Wow, January certainly got off to a impressively chilly start! Here up at The Crossing the landscape was transformed into a winter wonderland for much of the month giving it the appearance of being asleep. But asleep it is not, it still brims with life! With each climb of the hill we would find countless wildlife prints in the snow. Deer, badgers, foxes and rabbits. And the resident pair of Great Spotted Woodpeckers keep up their daily chorus of drilling and ‘tchik tchik tchik’, as well as flying often overhead.
The minus 4 temperatures froze our water bowser and taps, but some quick syphoning (and I mean quick literally otherwise the water would freeze inside the tube mid-syphon!) off the main water tank solved that problem. The icicles dripping from our storage container reached 5 inches long in some places! And the hilarious image of the poor chickens wading up to their necks in snow provided us with some humerous moments! However, some extra minerals in their water has kept them healthy during this tough time of year. They have still been laying 10 or 11 eggs per day even during the hardest parts of the winter. Well done girls.
