Winter

We ended November with about 4 inches of snow in the garden.  The chickens were definitely not happy about this! They flatly refused to come out of their run and churtled at us disgruntledly as though somehow this were our fault!  The carrots were buried under a mound of snow.  I managed to get some sprouts from one of the sprout plants but the chard was pretty much buried.

We have begun December with almost two foot of snow in the garden! The Under-Gardener has had to dig out the chicken coop, and excavate a bit of ground around the coop for them to forage in.  The sprout plants have disappeared.  So too has the fish pond.  The birds are making merry with the bird food we put out but are much happier now that the Under-Gardener has dug down almost to grass level in the snow on the little lawn so they're no longer in danger of sinking in.  Which one of the chickens did when it tried to fly down the garden, following the Under-Gardener and sank into 24 inches of snow.  The under-Gardener, when he had stopped laughing, said all he could see was a little head poking out over the top of the snow!  He had to go down and rescue her.

When I went down to feed them yesterday morning, the bolt into the orchard was frozen shut, the door into their run was frozen shut and their water was frozen. This morning I went prepared with a jug of warm water.  It was minus 18d down in the garden!!!