Infrared Chickens

 Doesn't Otto look mad?

Winter came yesterday bringing us a handful of tiny snowflakes, and temperatures that dipped to 17 degrees last night. That probably doesn't sound that cold to many of you--but remember we spent a summer with three months above 106 degrees, and just a few days ago we were running around in t-shirts and sandals. So for us--and our animals--we might as well be on the Arctic tundra when it gets like this.

We use a small electric heater in our original chicken coop when it gets below freezing, but since there is no electricity across the creek we had to run an electric cord and infrared lamp that kept them at only 27 degrees. This produced an eerie, red glow in the woods coming from the new coop. The chickens looked put-off when I pulled out the camera, as if to say 'this is not a Kodak moment!' Just look at Otto's expression! (And yes, I remembered to bring the camera back with me this time).

We weren't much better off in the cold. Our old farmhouse is about one third single pane glass making it very cold and drafty, and in this kind of weather our heat pump struggles to keep us around 50-60 degrees. So we built a fire in the fireplace and broke out the new heated mattress pad. It seems to be baking us on the lowest setting and I woke up thirsty in the night. Can't imagine using it on a high setting, unless my camera needed it!

Today most of the remaining leaves--seemingly caught unaware--fell off the trees leaving circles of colors around their feet. We took photos for our holiday cards, and I'll be sharing that with you in tomorrow's post, since it's all about our pets and fits nicely with the theme for Sunday Stills.