Feels a Little Like Spring
A very grey, spring like day in January…in our back yard.
Actually, it feels a lot like spring today. The sky looks rather dreary with rain threatening to make the mud in our yard even muddier. Still, I like this much better than the single digit temps we had last week! We’ve had several January thaws this year…and they have given us a welcome respite from the freezing weather.
It was warm enough yesterday to be out in just a sweatshirt (ok, I had jeans on too), so I took the opportunity to air out the chicken coop, cull six of my old laying hens, and I took the dog for a nice long walk. It was great to be outside, even though one of my jobs was less than desirable. I feel bad about butchering old laying hens. Some of them were still so pretty and healthy. But the cost of chicken feed is just too high to be feeding non-productive hens. I’m looking into switching from the conventional crumbles to organic feed in the next couple of weeks. This will almost double the cost of feeding the chickens, but it will be much healthier for them, and especially for us.
Last I checked it was getting pretty close to 60F here this morning. So Shadow and I will go for another long walk today. It felt so good to be out with no gloves, hat, long johns, etc. 
The weather report is calling for fairly warm temps for another day, then dipping back down into the teens on Thursday. So the window of opportunity for butchering will be closing soon. I’ve butchered in very cold weather before. It makes an already unpleasant job even worse. So I guess I better take advantage of the weather while I can!
Are you having a January thaw where you live? Are you taking advantage of the nice weather to get any outside work done?
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Seasonal Celebration is now on Wednesday!
