Around The Farm In February - Random Photos

The twenty white fantail pigeons have been sheltered indoors for the winter. They have heated water (the red cone on top the water fountain is to keep them from sitting atop it and pooping into the water). Their new shelf unit next boxes remain unused, but maybe they'll show more interest in the springtime:

The chickens too remain indoors, though they did get out a few times this winter when we had such unseasonably warm weather:

Whenever I find newly fallen snow in the morning, I check for footprints. This pair of tracks, one trail coming and one going, worried me. It was a large feline or canine - I couldn't tell which. I later checked online and concluded that they were canine tracks. Was it someone's dog running loose or a coyote? I wasn't happy about the potential of either one getting too close to my chickens:

The fantail pigeons react with great joy whenever I give them fresh water and food. They act as if they are thrilled at the new, improved supply I've given them - even though it's always just more of the same old thing:

The chickens are less excitable, taking it all in stride:

The farm house and barn, seen from the county road one morning:

There are more the twenty bales of hay left and whether I will have too many or too few at the end of the winter remains a mystery. My old cat, Snoozey, was buried in the only unfrozen ground I could find, beneath that closest bale:

One day I found an egg in the chicken coop and was excited at the prospect that the hens were beginning to lay for the season. But no, it was only a freak event and no more eggs have followed it. It was delicious, though:

I noticed this plastic cover over the light switch in the barn one day and snapped a picture of it because it reminded me of when I first got the cows. They used to turn on the lights at night, flipping the switch with their noses. The fishnets to the right of it are for cleaning debris out of the stock tank while refilling it, something I do every afternoon:

On one of our miraculous warm days, the flock of chickens scratched and pecked all around the perimeter of the house:

I stopped for gas one day, just down the road from home, when I saw this classic truck and snowplow. A faithful old Retriever waited for its owner, who was inside having a cup of coffee. A smaller dog, perhaps a Dachshund, was beside him, but it's awfully hard to see it in this photo. The truck, by the way, I've figured out was a 1962 Willys Jeep, in nearly mint condition:

Also just down the road from me - a logging header with an impressive pile of saw logs: