Chicken football.

Don't ever think a chicken doesn't have fun. The two babies, Betty the barcode and Sylvie enjoyed a little kick around with a tomato before Betty realised how delicious it was and promptly tucked in!

Meanwhile, Lunar the Lavender hen gave me a full on view of her lovely feathering.

Charming!

Red sky at night..,

Shepherd's delight, as the saying goes.
This beautiful sunset was captured by Luke two days before the snow set in.

Such a lovely way to say goodnight to the day.

Front, back (no sides)

This was our view of the front and back gardens at 7.30am yesterday morning.

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It's a white out.

How amazing it is to know there is a drastic change in the weather forecast but to still not believe your eyes on awakening to it?
I called Luke this morning to see the beautiful scene from one of our bedroom windows. It was a like a Christmas card (especially as our neighbours across the road, in their chocolate box house, have decided to leave their blinking Christmas decorations up all year! I'm guessing they find it too much of a hassle to unhook them from the front of their house each January but it will look out of place if and when we experience a heatwave (see, hope springs eternal!).



The sky was a very pale rose-white, the trees - a row of skeletons dusted with icing sugar and the roads, well the roads were a skating rink that only the bravest four wheel drives were attempting to drive along.
And how slowly those fat flakes of swirling snow fell. It was almost as if they were enjoying their slow descent from the clouds and wanted to elongate it by taking a longer circular route. Silently it fell and surprised all of us by blanketing the ground with a carpet of white.
All four bird feeders were put into action and food hidden under the steamer chair for the ground feeders to peck at.
The first to visit were five blackbirds, their silhouettes standing out in contrast to the virgin snow. They've made a crinkly edge to the fence where they landed in the snow and knocked it off.
Next to come was a fat thrush and a robin, quickly followed by the finches - gold, green and crested along with the chaffinches.
We also had the first visit from a single wagtail, twitching in the snow and looking like an Everton mint. At one point we had twelve finches fighting for a place on the sunflower feeder and then the Jay, a flash of cerulean blue and beige, glided through the sky.
We took lots of photographs as the morning light brightened the day and the rosy hue disappeared, leaving only a mass of white everywhere.
Finally, two collar doves gracefully and softly beat their gentle wings across the garden sky and a large wood pigeon landed on the hammock and then plodded into the snow, looking for food.
I sat indoors with a breakfast of pain au raison and hot chocolate and enjoyed the show.

The white stuff

Oh how ridiculous it must appear to people in Alaska when good old Blighty is forecast a few inches of snow.
I went to the supermarket at lunchtime and as I was at the bakery counter I heard one sales girl say to another, *We're out of fresh bread already today*. So much for the 'Keep calm and carry on' slogan that is appearing on everything from tea towels to mugs. Nope, everyone and his dog seems to be buying up bread and milk and stocking up with bottled water. We're only forecast two days of snow!
Luke can't wait for the little hens to be out in the snow, Ive cleared away the ice sheets from the bird baths (although I expect it will be frozen again by the morning) and we'll ensure that the chickens have access to the dry ground in the greenhouse and plenty of high fat food to keep them warm.
Fortunately we can just enjoy the snow here tomorrow as it's my day off but on Saturday I need to venture into the city centre for an event I am hosting. Let's hope the trains are running.
I'm hoping we wake up to a frosting of snow but I'm guessing it's going to be more than that. Check out my 2010 Christmas photos for he last big freeze we had. Luke and I trudged over snow bound fields to buy a turkey for Christmas as our road was cut off and after that the visitors who were meant to be staying couldn't get out of their own drive in Cornwall.

We shall have snow.

Very glad am I that the fork and I got acquainted yesterday as at least the raspberry patch is turned over. I started in the quagmire under the tree that has been compacted by six pairs of chicken's feet as well as those from the wood pigeons and robins that eat the spilled seed from the feeders hanging from the branches. When I turned the soil there it came up in great clumps, and there was a multitude of worms wriggling their heads or tails (who knows which end is which when they are so tiny?) in the newly exposed daylight. When I did my annual trick of unearthing several spring bulbs I decided to leave it all alone and just tidy away the deadheaded detritus. Even just an hour in the garden produced an entire binful of garden waste and made the garden look much tidier.
Not before time too as only a few hours later the snow fell, slowly and silently against the inky blackness of the winter sky. It hasn't settled overnight but we are expecting a few frosty starts this week. Nature will break up the soil with her frosts and the bulbs will start pushing their shoots up. Not long till the first snowdrops appear, I hope.

Luna silences the critics (me)

Lunar, the lavender bantam who isn't a true bantam (the colour lavender is still experimental in this breed and not yet a recognised standard) has proved her worth - eventually!
Despite being older than Mrs Bun and Poppy, she had not laid an egg in all the time we've had her. Lavender was the one colour we really wanted though and she'd earned her place in our little flock just by being beautiful. It's always disappointing though to have a non laying chicken (we had 'The Colonel' once who was an hermaphrodite chicken and upset the other chickens when despite being more cock than hen, tried to lay eggs in the nesting box - it was like watching a bloke walk into the Ladies room and witnessing the fuss that would cause). Still, we loved Luna for being soft and cloud like with a lovely gentle nature. Not for her the treading of other chickens a la Shakira. Nor scaring away the little chicks as Mrs Bun is prone to do. Luna is very much the hippy of the chicken world - "Love and peace, man" would probably be her motto if she had one.
So imagine my surprise when I received a text message from Luke yesterday. Whilst I was at work so was Luna. Busy laying her first egg and doing a fine old job at it too.
The lovely thing about hens in lay is that they will squat down if you pass them and it makes them much easier to scoop up. The others (all out of lay at the moment) scarper the minute we get near them. However Luna now lets us pick her up which is such a delight as she really is just a cloud of down and the silkiest of the girls to hold.
I decided to type this message in the conservatory, just before heading out to get some digging done when, Bang! A sparrowhawk, young, small and inexperienced bashed into a blue tit before heading over the conservatory roof and away. Mrs Bun, the closest to the action, stood - head down, stock still for ten seconds till the danger was past then all six hens rushed off tot he safety of the greenhouse. Minutes later the sparrowhawk returned for another try at lunch but having once again hunted without success it flew to the great heights of the old oak tree only to be chased off noisily by a disgruntled crow.
Indoors the cat is playing with Luke's laces on his shoes and prancing about the place in her make believe cat and mouse scenario and my leg is going to sleep where I'm balancing the lap top awkwardly so I think it's time to stop typing and start digging = how many poor spring bulbs am I going to disturb?