Octoberness

After morning chores and a delicious breakfast from the garden (potatoes,chard, onions peppers) I  took a walk around the farm with my camera. It has been too long!

It was a gray, drizzly day, making for muted yet saturated colors.

I am about  a third of the way through cleaning out the garden. Until last Wednesday, this was the tomato patch.

The greens (and purples) patch is still providing us with  kale, chard, celery, salad greens and  walking onions.

Gordita the scarecrow looks a bit faded and rather somber about approaching winter. That's exactly  how I feel.

A few flowers are still blooming -- ageratum by the farm store,

gaillardia out by the pond,

and black-eyed susans in the wildflowers strewn along the septic mound.

Pumpkinhead.

A dose of blue from the bottle tree.

Seeds from the blackberry lilies.

Wild cranberries by the garage.

A few straggling leaves remain on the serviceberries by the garage.

Hydrangeas and the trellis I made last year in the welding class.

Ducks squeezing in as many baths as possible before winter freezes the  pool.

Many of the hens are in moult right now, but these two look pretty good. Egg production is way down with the shorter days; today I only got 3 eggs.

One of the crazy color combo chickens that were Speckles' chicks last summer.

The guinea keets zooming past. When they pause and stretch up their necks to peer around, they look like a family of meerkats.

The cows are getting their fuzzy winter coats, and they are eating a lot more, which means mostly hay, since the grass is pretty much done.

Zinnie has extreme patience with Mojo, and I am so grateful for her  helping to wear off his boundless energy.

Zinnie hunting in the pampas grass.
She found a stash of eggs.

The pond has been very low and green since September, but the water  has risen a bit with the drizzle of rain the past couple days. It is not a very impressive pond, but makes me happy to have a successful tadpole hatchery. We had an abundance of young toads and frogs last summer!

 My walks always  turn into mental "To Do" checklists.  Must get the canopy off the  gazebo, put away lawn furniture and potted plants, mulch leaves, clean adn fill all teh birdfeeders, wash and cover windows with plastic film...

prune back hops vine, mow, weed, set up store for holiday fair, hang  xmas lights, make wreaths...

clear out stuff in garage stall to move the Willys truck and lawnmower in, tune up snowblower, deep clean chicken coop, spread compost on garden, shovel manure from loafing shed, extract honey from the frames, get another load of hay, harvest tilapia in aquaponics pond...

Fingers are crossed for a warm weekend to get some of this accomplished!