Have we turned into a bunch of ninnies?.

Its got to the point of being remarkable round here now (for round here anyway.) All the moister in the air is frozen and there are plumes of ice dust blowing around in the wind. Its -1 around the roost bar which is open in the run though enclosed by the roof and tarp from half way up the run sides. Its only -1 because Ive got a small storage heater in there keeping the edge off. I know if they were in a trad wooden coop their own heat would take it at least above zero so seems fair. It's also keeping one of the mushroom drinkers from freezing to a solid block like the other one was this morning.
Just noticed this morning how quickly they have got through their feed hopper this week.
From the Met Office forecast should be back up past zero and heading for a melt by Monday.
Surprisingly, the school has been open for business all week and only closed tomorrow.

I know, I know, Rick's doing things weird again! But while the ventilation is excellent in a sheltered but otherwise open avery most of the year they don't have a wooden or plastic 'inside' as an option when it gets testing so a few watts (and the unusual ability to provide it easily and safely) of help seems good about now.
 
They're very lucky birds, Rick. Just because chickens are able to manage to stay alive in these conditions doesn't mean to say they won't benefit from whatever shelter and protection we can give them.
Sorry as I am to have recently culled all of mine, I can't help feeling that actually the timing turned out right!
 
Ah, the ethics of chicken keeping. Coincidently last night I visited some neighbours along the road and mentioned that I'd just dusted off my incubators for the start of another season. This led to them roundly condemning me for killing all the cockerels at hatching time or soon after.There is no hypocrisy in their position because they keep 100 geriatric sheep, some eight year old hens and four pet cows which will never be eaten. But they can only do this because of big pensions and bits of part time work here. It was hard to make them see my point of view because they're argument was that I shouldn't breed chickens at all.
It is my view that one should strive to avoid causing suffering, as you do rick, but when the time for death comes then so long as it is done quickly and humanely then that is acceptable. But clearly not everyone shares that view.
 
This is worth a watch, was on last night it was a documentary made at the time looking back at the big freeze of 1963.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01q9d86/winterwatch-1963-the-big-freeze
 
Harking back to quite a few posts ago. We watched a Guy Martin programme where he was building a replica WW1 tank, as the aim was to drive it in an armistice parade. In the event the local council decided it would ruin the roads and he ended up driving it in on the battlefields at the site of the first tank warfare with some offspring of the original tank drivers. But to do this he had to take a tank test on a public road in a chieftan tank. Which was truly bizarre as he trundled down the road with an examiner running along in front, you can imagine the locals reaction at a tank reversing into their cul de sac, and white van man being scared witless as he did a 3 point turn. So an ordinary licence is ok, then you have to do a tank test. Great for the weekly shop
 
I knew a lad who was a gunner on Challengers in the 1st Armoured Div stationed in Germany in the late 80's, apparently they used to knock down walls, smash cars and hit the odd house while they driving on the country roads there. I did a quick search and came up with this, one very lucky lady in the Yaris.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/32973341/british-tank-crushes-learner-drivers-car-in-germany
 
Reminds me of the Annual Traction Engine Rally just outside Hay-on-Wye. Several people locally had traction engines and they drove round the town then over the bridge to the showground. The route to the bridge took them down hill, then a short flat section before the left turn on to the bridge. We watched with dropped jaws as a car driver decided to do a three point turn as three engines, including a ploughing engine (massive brute) were coming down the hill. No means of stopping other rather throwing them in reverse (if they had one!). No-one who was there can be sure how they managed to miss the car!
 
If you look back at my post on Wednesday, I said my primary school was the only one that didn't close in 1963. Guess what? It was the only primary school open yesterday to celebrate St David's Day1 Saw it on the BBC News website (Wales).
 
dinosaw said:
This is worth a watch, was on last night it was a documentary made at the time looking back at the big freeze of 1963.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01q9d86/winterwatch-1963-the-big-freeze
Click to expand...

That looks great, will catch up on that tonight. The rural primary school near Radstock in Somerset where I had my first teaching post was closed for 3 weeks in Jan. 1963, and then there were several weeks of really struggling to work by bus from Keynsham to Radstock, followed by a mile-long trek on foot up a steep snowy hill (impassable to the bus) to get to the school.

Daughter No.1 very nearly got totally stuck yesterday on the way back from Bridport, A35, along tiny roads to the little village where she lives, and is now very satisfactorily totally snowed in - even the stream is frozen. Unprecedented weather for the Marshwood Vale.

