Good Morning!

Good morning!

It's a lovely, super blowsy day on ye ol' ridge . . . but it's pleasantly mild out.  In the 40s, I think.  We finally got the first really hard freeze on Sunday night (I think it was) when the mercury dropped down to 26.2 degrees.  For those of you who were following my Guess The First Ice On The Beaver Pond challenge on my business FB page, you're hearing it here first:  while my cousin M was a near winner with a guess of October 22nd, a favorite blogger, Ruthie, hit the old nail on the head with her guess of October 17th!  So, she will be the recipient of a matted print from Chicken Mama Originals!  Yayyy, Ruthie!  :)

Because it was so mild and the moon was SO bright last night, the geese were still outside when I went to close them up.  Fortunately, it didn't take a whole lot of coaxing, and I was able to herd them all up the plank into the safety of the chicken house for the night.  It's amazing how much (pleasant) noise the chickens make, though:  I really notice it now that they're gone.  My geese-only poultry flock now consists of Tallulah, my Toulouse goose and the four American Buffs that I inherited from my dad (Papa Pea?) last . . . fall??  I know that they won't provide me with any eggs until the springtime, but I'm still gonna keep them:  a homestead just isn't a homestead without SOME livestock to welcome you home . . . even if it's not a "useful", paying-their-own-way critter.  Although, with only 2 females in that bunch, I may still cull 1 or 2 of the ganders.  Time will tell.

I'm sure that Son of Sam had help from four-legged friends when it came time to eating its kills:  yesterday morning, Tucker had a "bark-off" with a fox who was about half-way down the driveway where I know there's a den.  I said, out loud, "You TELL 'im, Tucker!"  I would prefer that both he and Maisy would have gone tearing down the driveway to defend what was theirs, but no such luck.  But, sigh, that's probably just as well, too.  It wouldn't do to have them attack every single creature that comes into this (very wild) neighborhood.  Besides, they'd be more likely to bound up to the fox, front paws extended out and hind end wagging back and forth to say, "Hi, fox!  Wanna play?!"  'Cause, I know that's what they did with the skunk!  Geez.

I had an unexpected but lovely (as always) visit from a dear friend last night, and we ended up talking until just after 2:30 AM.  Ugh.  The 2:30 AM part wasn't hard . . . but the 7:00 alarm that was needed in order to get her to work on time at 9:00 sure was!  And, I certainly wasn't any help:  after I got out of bed to turn off the alarm, I jumped right back under the Polar-fleece (yes, you read that right!) sheets for 25 more minutes!  The whole idea of Morning just does. not. compute. in my head!  ;)  That said, on the days that I am forced to rise early, I DO love the early starts to the day . . . the light, the anticipation of a brand new day, yadda, yadda, yadda.  Anyway, in an act of selfless solidarity (ha!), I told her that I would resist temptation and STAY UP when she left.  :)  And, I have!  I've already been out to do chores, chop some wood and get both fires goin'!  All in my bathrobe, of course.  I was tempted to take a picture of myself this morning while out doing chores as I was quite the picture of Homestead Sexy:  my light green bathrobe, the lime green terrycloth sweats I'd pulled on, my blue barn Crocs, and my dual-purpose orange hunting season / barn jacket.  What a PRETTY picture I painted!  (Chuckle, chuckle, snort!)

Oh!  Before I forget, I want to send WONDERFULLY HAPPY BIRTHDAY GREETINGS out to a dear eFriend!  If you have a chance, head on over to Rowangarth Farm's blog to send her a little b-day love.  I hope she's getting the chance to =dosoe09thng900000000000000909 (that, courtesy of Bonzi) take some time to do something special today!

Finally, I know I haven't gotten many pictures up lately, but I did go back and post some in two previous posts:  this one and this one.

Okay, my laptop battery's at half-mast, so time to sign off.


Happy October 20th, friends!