@dsqard, great pictures. I especially like the birch trees also. Very striking. I love stuff that leaps out and grabs your eyes.
I spent the morning out cleaning out the nesting boxes and doing some updating. I spent days building wooden nesting boxes for them but the little ingrates would rather lay their eggs in cat litter buckets. I have about 9 or 10 set up for them and there always seems to be a pileup out on the roost bar for one to empty out during the day. I have to say it does make cleaning and dealing with the hens a lot easier. Just pop a bucket out of the line, dump it out, make sure it's clean and add fresh bedding. When the hens are broody and about to hatch I just pop the nest out, bucket and all and set it in the pen for them to transition. Plus with 5 cats we are never at a loss for buckets.
No sun here today so it's coolish and acts like it's trying to make up its mind whether or not it wants to rain. Wish it would decide.
A lot of folks here heat with electricity. I don't understand why in all honesty. We have a slightly shorter winter here than we did in IL with less snow but we still have our fair share of both snow and cold. Enough that I sure wouldn't want to give our money to the power company any more than I would want to give it to MFA Agri to haul LP out here.