia bud and twig

Among the five oaks, only Oak 2 lost a major branch.

Oak 2 lost a big branch

The ice broke a post on the orchard fence..

Broken fence post by the orchard

And seriously weighed down the chicken fence. It was warm enough by Sunday that I was able to stick the poles in the ground at a more upright angle.

Chicken fence

Along the back of the property, every branch on the understory glistened in the sun.

Shrubs covered in ice

This twig was interesting. I guess it had enough sun to melt the top of the ice that surrounded it so that a tube of ice fell off and hung on by the very tip of the branch.

The ice that once covered a twig hangs on by the tip.

There’s not much back there but crappy box elder trees. Many of them lost branches.

An example of the damage

One of them fell down completely.

Stump of a newly fallen tree, center left

The fire ring needs a lot of clean up.

Trees down by the fire ring

Another angle on the fire ring

Yet, it was pretty in the sunshine, and I was glad to see blue sky.

Sparkles in the sun

By the end of Saturday, the birches that were in direct sunlight were standing straight up again.

South birches, After

Amid all the cold and ice, there was a sign of spring—a redwing blackbird at the feeder.

Redwing blackbird on the feeder

The boys were fascinated.

Birdwatching

Tomorrow is supposed to bring torrential rains and more high winds. What next?

Scaly leg mites (reprise)

 

It is hard to remember that I drove home in a full-out blizzard last Thursday. The snow is almost all gone, and we’re having a spring-like day. This is predicted to last until Wednesday, at which time we may have a horrible ice storm. Give me snow any day. Ice is the worst.

I was proud of myself yesterday when I made crumpets with extra sourdough starter and did not burn the ass off of them. Both sides of all four crumpets were a lovely golden brown. I may master this new electric stove yet! I celebrated by opening a jar of free-range black raspberry jam.

Sourdough crumpets

The boys have found a new place to play. Bingo continues to love his secluded places, in this case under a rocking chair, and Banjo continue to pester him. Here we see Banjo biting Bingo in the throat. To date, there has been no blood drawn.

Banjo at Bingo's throat

Seconds later, all seems to be forgiven, and they are back to playing.

No harm done

Scaly leg mites continue to shorten my life. I have exchanged several emails with my vet friend, Dr. Chris. Unfortunately, there are few vets that treat chickens around here. Weird, because lots of people have chickens. Anyway, we are now spraying their legs with permethrin, a more or less natural insecticide from chrysanthemums. I also learned that mites are worse when the chickens have wet, muddy feet, which describes their run to a T at the moment. If only winter were winter! The run would be frozen, and we would all be better off. If the run were drier, they could dust bathe. Today, I ventured out to two farm supply stores and Walmart, parting with $55 overall, to buy assorted leg mite remedies. One of these was diatomaceous earth. I mixed it into some sand in a tub and put it in the run for dust bathing purposes.

At first the hens stood all around the tub and pecked out the larger pieces of sand. Thinking that they needed gravel for their crop, I tossed in some oyster shell grit, which they pursued with gusto. Not too much later, I saw one or two standing in the tub, pecking and scratching. Soon, Goldie was having a vigorous dust bath. She looked almost drunk with pleasure.

Goldie in dust-bath ecstacy

Brownie came by and gave Goldie a few good pecks. One of the Dominiques stood by, eating gravel. She should have been dust bathing, as she has some of the nastiest feet.

Brownie plans her attack while a Dominique eats gravel

Brownie hopped in and started pecking and burrowing under Goldie’s butt.

Brownie tries to kick Goldie out from behind

She chased Goldie around in a circle, but Goldie would not yield the bath.

Goldie moves around the edge...

But will not yield

I expect that I will have to fill the tub again tomorrow. Dust bathing is a messy activity. After dark tonight I need to clean and treat some open sores on the Dominiques’ feet. Poor things.

Valentine's Day

 Happy Valentine’s Day! With a little imagination, deer prints in the melting snow look like hearts.

Deer Valentine...

We had rain last week, which turned our lovely white snow to slush. It’s all gone now except in the shadows of the trees. On Tuesday, rain water and snow melt flowed on top of the ice in the creek.

Rain and snow melt on top of the ice

The view upstream shows holes wearing through the ice on the far side.

Yesterday, the creek was clear of ice, and the water level had gone down again. We avoided a flood, for now.

Bingo and Banjo keep trying out new favorite places. For Bingo, it is Terry’s Birkenstocks, which he leaves by the front door when he changes into his outside shoes. Mmm. Foot smell!

Bingo can't get enough of Terry's foot smells

Banjo has taken to sitting in my chair again, even though there are TWO perfectly fine cat trees by the study window. We are in a territorial struggle, Banjo and I.

Hey! That's MY chair!

Another place he likes to lie is on the stairs, which reminds me of a poem by A. A. Milne (from When We Were Very Young, 1924). 

