All Cooped Up

There seems to be nothing a Bernese Mountain Dog likes better than snow, and so our two beasts are in their element this winter. They roll in it, eat it, lie down in it, stick their faces as far as they can into snowbanks; lethargic in summer, our male is now running and romping and acting like a puppy. A two-foot snowfall doesn’t faze him in the least; he just pushes through it, chest-first, like a snowplow, leaving long winding trails all over the yard.

But the rest of us? – not loving it so much. Even the cats are grumpy from being indoors all the time, hissing and swatting at each other a few times a day before skulking off to their respective corners.

And then there’s the chickens. Yes, cabin fever strikes them as well – coop fever, maybe? – as they are as reluctant as the cats to stick their feet into snow, and stay (mostly) indoors for months at a time, by their own choice. Fortunately, our little flock of 18 doesn’t come close to filling the coop, so they have plenty of scratching room. But they get bored, and bored chickens get, well, peckish. And with nothing to peck but each other, some will eventually look a little worse for the wear.

So at this time of year, a weekly cabbage tetherball game is just the ticket. Keeps ‘em occupied and happy for a day or so, and adds more greens to their diet. Given these weekly snowstorms, though, we may have to start buying cabbage by the case.
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In the Hindsight Department: next time we build a greenhouse, we will make sure that there is room to run a snowblower all around the sides -- as opposed to having one side tucked up against a steep hill, and piles of rocks along the far end. Repeated heavy snowstorms mean that snow piles up and up and up along the sides as it slides off the roof; eventually it can't slide any more, and starts weighing down the entire structure. Shoveling it out the old-fashioned way is decidedly tedious and time-consuming, but necessary, in our case. Live and learn ...