Almost a 'Sunrise' this morning but by the time I had finished doing the feeds and grabbed my camera from upstairs the orb of the sun had already risen into the grey clouds so I missed the best shot.

And by the time I was out with the dog and up to a local field that is currently a massive puddle of several acres it had all but gone.

The puddle provides a brief winter home to dozens of Canada Geese and Mallard Ducks plus quite a few pairs of Swans

So lets have a bit of colour on a grey day!
There are a couple of Barn Owls that nest in a local tree every year here is a picture of one them from earlier last year his/her mate is lower down.

Berberis leaves in the Autumn Frost

Our Pond it won't look like this again now we have the Ponies and Eeeeep!

Another local Puddle!
 

Some shots of Teaser

 

Being Liver and White this is the only way to make her a real B&W Spotty dog!
 

 Dalmatians 'Smile'

Duck house

Cleaned all the straw out of the Ducks shed today and put some fresh in. Normally, I would also give it a good scrub with disinfectant but that wasn't possible in -2degC and the drainage holes were iced up. The chickens will also have to wait for a good clean out, I clean the litter tray and change the bedding in the nest box at least every other day anyway. Apparently, we have blizzard conditions outside so I'm very glad to have a blazing log fire and not very happy to have a 'Giant' (not really very big) spider, that came in with the wood, hiding under the bookcase. Chickens love spiders, or at least mine do, but no, I'm not getting one of them in here, they wouldn't fit under the bookcase.

Another egg

Gladys provided another egg today, so no problems with the scrambled eggs for Saturday. Now she just has to lay one tomorrow, (Friday) and Saturday and that's Sunday mornings breakfast sorted out.
Bit of a thaw today, we can see mud again, and the odd blade of grass!

A delivery

We had a delivery today
6 'Heras' style security fence panels and some old scaffold boards
The new Chicken Coop and Duck House move build begins at the weekend. More to come over the next weeks

I follow this excellent blog, click:
Shetland pony everything

Not everyday you see a Shetland in a Cardigan or two for that matter :)

Video of the Cardigan wearing Shetlands

An Egg

Yesterday, Gladys laid a proper egg, didn't oblige today though. This has serious consequences for the Saturday morning scrambled egg and bacon on toast - who gets the egg?!! Someone will have to have the Tesco free range egg if I don't get any more by Friday, (when there is more snow forecast, it's been snowing all morning today too) or mix two together. There is a definite difference in eggs, ours have thinner (or rather easier to break) shells and much more orange yolks than any shop bought ones and that includes the Organic and Free range eggs.

 

The ducks enjoy their afternoon mixed grain and come running out the pond to bother me for it, just like they all run into the pond when I come down with the meal worms. Meal worms float in the water and the ducks love snapping them out of the water. If I don't put them in the pond the chickens will eat them all while keeping the poor ducks at bay, that's if the ponies don't come over to see whats to eat. The grain has to go inside the fence round the pond to keep the ponies off, especially 'Miss Piggy'.

We've had some Fieldfares (birds like a Thrush) down at the bottom of the field, I think they are after the dropped Crab apples. The Diamond White Pheasant turned up today after a few days absence, and there's some really big Crows up in the Oak trees. Haven't seen any Buzzards for a while, but then the Crows normally see them off, which is good as I don't like the way they swoop over my birds.

Some zoom shots

Today was the turn of my Canon SLR for some zoom shots, the lunch time light was not as good as yesterday.

The sheep keep an eye on me constantly they are very nervous little things except in the morning when they get a feeder full of Sugar Beet

Next doors shed had some nice icicles.

Bouncer was looking particularly photogenic today.

And these are for Alden he wanted a better shot of his Duck Bubble I asked her to smile but...

So I waited for her to join the others.

Bamboo Rustlers!

After taking all the hay out of yesterdays diy feeder and dumping most of it on the floor, the culprits went for a nose about in the Snow and I grabbed my Nikon to see if I could get some less grainy and grey shots as Karens compact camera is struggling.

Then wandered down to the Bamboo by the pond where they were caught Red Hoofed...

Pixie seems very pleased with her blond highlights and matching Hay accessory.

The Morhens made a brief appearance whilst raiding the Duck feeder.

They examined an Alien rising out of the depths...

Meanwhile the Sheep use their stand of Bamboo to greater effect as somewhere else to hide from the elements although today it looks like an Elephant has sat on it.

 

 

Two weekends ago we built a sledge for this shed so we would have a portable field shelter for the Ponies. The four of us were able to drag it in to position easily.

To date they have only used it to eat hay in they prefer to be in the top left corner of the field at night although for the past few evenings I have brought them in. We will probably drag the sledge up there soon.

We need to catch Mars and cut away a few Dags, should prove an interesting sport at the weekend.
Here he is pretending I can't see him

His sisters look on

Ho Ho Ho.

Rather 'Farquharson' esque perhaps?

 Lastly the lunch time sky looked great and a hint of Spring our witch hazel is in flower.