The rain arrived and the leaves have fallen

For the last three days we've had rainy and very windy weather. The temperature has been hanging around 45-50 degrees Fahrenheit, so about 7 degrees Celsius. The wind is sharp and cold, and has knocked a great deal of the leaves off the trees already, almost all the trees are bare. It seems early for the trees to be bare, we've had other years they have held until the end of October, even into November. I'm glad we were able to enjoy a little bit of color and the warm temperatures we had Thanksgiving weekend. But now it's time to prepare for the cold.


This is what one of the trees looked like in the yard five days ago, with Torn Ear posing. He has returned this year and seems to be in good condition even with his one eye completely gone. These trees are all bare now, not a leaf left.

The goats and dogs have been enjoying the fallen leaves, the dogs for rolling in, and the goats for eating. The big dogs are really thrilled with the cooler weather, it brings them alive and they are acting like puppies again.

The trees behind the chicken house have been holding up. This is one of the prettiest trees on the farm in the fall and it usually holds it's leaves the longest.

We went out Saturday evening to collect some sticks for a light fire and to look around... We were pretty tired of being cooped up all day due to the blowing rain which came and went.  We just collected beaver sticks, and Kevin cut up some smaller branches with the hand saw... this is not heavy fire weather and we don't have any heat on in the house during the day yet, so far just a light fire in the evening for a couple hours before bed. Today it's pretty chilly in here, so I'll likely start one a little earlier to take the chill out.

it all burns good!

It's easier to spot things in the forest now so we were hoping to see something. There are a lot of red tailed hawks on the move right now, so we saw a couple of those along the way. The trees were blowing pretty badly in the wind gusts, so we didn't stay in the deeper wooded areas for too long... no reason to push our luck.

On the road to our big creek, we saw a porcupine in one of the trees - there is one who hangs out in this tree in the winter all the time. He/she was pretty sheltered from the wind, but the tree was still swaying pretty good.

Just as I was turning around and walking back to our ATV, Kevin pointed to another porcupine walking right towards me, he was heading for the same tree and apparently hadn't noticed us yet. I turned around and he looked at me a little surprised and then quickly headed in the opposite direction... I snapped a picture, and this was what I got, a little too close!

He quickly went up a nearby tree to get away from us.

 

Not to be outdone, in another part of the farm we spotted a baby porcupine! He was tiny, it's very difficult to tell from the pictures, but he was so small, and so, so, adorable. You just want to grab them and give them a big kiss. You'd be sorry if you did, but they look snuggly. Then again, so do bears. 

He was in a really small tree, just hanging on as it blew around. The cooler temps have brought them out.

Yesterday we split up some wood we already had in the wood yard, for some exercise and also to help put some wood in the wood box for the week.Yesterday I had five ticks on me from working outside. I'm actually ready for it to freeze so I don't have to spend all day finding ticks all over me and the dogs. It's nuts how bad they are this year.

The goats just milled around as usual all day. They haven't been enjoying the weather too much... But they have really started to get good and fluffy.

Izzie is the exception, she's really been enjoying the cooler weather and has been acting like such a goof, running around, jumping in the air, she's been really happy lately which makes me happy too.

I caught Flavious practicing his new favorite song... he's pretty good at it.

Biscuit got caught with her mouth open, which is not unusual. They have really been eyeing up the pumpkins on the deck at the house... they know they'll get them once I'm ready to give them up. They are starting to run short on patience though.

Did someone say, pumpkins?

Kevin getting the wood splitter uncovered

 our first load

 The weather continues this week to be overcast, but today is a good day for cutting wood and we'll need to get the shell on our pickup truck so we can load up with animal feed tomorrow and not risk it getting wet. The weather calls for rain for the next couple of days, so we'll leave the farm to get our errands done.

Since Halloween is coming, I've been enjoying watching old scary movies. I don't care for the newer movies which are meant to scare you in a much different way, but I love old Vincent Price movies, Boris Karloff... it's been fun watching them in the evening with the dogs... Douglas the Pug watches T.V. a lot, and whenever a person comes up in full view on the screen, he barks, which gets Norman thinking there is someone here and all heck breaks loose. It's pretty amusing watching Douglas starring at the TV growling with his hair up at this strange person coming into our living room.

All for now, time to get back to work...