It Is Spring Indeed

We had a week of rain, which saturated the ground so thoroughly that I had to pump out my basement eight times. Then came a night with tornado warnings, heavy rain, hail and high winds. The next morning I found the trash bins tipped over. That would not have been surprising except that they were lashed down and one was full of heavy bags:

 Then I noticed that the heavy, 100 gallon stock tank had been blown halfway across the north field. It had been empty, but stored upside down in a spot where high winds had never moved it before:

 A trim board from the barn roof had blown off. I worried about Amy, who I thought had been giving birth during the night. It turned out that she hadn't, so the calf watch continued into the next day:

 Last year I planted 12 Globe Thistles, but couldn't tell them from Dandelions, so I left them unweeded until spring. This year, upon examination, I had only one Globe Thistle plant - but it looked healthy and robust so I pulled out the Dandelions all around it:

 I planted the two Morden roses in the place where the Globe Thistles had not grown:

 And then I put some small fencing around the one Globe Thistle and two roses so I wouldn't accidentally mow over them:

 Inside the barn, the fantail pigeons and bantam hens were getting pretty stinky, but I needed to wait until the ground dried out a bit before I cleaned their rooms. I made it a point to keep their windows open as much as possible, though:

 The bi-colored Daffodils began to bloom, though the solid yellow ones were still in the bud stage:

 The Peonies began to emerge. All the old plants had white flowers, but I planted some colored ones both last year and this year. I don't know if any of the new ones will grow:

 The 20 Day Lilies, however, had doubled in height since I put them in the ground. They looked promising:

 I came to the end of my supply of bird seed and suet cakes, so retired the feeders for the summer. One of my last views through the kitchen window was of a Hairy Woodpecker and a Downy Woodpecker together on the feeder pole:

 The rock garden was springing to life. Things are growing fast. I still had a few plants which appeared to have perished during the winter, but most are doing well:

More Snow In March

Just when it looked like we were going to get an early spring, three nor'easters in a row hit us. The third was the worst, dropping two feet of heavy, wet snow which quickly froze into two feet of hard, crusty snow:

 The cattle and horses continued to thrive in it  although they didn't much want to walk anywhere. I finally used the tractor bucket to clear paths for them to make walking easier:

 The bird feeders became more popular when all the natural food was covered with snow and ice. The suet feeder regularly draws large Hairy Woodpeckers with their long bills:

 And the smaller, sparrow-sized Downy Woodpeckers with their short bills. The big Hairy Woodpeckers are the bosses, but the Downy Woodpeckers know how to dart in for a meal when the bigger bullies fly away:

 The cattle and horses are visible to passersby on the gravel road, just past the cattails and electric fence:

 I grew weary (and crabby) with the snow, but I had to admit that it was pretty:

 There were 40 hay bales left to last the winter. Last year at the same time there were only 20, so I'm hoping to have extra. Actually, I'd rather have none left, but I wouldn't want to run short:

 The addition on the house developed an ice jam again which looked dangerous:

 Not only did it look heavy and lethal if it slid off onto a person or dog, but the icicles were reaching back to touch the windows. I began to worry that the icy mass would break windows when it slid off. There was such deep snow beneath it that I felt sure the dogs would not/could not go there. That was one good thing about the situation:

 Each morning, no matter how cold and snowy it was, I'd call the cattle and horses in for a bit of grain. But I carried some out for those who didn't come in. I wanted to make sure that they all got their minerals and nutrition:

 Red Polls are a hardy, docile breed and mine spent their days eating, then lying down to digest their hay:

 The horses played in the snow and stuck their noses into it, looking for some grass to eat. I sure want spring to get here soon!

Around The Farm In March

We had several brief thaws, during which the cows and horses got to lounge around in comfort. You can see that Gracie's two ringworm spots have not cleared up. They're only white, though, because the spray I'm using on them is white:

The bird feeders continue to draw a crowd, including this Hairy Woodpecker:

And many Chickadees:


Inside the barn, the white fantail pigeons are safe and protected from the weather:


And some have been nesting, though only two eggs have so far been laid (and then abandoned):

But our early March thaws were soon replaced by cold snaps. I saw these icicles leaning in so far that they were pressing against the house windows. I broke them off with a snow shovel, but the whole ice jam slid off while I was doing it. It was massive, so I was lucky it didn't hit me:

The bantam hens have begun laying a few eggs, though not yet many:

The Barred Rock bantams are getting kind of old now for egg laying, but I imagine they'll still lay when it warms up:

