In The Bleak Midwinter............

The little hens are safe and relatively warm in their own room inside the barn:

The white fantail pigeons have an even bigger room in the barn, but I'm afraid it's beginning to stink. Winter is a bad time to clean it, so I keep adding pine shavings. Nonetheless, the birds look happy and healthy:

A few birds are getting quite old, but mostly they seem quite perky:

And others seem to already be thinking about possible new nest sites:

Inside the house, Caspar and Sammy are best of friends:

Seamus, Bugsy and Daphne prefer the yoga mat by my computer chair so they can keep me company:

We've had a winter of alternating snowstorms and thaws. One morning during a thaw, I snapped this photo of the barn, the house and the neighbors' barn across the road:

But no January thaw lasts very long and soon it is cold and snowy again:

One lone hen is molting much too late. I feared she'd get too cold and die, but she seems to be growing out her new feathers without too much problem:

Jasmine is my friendliest cow, the only one who really welcomes me rubbing her neck beneath her chin:

And life seems to revolve around hay bales - keeping the herd supplied, keeping a count on how many are left and worrying about running out before winter is over:

Blue was picking through the leftover hay after I'd moved the bale feeder and Jasmine had just gotten up from her night's sleep: