Good Morning! in 2018

[WLLady]

Morning all! have a visitor to my barn-and it's taking care of the sparrow and starling problem!!!! i've seen 2 sparrows in the last 2 days, and the amounts of bird appearing has dropped significantly! (you can see the on the rafters...it's just nasty!) must have had about 100 of the things last week and during the cold snap, they were getting into the waterers and the chicken feeders and basically eating me out of house and home. the bird shot shells for the 22 can't be used in the barn because it's too high power and punches steel....and i didn't want to poison them because of the chickens and turkeys....just a general PITA those tweety birds were being!
well, this is a little american kestrel! and it has single winged (as opposed to single handedly) taken care of the tweety bird problem! it doesn't like my cat....who in all fairness was hunting it yesterday while we were doing chores. so we took the cat to the house with us, and i swear the kestrel was appreciative because it let me snap a couple photos. of course, there's only so much one can do with a cellphone camera.....

[ross]

Nature at its best

[Skinny rooster]

The last three or four weeks here have been below -20 to as much as -34, the only minor breaks we got were when snow storms hit, to the point I was beginning to worry about the barns with roofs already loaded with snow and winter only beginning. You can imagine my shock this morning when I got up and went to my window to see no snow anywhere this morning! The fields are bare, there are only a few banks at the road and some snow still in the bush but other than that it's spring. Unbelievable, that's not good for the plants etc. A few days ago I would never have believed anyone if they said this would happen.

[ross]

Good old January thaw . Same here cept now temp below 0 and snowing again .

[Skinny rooster]

It's baaack! Temperature dropped and it's snowing like crazy. This morning the barn was -1 and outside was +10 so I opened up all the doors to heat up the barn and give the pens a good cleaning. It's so bizarre, one minute it's beautiful out, all the chickens were enjoying being free in the warm air, the barn temperature was rising dramatically to plus ten. It got really calm for about an hour. Suddenly the wind was like a train coming, all the doors started slamming shut, after about half an hour the temperature dropped down to -1 again and the sleet felt like bee stings.

I got a lot done, no snow to have to get through with my wheelbarrow (glad I waited) so I got my pens cleaned with all new bedding in. Yesterday I took apart my wood furnace pipes, I like to give them a midwinter cleaning. They weren't bad but the weather made it easier. Ok I'm ready, back to winter!

[poultry_admin]

This thaw was strange for sure. Glad that 99% of the snow is gone so I have space to put the new one that's falling now.
Fun to watch the river water level.
http://thamesriver.on.ca/water-manageme ... er-dutton/
Chatham, it's coming!!

[ross]

Yep the Mighty Thames drainage ditch . Lol

[poultry_admin]

Picture of the month submissions are open. Make sure you submit your picture and funny comment by Jan 15th!

[Ontario Chick]

Good morning!
Interesting day yesterday, went in to the grocery store temperature 14C, walked out less then an hour later, 2C
Windows in all the cars in the parking lot fogged in, looked pretty odd, by the time I got home it was -1C
just had enough time to take the dog for a walk on lovely snowless path, by the time we got back all hell broke loose.
Presumably everything is now frozen to everything else and the morning is going to be a one big adventure.
Have a safe one!

[Skinny rooster]

Crazy! Get up Thursday, look out the window at snow covered fields, get up Friday, look out the window at brown bare fields, get up Saturday, look out the window at snow covered fields! Unbelievable that on Thursday I was trying to think of a way to get the manure from the pens to the manure pile behind the barn. With snow up to my knees the wheelbarrow was out of the question, I was thinking about just tossing it out a side door and move it in spring. Good thing I waited, I would have never believed that the next day not only could I go anywhere I wanted, but that the chickens would be with me too! My digital thermometer records temperatures highest to lowest for the past 12 hours. Last night when I went to bed the readings were +9.1 and -14.4 what a difference! Even when I was working in the barn, the temperature got up to plus ten, then it started to get cold fast and when I checked it said -1 and that was in a short time. Now -19 this morning.