We’ve been hit by quite a bit of the white stuff lately. This in itself is not particularly newsworthy, as, well, it is winter, and this is Michigan. We had, however, a noteworthy snowstorm on New Year’s Eve. It was really wet, sticky stuff, and, coupled with a complete lack of wind, and a slow, deliberate fall, flake by flake, the stuff actually stuck to the deer fencing with which I covered our chickens’ run.
Yup. It collapsed the thing.
I found this surprising. The netting is 3/4″x3/4″ webs, and the actual netting itself is rather thin. 99% of the snow just falls through. But the cotton clotheslines and trees and various other jerry-rigged lying-around-the-farm things I found to string the stuff up were overwhelmed by the snow’s weight of this snowstorm. It even snapped all three of our actual, use-it-weekly clotheslines, which were UNDER the strung-up netting.
I got exactly zero sympathy from the husband regarding the collapse. He laughed, mightily.
So now I do the limbo, or near enough, to open the coop’s door. Sigh. I will fix it all once it stops snowing, if it ever does (it hasn’t yet). The birds are unphased. They just expect a path from the coop to their condominium next to the house. And the netting is still low enough for a chicken.
Glad you came to visit!
Got something to say? Email me at fastweedpuller at gmail dot com.
fast grow the weeds 
D’oh! At least no chickens were squished in the collapse.
oh, man!!! That sucks!!!
Bummer! At least the chickens are ok.
Hey – I love your new site. Congrats on making the transition – I am a wee bit jealous. Maybe someday…
Happy New Year, El!!
Weird, don’t know why it put your name in the “Name” line. Whoops.
Well, that’s some seriously heavy snow. Glad to hear that no chickens were harmed.
Nice job on the new site!
Meg: The chickens are smarter than you’d think. They’re never around when the interesting things happen.
MM: I know! At least when I put it up before it was warm out. Now? Brrr. Hard to tie knots with gloves on!
MELinda: That cracked me up. I thought, another one? Maybe it’s a Mac thing! And Happy 2008 to you too. I think it’ll be a good year.
CC: Annoyingly heavy snow. Grr. I don’t have enough clotheslines strung up in the basement, especially. But thanks; I’m so not tech-gifted…it was pretty hard!
That was some oddly sticky snow. I have similar netting around my fruit saplings, and I woke up to find them plastered to the ground. Luckily, they rebounded quite well, but now I don’t know if they are in more danger from deer or snow!