Ice, more ice, and more learning.

There are times I envy the poultry for their firm footing. While they are having a good time out in the grass, and have no problems with the reality of most of the property which is still, sheet ice everywhere. Those of us on two feet for the most part are having a much harder time of it.

The Critter doesn't really care aside from making sure he walks on every single area of ice instead of the open grass. In this photo he's walking between the wood piles. One of the things that has been a particular challenge lately is keeping them covered. It's not that we don't have plenty of tarps, we do have tarps. It's not that we don't have them weighted down, they're covered in chunks of wet, weirdly shaped wood that usually keeps them perfectly secure. Lately we've been having crazy levels of wind. Yesterday for instance apparently had gust winds of 40+Mph. That's ended up flinging the wood chunks on the wood piles 30+ feet away from the wood piles, and left the piles uncovered. Thankfully I managed to keep the coverings on during the worst of the rain storms, but it's been inconvenient, and very noisy at night.

The rain has also obviously been problematic. When it rains at 33 degrees it is troublesome. Water coats everything thoroughly, then the temperature rapidly drops to the teens or below turning into a smooth, slick surface. The driveway as usual has been particularly unfortunate. That has been exceptionally stressful because the Critter has been sick for days, and we were always on the first parent edge of, do I need to take the kid to the ER overnight with fevers. Turns out he's been ok, but we were trying to figure out if we were going to luge down the driveway, or try to bushwhack through the woods down to the car. Fortunately it didn't come up, and the driveway is now thoroughly sanded until the next rain.
We also have some rabbit news, but it isn't good rabbit news. All of our breeders are fine, but we've been visited by the sex change fairy. Someone in Twilight's hutch is male. We found out when we came out and found 6 big, normal looking kits and 2 that wouldn't have been viable most likely. Because I "knew" that all of them were does there wasn't any straw in there for surprise babies, and they died on the wire. Given that there are at least 3 does in that hutch, I put straw in just in case. I'm going to have to when there isn't glare ice below the hutch check all of them for testicles. Who ever has testicles is going to be our next rabbit dinner unless he's really spectacular. The sex change fairy is a constant in rabbit breeding, but this is the first time I've had that mistake end up with dead kits due to my mistake.

Otherwise, the rabbits are doing very well, and are coming down to good breeding weight. Day by day learning curves.