It may not be snow, but it's still a pain in the @#$

The birds have been cooped up -- literally -- for five days now. Torrential rains have forced me to keep them in their coop. I feel guilty that they are living more of a "factory farm" existence these days, but since the term "bird brain" doesn't come from nothing, I don't trust the girls to keep themselves warm and dry.

I had to put their food and water in the upper (dry!) part of their coop because the bottom part is completely flooded and their food had turned into a goopy mess. But they still like to come down their ladder and wade around in the mud and muck.

They seem to be handling the inconvenience just fine, although this morning they looked at me like "are you ever going to let us out of here?"

The vegetable garden, on the other hand, isn't faring so well. The lettuce is mashed into the mud, and the sugar snap peas are falling all over each other instead of standing majestically against the trellis. But if I try to look on the positive side, maybe the downpour has washed away the aphids and little green worms : )