The Lady of the House's Birthday (Oh, and snow)

So, today is the Lady of the House's birthday. Unfortunately it's a gray gross weather day, so if folks could send her cheerful messages it'd be greatly appreciated. I know she makes my life a lot more livable, and this homestead wouldn't exist without her.

I wasn't quite sure what to do for today, but I figure the first thing I'll do is say just how much the Lady of the House does.

Cleaning the house.
Cleaning under the rabbit hutches.
Feeding and watering the rabbits when I'm clearing snow or days she is home when I'm working.
Understands genetics (Vital for the rabbits)
Gardening: Basically all of it other than digging.
Researching ideas for future goals.
Checks my work.
Reminds me to reconsider before acting at times.
Reminds me to get started on things that aren't done yet (Really, I totally didn't forget . . .)
Other things I'm forgetting at the moment (No really, I don't forget that much.)
Oh, and makes me very happy.

So, on to other things. The rabbits are doing well, but we got a lot of snow/rain mix. Wintery mix it is, but that doesn't describe the  awful that it actually is. Snow will fall, and may get into the food dish getting it wet. Rain will fall, and will get the food wet. When both happen at once you get this disgusting frozen slurry in the food troughs that is quite difficult to knock out of them. It quite effectively denies the rabbits their food in a very rapid fashion. I've been thinking about how to minimize this, or fix it entirely since we don't want the rabbits to be without food. I'm considering making little wooden shields to go over the food dishes, and moving the feeders to hang off the interior privacy area wall. I think the best option would probably be to make little shields, but I'd have to make sure it didn't freak the rabbits out. I suspect it will take quite a bit of fiddling and experimentation, but we need to find a way to keep the rabbits food accessible no matter the weather.




The other thing I wanted to talk about is slush. We've gotten down how to deal with snow, we're even just fine dealing with ice. Slush on the other hand is a monster. I am as sore from trying to deal with 6 inches of slush with the aid of a snow blower as I have been from dealing with 3 feet of snow without a snow blower. Not only that, if you look Left and Below you can see how clear I could get things. If you can't tell that's still 1" of slush that will probably  be sheet ice by the time I get home. When I'm hoping for it to be sheet ice so I can deal with it, that's kind of nuts. I honestly have no idea how to deal with it aside from clear what I can, wait for it to go solid, and sand the hell out of it. Any recommendations would be quite welcome. Oh, and before you suggest it, I've thought of a flame thrower, but we're trying to conserve fuel as much as possible.