Daughter No. 2 had planned a skiing weekend for herself, husband, and 8 friends from her running club, down to Morillon, in the S.E. French Alps. Sat in the plane for 5 hours at Birmingham Airport, finally took off at 11.50p.m. into the teeth of the storm, plane diverted from Geneva to Lyon, where they were told transport would be provided, but this didn't happen, they slept a couple of hours on the floor of the airport then managed to hire cars to drive to where they wanted to go. It took all the rest of the night along semi-blocked roads, despite snowploughs being out, and her most recent text, at 10.50 today, said they had 'only 10K to go up the steep mountain road bit'. She says they expect the ski lifts to be open and says
'Yes we fully intend to don our kit and get out there as soon as we get there. Which we hope will before the lifts close at 5pm.'

Some mothers do have 'em!

It was adventurous enough for us to try walking up the road from our house, which is totally blocked by huge, beautifully sculptured drifts of snow along the hedgerows. The cottages at the top must be totally cut off for the duration. Dog loved it, though. It's not been like this since 1979, when our kids were little and I had to struggle down to the far side of town to feed the ponies twice a day.
 
dinosaw said:
This is worth a watch, was on last night it was a documentary made at the time looking back at the big freeze of 1963.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01q9d86/winterwatch-1963-the-big-freeze
Click to expand...

That was an amazing programme, dinosaw, we really enjoyed watching it. Not only because of the way it documented the chaos of that winter in totally incredible contemporary film, but the way it was all presented with the hand-drawn visual aids etc used on BBC at the time. Also the clothes people wore - women trying to walk through snow in little pointed shoes, and wearing skirts not trousers to shovel snow. Although we lived through it, there was a lot I didn't know or couldn't remember. I suppose that actually we got a lot less information in those days - with no TV for most people, including us, and only a printed newspaper and the radio for news. It certainly puts our present little meteorological difficulties into context! The snowplough even got up our road this afternoon so our friends in the cottages further along should be OK.
 
We were given special permission to wear TROUSERS to school, not that there was much choice other than the horrible nylon "ski-pant" type. My mum was unusual in that my sister and I nearly always wore shorts in the summer and tartan trews that she made for us in the winter - when we weren't in school of course. We've had another three or four inches of snow overnight and it's still snowing but lightly. Not as bad here as other parts of the county.
 
Thawing out here, markedly warmer today. See they have cleared the shelves up in Scotland with panic buying, you would have thought the supermarkets would show some common sense and put a limit on how many items of milk and bread you could buy during bad weather, but obviously too much to ask. When I look at winter 1963 I shudder to imagine the chaos it would cause today. I think we forget that the majority of the population then (and certainly the people in charge of dealing with it) had been through a war, 13 years of rationing, and two winters that were close in severity. They were used to crises and hardship and how to organise things to mitigate it. We have had it so good for so long now that even small setbacks seem beyond our capacity to deal with.
 
In the absence of any hens ATM, I went down to the run for the first time in 2 days to do a bit of work getting ready for new ones. Soon came back in, though.
IMG_3211.JPG
 
Warmer here too - we've lost the Siberian wind thank goodness. Decided to walk to Post Office and butcher as car under a foot of snow, as is my drive and the cul-de-sac. Very treacherous underfoot so I walked in the road. There'll be problems tomorrow when it freezes tonight! Watched my cat carefully inserting his feet in the paw marks he made yesterday - until he spotted a bird under the hedge!
 
Managed to walk down to Whitchurch to buy some eggs (Oh, I'm SO looking forward to having 'proper' eggs again) Eggs were totally cleared out, except for the Organic Free Range, which were the ones I was after anyway.
 
Well, you all survived quite well! Ninnies? TBH, a lot of people here were scoffing at the warnings (we had red weather warnings where I am because of the two weather fronts, the one from Siberia/Scandanavia and then Storm Emma colliding basically over the east/south east of Ireland The Govt. had called a curfew from Thursday afternoon to Friday night for safety). Quite honestly, I freely admit to being an absolute wuss when it comes to driving on ice/snow. I'm not sure when/how that happened. We have so rarely gotten any snow here. This lot makes three times in 20 years. Since the last time we had snow, in 2010, when my husband was still alive and still at home with me, and we were snowed in for a week, I have, every Winter, regardless of forecasts, made sure that I have a stock of staples. Flour, yeast, beans/peas for soup, tins of things, and a few large bottles of water in case of power outages. My cooker runs on bottled gas. My Winter every day coat is a ski jacket from Lidl (can recommend them!).

