The Arctic blast

For several days now we've been blessed with a chill arctic wind coming down from Canada. This means several things. First of all, it means the chickens now have a red heat lamp in their coop, which keeps it surprisingly warm and prevents their water from freezing. For about 48 hours they refused to leave their inner sanctum, though yesterday they went out in the snowy yard for a few hours. I can't imagine what they do in their coop all day, huddled in a 4x4 foot space. What goes through their little chicken minds? They are not laying eggs now - haven't been since November - but I'm hoping that in late January we'll start seeing them again.

It also means that the hummingbird food, which I just started putting out around Thanksgiving, is freezing up. We have two or three resident hummers (Anna's Hummingbird is the species, I think). For a while I was having to thaw their food out twice a day so they could get some sustenance. It's amazing that birds with such tiny bodies and minimal insulation can survive a cold winter like this. Here's an interesting article on winter survival of hummingbirds.

In addition to these two aviary facts, this cold blast means a) it takes about half an hour longer for us to get out of the house, due to the multiple layers, hats, mittens, boots, etc., required; and b) preschool has been cancelled several times, which means I don't go to work. So we've been doing a lot of baking and crafting and visiting and watching more movies than usual. And Melina's two-week winter break from preschool hasn't even officially begun!