First snow

Today was the first day that the new hens had seen snow on the ground. They peeked out at it but decided that it wasn't something they wanted to investigate at close quarters.

We've been getting a few more eggs of late - two or three of the Ameraucanas have been laying for a month now, and this week we got the first dark brown egg from one of the Barnevelder or Welsummer hens. The Ameraucanas lay a double-yolked egg every so often - the one on the left of this photo, much bigger than the one on the right, will probably have two yolks.

The snow is very pretty, but I'm not sure I'm mentally prepared for winter yet...

Ash again...

A sad day today as we watched three tree surgeons take down the big ash tree at the rear of the house. It was very close to the property and with the advance of the Emerald Ash Borer through Ontario, it seemed sensible to anticipate the inevitable and remove the whole tree rather than just the branches which were overhanging the house.

I didn't envy the three arborists their job, but they were very methodical about it, with the lower limbs going first, and then the upper ones.

Until all that was left was the central trunk to come down.

There is an impressive amount of burnable wood left for Mike to cut into smaller lengths for the fire.

I counted the rings in the lower part of the trunk and I think the tree was 64 years old. Our house was built in the early 1970s, so the tree was already 20 years old then. 

It's amazing how much lighter it is in the house with the tree down, even with no leaves on it!