Every morning we have new snow, I can see fox tracks coming from the field across the road, up my driveway, around the barn and inside. The fox explores the barn, even going inside the old milk room:

The herd's appetite has increased and I usually have to bring out a new hay bale every other day now:

They are wrapped in plastic mesh, and it must be removed before giving the bale to the animals. If it's not locked in ice, that's a simple job. If, however, it's all iced up, it becomes a difficult and frustrating, even infuriating, task:


We've had Snow Buntings in the wintry corn and hay fields all winter, but they are skittish and nearly impossible to photograph. This was the only shot I got. They look like  a flock of white parakeets when they flit around the fields. They won't hold still and they won't allow me to get close:

A Snowy Day

It was snowing heavily, a pretty, Christmas card type snow, while I was doing the morning chores. When I'd finished, I walked out through the snow to visit the animals in the south field. My first observation was this Thistle, one I'd missed when I was trying to eradicate them, poking up through the snow and spreading seeds:

Remy was out in a wet section of the field, pawing away the snow and eating Sedge. They normally hate Sedge and won't eat it, but I guess he had a taste for something different this morning:

Blue was nearby, doing likewise. They both had just eaten grain and had ample supplies of good hay, both outdoors and inside the barn. They just felt like eating Sedge that morning:

When I walked over to see the cows, Remy and Blue followed me. I'd turned off the electric fence to make a repair, and Remy wanted to "help:"

Scarlett watched me closely, perhaps hoping I'd brought more grain out with me:

They'd already had all the grain they were going to get, so they soon turned their attention back to the bale feeder:

Blue decided he wanted some of that hay too, but those cows sure looked like giants to him. Rosella has her head down in the photo, but I don't remember seeing any threat by her toward Blue. It sure does look that way in the photo, though, doesn't it?:

Returning to the house, I saw a lone Junco hopping around the snowy ground beneath the bird feeders. Juncos, like Mourning Doves, never seem to eat at the feeders but love to pick up seed which has dropped on the ground:

When I studied Ornithology, they were called Slate-Colored Juncos, but now they are termed Dark-Eyed Juncos. Similarly, English Sparrows have been changed to House Sparrows, Sparrow Hawks to American Kestrels and Rufous-sided Towhee to Eastern Towhee:

A Hairy Woodpecker was pigging out at the suet cake and ignored my presence even when all the other birds flew away. He knew a good thing when he found it:

The dogs had been in their fenced yard all this time and were happy to see me:

But Seamus, with his extra long legs, was the only one willing to push through the snow to follow me around:

Around The Wintry Farm

The Red Poll ladies are doing well and staying fat despite the cold and snow:

 I usually throw and armful of hay aside for the little horses when I put out a new hay bale so they won't have to compete with the much bigger cows:

 I saw this amazing sight one morning in the southeastern sky. I looked it up online when I got back indoors and discovered that it was part of a sundog, also called parhelion, a phenomenon of sunlight passing through ice crystals in the atmosphere:

 This is a photo from the internet, showing the entire parhelion (pl: parhelia). I could only see the rainbow part on the bottom right. A few minutes later, I could also see the part on the bottom left, which was in the northeastern sky:

 One of my kitchen windows has a direct view of the bird feeders. It is common to see both Downy Woodpeckers (on top branch) and Hairy Woodpeckers (on square post). As you might expect, my cats think the windowsill is a theater seat for them to watch their favorite movies:

 I thought this was a Hairy Woodpecker, the bigger of the two, when I snapped the photo - but when I got indoors and saw the closeup, I decided it was probably the smaller Downy Woodpecker (because of its shorter bill). Needless to say, it's not always easy to tell them apart unless they appear together:

 
 I have a multitude of Chickadees. They used to be skittish, but have learned that I am the source of the goodies and now come within a couple of feet of me. If I aim a camera at them, however, they usually scatter:

 To help them pass the time during the winter, I've been opening the doors between the chickens and pigeons every day. The new Easter Egger hens seem to prefer to be with the pigeons:

The Easter Egger bantams also lay most of their eggs in the pigeon room:

  The older, Barred Rock bantam hens, mostly stay in their own room. They also haven't begun laying yet. They're getting kind of old now, at least for chickens, so their egg laying may be slowing down:

 The new Easter Egger bantams, however, are laying up a storm. Most of the eggs are green, but some are pink:

 The pigeons are having a difficult time starting nests with the chickens around, but no eggs or hatchlings would survive in these temperatures anyway, so no harm done: