Spring? Erm....not yet.

I know that many places are experiencing "spring" amidst all the crazy stuff in the world at the moment.  Not here.  Yes, we've had a bit of melting, but overall, spring is still a bit of a distant dream for me.  There are some icicles on the roof edge, which does indicate some melting.

The front door view is still pretty dismal. 

Here's my path to the chicken coop.  It's so compacted now that my feet don't break through the snow anymore, but it's over my knees in height.  That yard waste bucket off to the right is 2 feet tall and the snow is just above its top.

The raised beds have a LONG way to go before planting.

The closer chicken feed bin is 4 feet tall and the rear one is 3 feet tall.  That shows you how much snow we still have. I'm really glad I had that modification made to the coop gate to give me the winter "upper door" that I am now using because the lower part is blocked solid.

The chickens are coming outside from time to time to enjoy the sunshine on a sunny day, and the egg count is going up.  Here are Maple, Amelia Henheart, and Marble (L to R) catching some rays.

Most of the birds are just staying inside the coop still, like beautiful Smidgen here.

The path to the hay shed...still pretty deep, except the area I shovelled for the hay delivery a couple of weeks ago.

This path is pretty compacted as well.

These two have been complete rascals lately. 

With all the freeze/thaw cycles and compacted snow, they figured out that they could climb OVER the fence in one area last week by pushing it down with their feet.  Spot the rascal who thinks she is hiding.

 BUSTED!  A bucket of grain was needed to bring them back into the fenced area.

Yours truly did a bit of fancy fence weaving with baling twine to keep the fence held up so they would stop climbing it and crushing it to the ground.

It'll be a really long time before I'm back out on the hammock.

And the driveway?  It's a skating rink.

Just pure ice.  I don't recommend walking on it.

So no, overall, I'd say spring hasn't sprung here.  But I remain hopeful that it's on the way.

It's Still Winter Here

Admittedly, there are signs of spring, and I am definitely encouraged by this, but one look around my yard today will show you that winter is still here in my part of the world.  I took a short walk this afternoon, although it's difficult here because there are no sidewalks and the snow and ice on the sides of the roads mean that the roads are narrower, so one must be mindful of safety when out walking.  I actually saw my first robin of 2019, so that's a good sign!

Here's a tour around the yard where you will see mostly winter, and a bit of spring. We have actually had a reasonably good March - it's further along in terms of melting than I'd expected it to be at this point.  Loads better than last year!  Here's the back deck, where you can actually see some of the wood steps.  These have only been uncovered in the past week - before that it was just a big heap of snow.  But, there's a lot of snow yet to go!

The path through the yard to the chicken coop is still completely snow and ice, especially underfoot where it has been compacted over the winter.  This snow is at least 2 feet deep still in some places.

The side yard where the spring bulbs live is still under deep snow.  We have a lot of shade from the woods so that does slow the melting process.

There has been a good amount of melting on the driveway, so you can actually see some pavement and gravel now, but as you can see, there is a great deal of snow on the flower bed in front of the workshop.  That flower bed is the one that receives the most sun, so it is the furthest along in terms of melting.

Look!  Bare driveway!! 

The snow piles left on the edge of the driveway in front of the house are also considerable.

The huge hat of snow that was on top of the arbour has mostly melted, but there is much yet to go underneath.

Here are the mounds of the raised beds, still enclosed in their snowy blankets.

The bird feeders were, at one point, covered up over the bottoms of the raccoon baffles, but now there is a lot of space under the baffles.  You can see that the sunflower shells, with their dark colour, have absorbed extra sunlight and caused additional melting in that spot.

Along the back of the house, there is a lot of snow but you can see where the drips from the melting on the roof have created a long groove.  

I've had a very difficult time with the chicken coop gate door this winter.  We had a lot of snow, so I kept digging out in front of the door so that I could continue to open it.  Over time, this led to a sort of deep "valley" right in front of the gate.  Now that we have some melting, it pools exactly in that spot, and there's no access to the ground yet.  As a result, I keep ending up with puddles that freeze overnight and it takes me a good 30 minutes sometimes to get the door free so I can access the birds.  I'm going to have it modified this summer so that next winter, it won't be an issue.  You can also see, in the picture below, that finally my feed bins are visible again.  The shorter one on the right had to be dug out a few times because I couldn't even see the top of it.  

The birds are all well though, and I only lost 1 chicken this winter, which is really quite good.  Here are Shadow the Icelandic cross hen, and Fancy Pants the Icelandic cross rooster, enjoying a bit of sunshine.  I love Shadow's grey feathering.

I might even call them lovebirds!  They do spend a lot of time together.

Inside the coop, here's a shot of Onyx--one of my biggest hens--and Sienna, a bantam hen. 

 One other sign of spring - egg production is in full swing!  Hooray!

The Weekend Roundup: I

The prompts for this weekend from Tom the Backroads Traveller are: Starts with I, Inside, and Favourite.

Starts with I

Ivy starts with I.  One of our two pet rats is named Ivy, and the other one is Violet.  Unfortunately, Ivy has had some respiratory distress this week so she went to the vet this morning and she has pneumonia.  She is on antibiotics, which she gets drizzled on cheerios cereal, which is a favourite treat.  

