Depressed chickens

Oh, the poor chickens are not enjoying this snow at all.  The last few days they have poked their heads out of the run and then turned straight back round and gone back to bed.  Poor things, their feet don't touch the ground which must be a bit disconcerting.  I did manage to entice them out today with their favourite treats - tomatoes and cauliflower leaves - and got them to come down as far as Bob's workshop.  They are now hanging around the door, knocking to be let in I think!

As you may have gathered, we have had loads of snow and it is showing no signs of disappearing.  On Thursday the forecast was for a foot of snow overnight, but no-one quite believed it and thought that may be just very high up and we'd get a light dusting - it is now Spring after all and British Summer Time starts at the weekend  . . . . how wrong we were.

It is very pretty though, especially yesterday when the sun shone, so here's some pictures of our winter wonderland:-

This poor little Birch sapling is usually standing straight and
tall.  I had a lovely vision of a squirrel jumping on to it, disturbing
the snow and getting catapaulted over the hedge and into the
quarry - oh, that would be so funny to watch!

There is so much snow on the roof that part of the extension
roof almost meets the path.  The snow on the pathway
round the extension is up to the oak room window and when
this lot finally slides off, I don't think you'll be able to see
out of the window at all.

We have some fairly impressive icicles.  As the snow inches
down the roof, these icicles angle in towards the wall and more
form hanging straight down.

This is what we had to dig out on Saturday morning - it took
us about 4 hours to get all the way to the lane (about
100 yds of top-of-the-wellie-deep snow) and clear the
waist-high bank left across our track by the snowplough.
All the time snow kept falling out of the trees down our necks
and branches threatened to fall with it - a dangerous job!  Hope
M&S appreciate the effort we went to so I could go to work!

The view from the kitchen door - all perspective is lost in
so much snow unless the sun shines on it.

All Friday night we kept getting woken up by loud rushing,
grating rumbling as sections of snow slid off the roof and
crashed to the ground.  Wouldn't want to be standing
underneath, they make huge piles of snow!  Needless to
say, the chaps didn't come to fit the woodburner yesterday.
They need to get on the roof and din't really fancy it!!