Frozen

Woke up to let the chickens out. Found this.

Everything is white

Heavy snow lying on everything. The weight of the snow had bent some of the saplings. Worst off were the pineapple guavas that were lying all the way on the ground, and had to be shaken to loose all the snow.

cover(ed) crops

The beans and other veggies were all covered and the strawberry tunnel had kind of collapsed onto itself like a set of dominoes. I shook as much of them as possible and got them back in their original form.

The tunnel after I dug it out and stretched it. Reminds me of Star Wars

I think the berries and most of the beans are still alive. It was all dark and cold and snow and water had already sneaked into my clothes and gloves. Of course all of this was not dealt with before I approached where I assumed the chicken run would be and started literally digging into the snow with my hands to access the gate. After a while I realized it was a much bigger task than a mere shaking and brushing off the snow, and went and got a big brush with long handle from the shed.
Once I got the gate open, I was faced with a dark cave, almost 1 meter high, made from the bounding net of the run. The snow had gradually but surely gathered on the run's roof net and slowly weighed it down and stretched it down to 1 meter above ground. Above the net was packed with snow, not allowing any light to enter. I started bit by bit removing the snow and lifting the roof and working my way in to the coop.
It was a large amount of snow, and cold as in a freezer, and every time I made a tiny wrong move I was showered with a lot of snow that went into my clothes. My fingers were aching and all I wanted to do was to fix up the run so the chickens could come out and eat.
The roof net, not being one single piece but rather a number of strips I had connected together, had of course split up in its seams and the strips had to be reattached unless I wanted the chickens to fly away.
The biggest surprise was the metal support beam in the middle. It was bent, almost broken under the snow.

This picture I took after I had straightened it up

Lucky it hadn't given way. Next I have to rethink the run roof and what supports it and remake it. When making it I did think about typhoons and heavy rain but could not at all imagine we would get this much snow, and that snow would so easily gather on top of the net instead of falling through.
After about half an hour and three pairs of gloves later, I had mended and cleaned up the net adequately and also connected one of the trees as extra support for now.

The roof is cleaned and lifted up, not all the way back to its original place but still

And here is a picture of the run from outside, after I was done. The brush is resting next to the gate.

Yeah I took care of the chicken run first and then the veggies and tunnel

And finally could let the chickens out. Inside the coop it was warm and nice, and their water container had not frozen. The sun had just started to come up and warm the garden.

The chicks are out. Their first encounter with snow ever.

The chickens waddled around a bit in the snow and didn't seem to mind playing around in it. They even started eating it. After all my cleaning and their clomping around and the sun suddenly melting the snow, there was this really gooey slippery half frozen mud bath right in front of the gate, probably ideal for ducks, if I had any. Now I just had to take out the poop board, carry it down the slope which by now was icy and without falling into the mud bath. The last thing I wanted in this mess was poop...

2 days' worth of poops

To my own surprise I pulled it off. And could clean the board and put it back without any incidents.

Clean as a poop board can be. And the compost bin is happy

As a bonus I gave the chicks some meal worms and was just about to go in and take a warm shower when Tora started screaming that he wanted to go out and see what all this fun white stuff was. So I let him out.

footsteps

It didn't last long though. After a quick inspection he drew the conclusion that snow was no fun at all and went and waited in front of the door for me to let him in again.

It's so cold...