We do hope Ivy will recover quickly.  

Inside

I keep all the chicken food - both their pellets and their scratch grains - inside galvanized metal garbage cans.

This means that I don't have bags of feed laying around to be temptation to raccoons or other creatures that I don't want stealing the food!  Keeping the food inside the bins also keeps the food dry and clean during inclement weather.  The lids have a simple locking system integrated into the handle and the raccoons can't open them.  I keep the cans right next to the coop so it is convenient for me to access.

Favourite

I was thinking about using "ice" for my letter I word.  Ice is not a favourite thing of mine, but this picture of ice in my backyard is a favourite for this week because the ice in the yard is starting to melt, and I can see the little green shoots of the sphagnum moss growing underneath.  There is even a green blade of grass in there. Perhaps spring will arrive in March this year instead of the end of April!

What isn't on the roof anymore

We had two major snowstorms last week, one within a couple of days of the other.  The accumulations were significant, and we were in the bands of heaviest snow in the province during the second storm.  All of this resulted in some very significant accumulation of snow on the steel roof of our house.  Then, we had a couple of days where the temperature actually went above freezing.  When that happens, the steel roof warms up, and the snow starts to melt on the bottom.  That, dear readers, is a recipe for a roof avalanche!  The snow that was on the roof, is now not on the roof.

Overnight, we heard some thunderous noises as huge chunks of snow began to slide off the roof.  In the morning, our usual peaceful woodland view out the living room window had become this:

A little while later, it was like this, as more chunks fell:

The next morning, it was like this, and you can see where a large chunk came to rest against the glass.  I was quite worried about glass breaking, but we seem to have escaped that problem for now.

Likewise, the dining room window went from this...

...to this!  And now we can scarcely see anything out that window except for snow!  As you can imagine, this will take many weeks to melt completely, depending on the type of spring we have.  I imagine it will be at least the end of April, if not well into May before we see the end of this.

Fortunately, the front of our house has little metal ridges that prevent the abrupt drop of snow, so the front didn't have this phenomenon.  The snow has melted on the front, and the water goes into the gutters and is carried away.  We don't have to worry when we walk out the front door, about a huge lump of snow falling on our heads.  When I carry hay to the sheep by going out the back door, I do need to be more careful.  

Unfortunately, there has been some significant damage to the screened-in porch.  It seemed not too bad at the start...

...but by the end, there was some major bowing of the supports on the screening on the front side, and it will need to be repaired in the spring when this mess melts.

Here you can really see where the screen and its framing has been pushed in.

Every winter is different here - some have great heaps of snow and others have limited snow but are extremely cold.  This year has been a mix - some extreme cold, but more recently, extreme snow.  We are not sure how to prevent a recurrence of this problem in another snowy year.

These chunks of snow are extremely large and awkwardly shaped, and difficult to break even with a metal shovel.  Marc has tried, without much success, to move some of the chunks pressing on the screening supports.  This isn't something you can just push out of the way. It's huge, it's heavy, and it's potentially dangerous.

This winter has a been a learning experience in our new home, and we'll have to see what we can do to improve the snow drop from the roof for future years, or at least re-direct it a bit.  

Linking with All Seasons.

Friday's Hunt v 3.04

It's time for Friday's Hunt again.  This has been a very busy week again.  I am into my second week with my new work contract and it seems to be going well, but it is certainly keeping me occupied. The prompts for today's hunt from Eden Hills are:  Starts with D, Week's Favourite, and Close Up.

Starts with D
We had a major ice storm earlier this week.  For the provincial power utility, it was the worst ever storm on record for power outages.  There are still people without power.  We lost power for one night, but fortunately it was back on the next day.  Anyway, the letter D applies to lots of things related to the storm.

Dropped (or Downed) tree branches.  We had a lot of them, and there were also downed power lines all over the province.  It's taking a long time to clean up.  This branch is over part of our driveway - it's a big one!

Here you can see the damage at the top of a tree.

Here is the piece that dropped to the ground from that damaged tree - it nearly fell into the sheep and goat pen, but was stopped by other trees in the way!

Drooping trees.  The ice was so heavy on these birch trees, they were drooping down to the ground!

Dripping water, due to the temperature going above freezing for a short time after the storm.  Here you can see the drips on the top part of my bird feeder pole.


The driveway was a rather dangerous - rather like a skating rink!

Week's Favourite
It's not a great picture really, but this week I was very excited to see a male evening grosbeak at my feeder for the first time here in Sackville.  I hope he will come back!

Close Up
I took a lot of close-up shots of the ice after the worst of the storm was over.  Here are a few of those that I thought turned out well.  This old, dried birch leaf was encased in ice.

The cheerful red of this crab-apple still shows through its icy cage.

The yew shrub's branches were also encased in ice.

I think it's fascinating how this branch looks as if it has thorns, but those are just formed by the ice encasing the branch.  They must have formed when the precipitation was between rain and freezing rain, so as it dripped from the branch, it froze.


Finally, another tiny leaf - see how its serrated edges are so clearly defined inside the ice, and you can even see the patterns within the ice caused by the freezing water.