Around The Farm, An Update

My bantam hens have begun laying, albeit slowly, and as soon as I'd collected a dozen, I attempted to scramble them for the dogs. Alas, I discovered that I had no propane. I checked in the apartment and it had no heat:

So I called for emergency service. A man came out quickly and declared that the regulator on my propane tank had frozen shut. Too much cold, too much ice, too much snow, too much wind. But he replaced it and all was well again. By then, however, I had the pan full of eggs in the refrigerator, and the dogs had to wait until the following morning for me to cook them:

The wind blew snow through the cracks in the barn, where it collected in piles:

And the plows piled snowbanks so high that it was difficult to even see the farm sign:

Icicles, snow, cold and wind. It's been a long and difficult winter:

And every morning I cleaned out the barn, forking cow manure, frozen urine and bedding hay into the tractor bucket:

I then hauled it out through the deep snow and dumped it on this year's manure pile. Last year's pile has been busy turning into compost and should be spread on the pasture this spring:

See that scattered hay in front of the vertical bale? That's where my resident Cottontail Rabbit slept and ate at night. At first, I saw his tracks in the snow but he become more comfortable with my presence over time, allowing me to see him:

One of the fantail pigeons raised two babies and I held my breath, fearing that this cold winter would kill them. The many nights we've had at -10 to -20 hadn't killed them as of this photo:

The fantail pigeons seemed to believe that spring was here, and they began pairing off, doing lots of billing and cooing. Love was in the air:

The chickens, on the other hand, were mostly in a holding pattern. They were just existing, waiting until they could once again get outside and forage:

The hens began to lay eggs, but I had to collect them quickly, before they froze, splitting the shells: