D*** Duck Door

 

Time for a quick update on the Northerns' farm. More specifically, the poultry (because there's no gardening going on this time of year).

 

The chickens are doing their normal winter-time thing, which is to eat tons of feed, refuse to lay eggs, and do their best to avoid the cold white stuff that invades their run. The Northerns did lose one hen last month - best guess is that she was on the bottom of the pecking order and didn't get enough feed to stay warm.

 

The ducks are being ducks. Messy, neurotic, and ready for Spring to thaw out their swimming pool. Actually, given the conditions (the water they splash out of their dish freezes the bedding in their house), the ducks are doing quite well at dealing with the cold.

 

The one thing that has given NorthernDaddy fits this winter has been the door to the duck house. He's been fighting with it since August. Originally, it was made of a 2x4 frame with tongue-and-groove flooring as the outer layer. It seemed like a good idea at the time; the flooring scraps were out in the barn, they were sturdy, and the door builders were in a hurry. As time passed, the door started to sag and the interlocking flooring strips stopped, well, interlocking. That, in turn, made the door catch on the ground and not open all the way. That's an inconvenience when a person is trying to get inside with a full bucket of water....  The door had been patched with temporary fixes many times, and the ice chipped out of the way to make the door operable more times than can be remembered. The final thing to kill the door was that it would not close one day. It swung almost shut, but left a gap big enough for a dog to walk through. Or a fox. Or one of the resident skunks....that's bad.

 

NorthernDaddy sourced some free plywood and spent two hours in the freezing cold (okay, it was almost 20 degrees, but not warm enough to be running a saw and a drill) rebuilding the door.

 

Finally, a door that freely swings open and closed, and doesn't fall apart when it's latched!

 

 



Winter

 

So, Winter in northern Vermont....instant mental picture of snow-covered trees and hills, skating rinks on the town greens, and a generally snowy landscape, right? Not this winter. It's been remarkably devoid of snow - there have been a few inches of snow here and there, but mainly it's been bitterly cold (even by Vermont standards).

 

After enduring two months of frozen misery without deep snow, it was nice to get a snowfall of 10 to 12 inches with temperatures in the upper twenties. The kind of weather that is pleasant to go outside and play/shovel/work in.

 

It's finally beginning to look like Winter up here!