New Year, New Snow

It was a surprise to get up this morning, having listened to the weather forcast from both ITV and the BBC, which told us that it would be milder today, to find it was snowing. Stepping outside made me exclaim (not a quote) that it was colder than I expected and far too cold to snow. Shows what I know about the weather.

Strangely, yesterday we though it was going to be a nice day, as we got up to what appeared to be promise of a clear day. We were stunned to find a covering of snow at Basingstoke station and at the ducks. It appears that it had snowed on Basingstoke town but stopped once you got outside. I can only assume that snow is post code related and as we are RG24 we didn't qualify, whereas RG21 was on yesterday's list.


It did make the circus tent start looking like a tent as it was evident that there had been no wind with the snow as every single upper surface of the chicken wire (or fruit wire in our case) was coated with snow. The ducks were a bit reluctant to go out as the same had happened to their compound.


Maisy and Daisy are very confused as to why they can't swim or why there is no foraging. Roll on spring when the slugs are back, is what they must be thinking.

it is fantastic walking around the allotment when it has been snowing and working out what bird and animal tracks there are. There is a fantastic absence of rat prints but a scarily large amount of rabbit prints and rabbit droppings. Of course, they have wonderful fur coats so are not bothered by the snow. Sadly, there is a shortage of water for the brids as evidenced by the prints in the water trough where the brids have been trying to get at the water.

We have, for the last week, been glad that we are wine makers as we have used the lightweight plastic demi-johns to transport water for the ducks. We haven't been able to take enough for their pond but have kept two plastic boxes and one cat litter tray topped up. Today must have been the coldest day this week as the water we put in in the mornings was frozen by the time we went back in the afternoon so it obviously didn't get above freezing during the day.

It is OK for people who got welly warmers for Christmas as it really was bitterly cold.





Also OK for people who got new Town & Country fleece lined gardening boots for Christmas.......



... and lovely for people who got rabbit slippers for Christmas, to put on when they get home.



Which takes me back to bunnies and the slightly unfortunate side of allotmenteering. We, rather strangely, based on the fact that the ground was like concrete, went to dig some of Katy's parsnips. Again, rather silly as the covering of snow meant that we couldn't find them, but we found that the rabbits had decided to do major excavation from the field behind her plot into her allotment. There is going to have to be some serious filling in and defence building in the spring. Thankfully, when Len gave up his allotment, he gave us some galvanised sheet, which will be ideal for building a defence, if we bury it three feet in the ground. Don't tell Matthew but it is on his list!