Friday, January 13, 2012

Winter colors

You were expecting white??

Hah! The Weather Service predicts a warmer than usual winter for Upstate NY. Which translates to pretty ugly, drab landscapes. (see example below)

So we search out our own color palette, where ever it may be hiding.

Check out that Maran egg...back to nice, dark brown specimens after a short winter hiatus of two months or so. The darkest brown egg layers always produce their darkest at the start of a laying cycle or the younger the hen.

I found this lovely little fungus in the woods; a spot of blazing color in an otherwise very brown and grey view. I don't recall ever seeing anything like it before. Any fungus fans care to name it or lay some knowledge on us?


And nothing says "Fun in the Sun" like neon farm pails. (Don't you just want to hunker down in some warm sand and make castles?) Really, I couldn't resist...I found these at Tractor Supply.

In my defense, we do have a color-coded animal system around here: Yellow is for Chickens, Orange for Turkeys/Quail/Ducks, Red for Sheep, Blue for Goats, and Green for Garden. Feed scoops, containers, hanging feeders, pails etc. are all kept/colored/labeled separately for the newbie/visiting farmer, farm sitter, or DH (who is very reluctant to admit there is a system, or that it has value...)

The neon pink pail and the lilac purple one (in use at at the time of the photo) don't have an assigned use, but who can resist PURPLE farm pails? After all, there is just plain, old hauling of water...

Because really, all this color is better than:


9 comments:

Melodie said...

That fungus looks like it could be Witches Butter, Tremella mesenterica..I had to look in my mushroom book!

melanie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
melanie said...

Excellent! Thank you so much for posting - I think you are right. Here's more:

http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/
witches_butter.htm

I LOVE learning new stuff - you are da bomb!

melanie said...

If anyone tries to follow the link, Blogger decided to put a space between the forward slash and the beginning of the word "witches", so be sure to delete when you cut and paste...(sigh)

Susan said...

Oooooh, nice buckets! I bet it's whiter today. I have gotten a very dark brown speckled egg that I THINK is from one of the Welsummers. Except it is full size and I was expecting a pullet-sized egg. From a Barnie? Thoughts?

Mama Pea said...

Yes! That's what we need . . . more COLOR in our lives this time of year. I'll vote for that!

LindaG said...

I can't wait until I have my own eggs to show. ;-)
Will be a while yet.
Love all your color pictures. Have a great weekend! :)

LindaG said...

P.S. I copied and pasted the link as shown by Melanie and it took me right to the article. Very interesting!

Gayle said...

Very fun buckets. Way better than my black ones. Wish I could trade them in. :)