Our hens dodged a bullet during this week’s snowstorm, but that wasn’t enough to placate them.
There’s a ridiculously large pussy willow a few feet east of our chicken coop. We planted it many years ago, and it has since grown to be about 20 feet tall, with a thick trunk and sizable branches. In addition to pulling down small branches elsewhere in our yard, the recent storm's wet snow broke a 12-foot-long, multi-branched limb from the pussy willow. Fortunately for “the girls,” this bough came crashing down to the south of the plant itself. Had it fallen to the west, the coop or the pen or both would have taken a direct hit.
Liz and I were grateful that things turned out as they did, but our three hens had other concerns once the weather improved.
The day after the storm dawned warm and sunny, and large, heavy wads of snow fell at regular intervals from branches overhanging the coop and pen. These snowballs landed with a noisy thud on the coop’s roof and the tarp covering the pen, so Snow, Nellie and Hope were in no danger. Being chickens, though, they do not like anything out of the ordinary, and that certainly applied to the sound of all those incoming “mortar rounds.” So they clucked nervously as I shoveled a nearby path, and eyed me with a look that seemed to say “please make it stop.”
There wasn't anything I could do while the sun worked its magic. But this time, at least, our Chicken Littles could be forgiven for fearing that the sky was falling. In a sense, it really was.
There’s a ridiculously large pussy willow a few feet east of our chicken coop. We planted it many years ago, and it has since grown to be about 20 feet tall, with a thick trunk and sizable branches. In addition to pulling down small branches elsewhere in our yard, the recent storm's wet snow broke a 12-foot-long, multi-branched limb from the pussy willow. Fortunately for “the girls,” this bough came crashing down to the south of the plant itself. Had it fallen to the west, the coop or the pen or both would have taken a direct hit.
Liz and I were grateful that things turned out as they did, but our three hens had other concerns once the weather improved.
The day after the storm dawned warm and sunny, and large, heavy wads of snow fell at regular intervals from branches overhanging the coop and pen. These snowballs landed with a noisy thud on the coop’s roof and the tarp covering the pen, so Snow, Nellie and Hope were in no danger. Being chickens, though, they do not like anything out of the ordinary, and that certainly applied to the sound of all those incoming “mortar rounds.” So they clucked nervously as I shoveled a nearby path, and eyed me with a look that seemed to say “please make it stop.”
There wasn't anything I could do while the sun worked its magic. But this time, at least, our Chicken Littles could be forgiven for fearing that the sky was falling. In a sense, it really was.
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