Halfway Down

The first verse goes like this:

Halfway down the stairs

Is a stair

Where I sit

There isn’t any

Other stair

Quite like

It.

I’m not at the bottom,

I’m not at the top;

So this is the stair

Where

I always

Stop.

Tracks in the snow

 If you aren’t from around here, you may not know that the 1993 film, Groundhog Day, was filmed in Woodstock, IL. Woodstock has a big multi-day festival around February 2 every year, and this year was especially big because it was the 30^th anniversary. In all that time, I had never seen the movie. Terry saw it on TV a long time ago and remembered it as being lame. We all know the plot—a weatherman lives Groundhog Day over and over and over. Still, it’s a local legend, and there were four showings at the movie theater just off the square that figures prominently in the film. Admission was $2. Why not?

We went to the first show, Wednesday, February 1 at 7:00 p.m. I thought perhaps there would be fewer children as it was a school night. Perhaps there would just be fewer people. I was glad I could get tickets online in advance, as I had no idea how early we would have to get there to get tickets in person.

The theater was packed, quite possibly sold out. Woodstock Willie posed for pictures before the show. He came with two handlers who passed cell phones back and forth so we didn’t have to take selfies.

Hanging out with Woodstock Willie

The movie exceeded my expectations. Terry admitted that he didn’t remember how funny it was. Murray went through all the stages of emotional change, beginning with denial and anger, but eventually accepted his situation and took advantage of the opportunity to do everything over, always tweaking his actions toward becoming a more tolerant and less cynical person. I liked it.

 It’s been an awfully cold week. Temperatures were below zero several mornings. We have a heater in the coop to keep the eggs from freezing, but it only works for the eggs in the nest boxes. Those ninny Wyandotts like to lay eggs on the floor. The other chickens are instinctively drawn to lay eggs where there are already eggs. We check several times during the day but can’t do much about eggs that are laid when the light comes on at 2:00 a.m. One morning there were three eggs on the floor, frozen solid with a crack all the way down the side. I had to throw them out, which pained me.

I skipped my regular walking and got outdoor exercise brushing off the solar panels with a 30-foot telescoping broom.  The upside of the weather was that the sky was finally clear. It was delightful to see the sun again. I wanted to make as many kWhs as possible. I had to work on it 3 days all together before we were at 100%. I stopped each session before I hurt myself. Good for me.

I went for a walk Saturday. The weather was warmer, and the chickens finally got out to enjoy the sunshine.

Hens enjoying the nice day

The cats like the sun also and sat by the window watching the cars go by.

Watching the world go by

It was slow going for me slogging through 8” (the final official amount) of snow. It was light, fluffy stuff. I thought about using my snowshoes, but it would not have been any less work. It looked like the deer had a dance party in the north field.

Numerous deer trails in the snow

The deer drag their hooves as they walk through deep snow. I don’t judge; I do the same thing.

Deer tracks with hooves dragging

I only saw two places where they had dug down to the grass. I thought there would be more.

Deer scrape away snow with their feet to look for food

I came upon a murder scene. Note how the trail on the left ends at the hole in the snow. To the right, there are prints of feathers in the snow. The victim’s tracks are too drifted in for identification. Whatever it was, it walked in a straight line.

Unsuspecting animal walks in from the left; large predatory birds slides in for the kill from the right.

Here is a close-up of the feather prints. The bird moved its tail three times while subduing the prey.

Wing prints to the right; several tail prints by the kill, bottom left

I can’t make sense of these indentations either. Talons, presumably, maybe on either side of the prey? Or some of the holes could be the prey kicking, I guess.

The grab. No idea what's what here.

Farther along, I came upon some vole tracks that began and ended abruptly.

Two short vole tracks

These voles were not someone’s lunch, however. There were tunnels on either end of the tracks. They are, as we learned two weeks ago, subnivean.

Enlarged photo of right side of bottom track in above picture showing the tunnel

It has been so cold that the creek has frozen completely over.

Completely frozen creek

There were track along the banks, but they were partly melted. Probably they are raccoon prints, although they might be possum. Raccoons are more likely to be by the creek, but less likely to be out during very cold weather.

Raccoon prints, maybe

I was surprised at the number of seeds blowing around on top of the snow and accumulating in deer tracks. I thought they would have all been shed months ago. It is no wonder I have to pull tiny river birch plants out of the garden all summer long.

River birch seeds in a deer print

One other seed is also common in the deer tracks. It is shaped like a tiny bird. It looks familiar to me, but I can’t remember what it is.

Mystery seeds

I have enjoyed the snow and sun. We have perhaps two more days before cloudy skies and rain return, making a big slushy mess of everything. Terry is already worried about flooding, although for my money, I’d rather have it now than when the gardens are in. Nothing to do about it, in any case.