Wet day

Posted by louisa on Thursday 8 December 2011 in chickens | 3 comments

It has been decidedly moist* here today. I realise people further north/in Scotland have it much worse than us but it’s still very wet and windy.

The beck at the bottom of our garden is usually just a pleasant trickle amongst the many rocks – 2.5m/8ft wide but no more than 15cm/6ins deep for the most part (there are some deeper pools and Lily-dog knows the location of every single one). There are enough protruding stones that we can step over it in trainers without getting our shoes wet. Not today though.

It’s fast and dirty – the run off from woodland, farmland, golf courses and roadways – and when the wind drops, we can hear it roaring from the house. We’ve seen it a foot higher than this, right to the edge of the far bank, but this is busy enough.

(As a comparison this is what it looked like this time last year, just after the first load of snow. Much calmer and clearer. A few days after that photo was taken, the top couple of inches of the whole beck froze solid enough that I could just about walk on it.)

The chickens have also been complaining loudly to me about the weather of late. I asked on Twitter earlier if anyone knew if you could get snorkels for chickens but I think actually wellies and/or waders might be more appropriate: it’s very muddy in there.