Winter

This morning i broke a fairly thick layer of ice laying on top of the rain water that had collected in my glass dishes placed in the fire pit. I had emptied the mail bin at the fence into the rain water collection container in the orchard and put the plywood back over it the night before, using the car headlights as a flashlight to see by. However, i had forgotten about the containers placed in the fire pit. Now by the light of day they were visible. I was surprised how thick the ice was and when i checked the thermometer on the porch it was in the twenties. I dumped the freed water into a pitcher and used my fingers to scrape the ice into it as well. I then carried it to the rest of the rain water collected in the orchard, lifted the plywood, and dumped it into the container to become one with the rest of it. I now had more rain water than i had ever seen collected at one time on my property. The winter storm had really provided well for the chickens. Their container was still good and full but this water would be here in the container under the plywood when it was time to refill the jug in their chicken pen.