Autumn

" And all at once, summer collapsed into fall...".  Oscar Wilde

The cooler nights bring out the spunky in these guys - well, as spunky as a couple of senior horses get... We're wondering if the early appearance of winter fluff is a harbinger of winter weather to come? 

These rainbow rangers have a few weeks to go - our second attempt at raising some meat for the year after the first batch was lost. There are a lot of roosters in the bunch and they have a strange crow that they like to practice...often...and early. 

It's almost time for the great fig harvest of 2017. Ok, there's like 10. But 10 more than last year. This particular tree is growing like mad, considering we thought it was dead this spring it bounced back extremely well. I had already bought 2 more to replace it and now I'm not quite sure where to plant them. Having too many figs is never a bad thing.

The bacon seeds have grown incredibly fast. They've been dining on apples, beets, peppers, corn and milk. Lots of milk. They slam the trough down every chance they get to let us know when the milk is gone and just stare at us when we dare give them water instead.

The girls are coming in to heat, a little later than normal given the crazy unpredictable weather we've had. 4 bred, several to go. We did appraise the herd this fall and overall it was a positive experience, several of the girls raised their scores and our herd average was higher than anticipated. 

Yes, love is in the air. . . or is that urine? The boys are raring to go, fighting, stinking and difficult to handle. 

Even though the weather has been pretty fantastic this fall so far, all around us there are signs of the impending winter. Annie-cat is fattening up. Well, she has always been fat. She's also really fluffy but she does like to sample the milk before we feed the pigs every day. 

And we're stocking up on and stacking up wood to feed the fireplace. It's coming. . . 

So for the next few weeks we're going to focus on sunshine, sunsets and porch time. Soon the changing leaves will be gone and the drear will return for another long windy winter.