Weather Extremes and Chicken Update

We had arguably the most mild December in terms of weather that I can ever remember.  Not only did we  have very little snow and a green Christmas but the temps approached 50 degrees.  Around Christmas it also finally stopped raining and the animals here at Czar of the Woods were very happy to get out and enjoy the unseasonably warm weather and sunshine.
The chickens are finally producing more eggs in part because of the new ones that we adopted from the SPCA (not only are the new ones producing more but it seems to have induced the others to lay more as well), the weather and I told them that they would end up as soup if they didn't start earning their keep.  As you can see the chickens thoroughly enjoyed time outside in their chicken yard for Christmas.

 The bounty!

Even the horses got outside for the first time in a while due to all the rain and mud.

And what a difference a week makes.  These photos taken with my new outdoor, mounted wildlife camera (more on this to follow in a coming post) show winter as we have come to know it around here...thermometer on the barn reads negative one degree fahrenheit (30+ in the barn due to heat the horses give off).  This is more like it, although I don't like it.