Fall

Coyote! This fall has been full of yips and howls, sightings and scat. And one missing hen while the chickens were out free ranging beyond the electrified fence. No more of that! They all stay in all the time now. This group of 3 coyote was so brazen and were passing through daily between 7 and 10am. The kids chased them off. I chased them off. We were getting quite tired of it really. We were worried about losing our new kittens too. I took this photo as there had been a discussion in a group I'm part of about coyote or coy-dog or coy-wolf, etc. I figured my photos might clear up for those what exactly we were hearing at night. We had singles pass through and groups of up to 5 for months on end this year. These animals are as tall as my 50 lb. border collie, but I bet they weigh about 35-45 lbs. maximum. This trio appeared to be a mom & her 2 young to me by the way they behaved. I think she was getting pretty desperate to have the young grow up and hunt for themselves. I think that is why she was looking for chicken. As soon as rifle season opened in November (deer) we stopped seeing the coyote. For wildlife sightings we have also seen opossum, mink, grey foxes (2 together) and the neighbor's dogs quite often :) Oh, a neighbor's horse too. Lots to look at out the windows.

My baby is 18. Here is my mom holding her newest grandson standing next to her oldest grandson. My sister welcomed the new little one this August. He's a big boy and growing! We enjoyed and nice afternoon of celebrating my son's 18th and visiting with one another. This fall has been busy for him. Wisdom teeth out and SATs. A weekend at MIT again (for both the teens) and now registering for college classes for spring semester to finish up his senior year of homeschooling. He will get dual credit for those. He is still so busy with odd jobs and friends and school. I can't imagine him moving out for next fall! Where did the time go?

Here is our littlest one on top of Blue Job with his good friend, T. They hiked it with the Cub Scout Pack 155. The pack is quite large and their den has a good number of boys. Scouting has been a good thing for our son this year.

This was a cool photo of what happens when you don't properly thin the carrots out. Cool, huh? We thinned most of them out but left one part of the row a little tighter. I think we pulled the last of them last weekend so that John could till in the piles of manure I kept moving over to the garden. This year I was lazy and decided to move some manure directly to the garden rather than letting it compost first. I remember Dad doing that many a time as I was growing up and it works out just fine as horse manure is not that hot and is mostly hay/grass anyhow. The garden was good this year but I was far too busy horsing around to spend much time pulling weeds, or thinning carrots. The teens worked in a garden each day for pay so it was hard to get them excited about gardening here at home. The little one was our most active gardener and I'm sure he will be the one to plan out the next one! I'll be interested to see what he wants to grow next year.

I'm still getting many, many horrible photos with the new camera. We are not good friends yet. Let's see how that goes in the future. :)

~Rachel

Kittens

Kittens! We have had so much fun watching and playing with kittens. This is our 12 year old cat, Mouse, whom the kittens would very much like to play. She allowed a little "cat and mouse" or should I say "kittens and Mouse" in which she would twitch her tail so they could jump at it. This game got old in about a week as the kittens wanted "more" of Mouse and she had had quite enough! She enjoyed being the only cat to go outside and that is where she would get some rest. That has ended now as the kittens are also coming and going; torturing our chickens and horse and following the dog and me on our daily walks around the land... what crazy little kittens.

Here is Jester for her close up.

Here the kittens are finally not scared of the dog anymore. Now Charlie has a routine of coming in from outside and spending a good minute or more rubbing himself all over the dog. Tossing his body into Tide's front paws and practically asking to be mauled. Tide is very restrained and often gives the kitten a brief sniff and then walks away. I'm a little worried about just how friendly and outgoing Charles is. The coyote here have been very brave. They should not be greeted by kittens.

Another of Charlie's habits is to sleep in curious positions. He will find a lap and "bloorp" off from it as our middle son says. He goes so limp during sleeping that he will start to slide off the lap and not ever stop himself until he has slowly dripped onto the floor. He also enjoys being upside down with his paws in the air.

Very, very entertaining.

~Rachel