So, this time, When the snow came, I was fine. And come it did! My biggest problem was having to dig myself out several times a day to the fuel shed and to the chicken run. Although roofed, and I had spent the first day of the storm trying to get some windbreak up to stop the snow blowing in, It just kept swirling in to the run as if the walls and roof weren't there! On Thursday, I dug the run out three times, and replaced the frozen water five times.(It's about 11x13 feet). On Friday I dug it out as much as I could, several times and put water in a large pot hoping that wouldn't freeze as fast. The snow was up to my knees in there, and deeper outside. The feeder kept disappearing under the snow. And then one of the hens looked like she was going to succumb, standing with her head drawn in, eyes closed. So I thought, enough! put extra bedding in the house, a container of water, and a bowl of food, picked them up and shut them in the house. It's not a suitable house for them to be shut in all the time. It's supposed to house ten, and I have five, but they are never shut in (the run is secure).
Anyway, they all perked up, and are fine. And I could stop at least digging out the run for a couple of days!

I finally dug my way to my front gate, and forced enough of a gap to squeeze through on Friday afternoon. What a shock!! Outside my gate, I seemed to be in a sort of hollow. The snow was only up to my thighs. On either side of me, huge drifts had piled up blocking the road, to halfway up the telephone poles! :shock: :shock: It was actually very scary, because it's a very narrow, rural road. The council don't touch these roads. And living alone, normally, I enjoy my own company, and quite enjoy being here by myself. But I found being isolated like that, being actually unable to get out and see anyone, was totally different! Very stressful. Thank God for the neighbouring farmers, who spent Friday night and Saturday with tractors and bulldozers clearing a gap through the drifts. I spent Sunday digging my driveway and front gate clear, so I could get out on Monday. FREEEDOMM! :mrgreen:

News reports here talked about the emergency services getting stuck in snowdrifts, and local people turning out to dig them out. One report told of an elderly dementia sufferer being found collapsed in a snow drift by an animal charity on a call out. They just happened to spot his clothes sticking out, and thankfully, stopped to see what it was.

A lot of people, mostly in towns, enjoyed the time off, and enjoyed skiing and sledding down the hills. Dau said one of their neighbours, a builder, took his tools, and built a very impressive igloo on the green opposite their houses!

What has most impressed me though is the resilience of nature. All my primroses, daffodils, snowdrops and Christmas Roses, which were in bloom, have come out from their deep covering of snow, still in bloom! It's taken a few days for the daffodils to come upright again, but they seem none the worse!

Don't want to see snow again for a long number of years!!
 
That's really interesting, LadyA. I'm glad you came through it OK, thanks to your foresight about provisions. It's really hard work shovelling snow, isn't it? And it's a one-sided sort of activity too, not good for the back.
 
Glad you and the hens survived LadyA. Ours just retired to the large coop and refused to budge outside, can't say I blamed them. They had a whole bale of straw spread in there and they pushed a pile up in front of the pop hole just to emphasize the point of not going out. It was all quite snug.
We didn't have huge amounts of snow it was the wind on top of the sub zero temperature that was the worst. Wednesday it was -11C at dawn then with the wind added on ghastly
 
I am thinking ahead, already. The chicken house is fine, for overnight. But not suitable really for them to be in all day too. So, I'm thinking of trying to get that replaced with a shed that would be large enough to keep a bin full of feed in there too. I got a nasty fall (two, actually) when I was getting feed for the hens from the shed during the snow. The wind was from the wrong direction, and blew the shed door in on me, knocking me off my feet, and I got a nasty bang on the step into the shed. And yes, Marigold, digging snow is extremely hard work. I think it was a combination of the enforced isolation and sheer exhaustion, but on the Friday night, something very minor went wrong, I can't even remember what, and I burst into tears, and couldn't stop! And I was also thinking that should it be another 8 or 9 years before we get another bout of snow like that, by then I'll be mid sixties, and probably not as able to cope!

There was great hilarity in the news here about the amount of bread that was bought. Supermarkets and shops were cleared of bread and milk and stuff like that. There were remarks like "Doesn't anyone know how to cook?" etc. But thinking about it, you realise that it's more likely to do with modern building systems. Modern housing estates don't have open fires. They only have central heating systems. They don't have bottled gas cookers, just electric or a combination of mains electric and city gas. If you have no power (and tens of thousands of people had neither power nor water during the storm & freeze), then you have nothing that you can't eat as it is. Sandwiches are a good option in those circumstances, because you have carbs and fat. The few shops that were open had queues up to an hour long, and a strict one way line in the shop. It was like pictures you'd see from during the War, or from during Communist times, of people queuing for bread. Only, there wasn't any, because the delivery trucks couldn't get there. Aldi, Lidl, Tesco, all the big shops closed on Thursday afternoon until Friday evening.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top