Happy Thanksgiving

Did you save in pumpkin skins or apple cores for us??

Finally!

I found 3 eggs in the bantam house last night. There has only been ONE egg since August. I think the red heat lamp is helping. Now if the big hens would just get all their feathers and start the egg production again!

Arlo's Worldview

Hi! It's me Arlo ()

Anne was up visiting last night and she said I had been too quiet on the blog - guess I've been slacking letting Mom Lori do the work.

I was having fun teasing Hans while Anne was here. Hans has been crazy all day (he is the new guy - Swiss Alpine, the same age as Christopher, so he's still a kid) Boy does he think he is something though...... Some of the girls have been in heat and so all the bucks are really fragrant. Glad I don't smell like that - no one would want to hug me! Mom Lori let us into the pen closer to the bucks so we could have more running room. Hans was making the crazy buck noises at me, sticking out his tongue and hanging his head through the fence. I was teasing him by getting just close enough that he could almost touch me - BUT NOT, hehe. I think I smell like the girls, since of course I live with them. I was pretending to head butt him but stayed far enough from the fence that he could touch me - hehe - it was funny...

More later ()

Ready for snow

I was able to get the garden ready for winter, the fairy garden put away, flower pots put away, summer pasture fence taken down, stuff on the back porch covered with a tarp or put away, and a few other miscellaneous chores down yesterday. I feel like it can now snow and I won't be rushing around doing things. It helps to not have snow until the end of Oct/first of November. Last year it started at the beginning of October and many things were left undone.

The Halloween lights are even up down by the chicken house :)
It's nice to have that orange glow as I put the chickens to bed, particularly since it is getting dark earlier and earlier.

Fall activities

Since it's been cooler and damp the last week, more cats are showing up for dinner. The big brothers of the new kittens have been rather scarce this summer, but now they are here on a regular basis. The only two cats I saw everyday during the summer were Midnight and Sparkie (and of course Bernedette - she's always here). Even Merlin - the patriarch - has been here. This is only the second time I've seen him since Aug 1. He may actually come to eat more often but just doesn't stay long. Usually he's friendly but this time he only hissed at me (maybe Midnight had just introduced him to his new kittens ). Hehe.....

The raccoon is still passing through every few days. It rearranges stuff in the barn, but I've been diligent in removing the cat food and other snacks at night. Hopefully it will give up soon.

Made some delicious pumpkin bread with some fresh pumpkin. Used my favorite banana bread recipe and added pumpkin spices.

I'm hoping to get the terraced garden beds rototilled today and then plant garlic. I think this should be perfect timing for the garlic as we may get a hard freeze this week.

More and more hens are FINALLY starting to grow their feathers back!

And more...

Actually it turns out there are 3 kittens: two black and one gray. And I petted the gray one for quite a while - of course it was concentrating on drinking goat's milk and didn't really notice :)

The circle of life

Friday night when I closed up the chickens, I found my blue cochin bantam hen Fatima, lying dead on the floor. No signs of being killed, and she hadn't appeared sick, so I don't know what happened. As my grandmother, Mimi used to say "chickens just die" - I always need to remember this.
I took Fatima's body to the end of the property so something wild could have dinner. The next morning only a few feathers were left. I don't mind giving up the bodies to feed the foxes and raccoons, just as long as they leave the live ones alone!

The raccoon has been back a couple more times but hasn't been able to get into any barrels of food (the new sack of cat food is still in the house).

Now for the exciting news: Midnight has brought her kittens back to the barn. They were born about Aug 15 under the toolbox in the barn, but she moved them a couple weeks later when I was doing too much cleaning and banging around in there. She moved them over under the neighbors A-frame shed and I hadn't seen them since. I knew they were ok, as Midnight is obviously nursing. So yesterday morning there were two little fuzzy heads peeking over the hay. They actually came out to eat and have goat's milk so I could see them fairly well. Don't know the sex of them yet, but the black one's name is Onyx. The gray one will be Pearl if it is a female, if a male then maybe Cloudy or Foggy