Happy Halloween!

Jane and Bill's New Calves

Jane and Bill, our neighbors to the west on Palomino Lane, have twenty cows who recently dropped 19 calves. One died or there would have been twenty.  They have two heeler cow dogs who are very talented. Martha is showing her teeth. Grady jumps up on hay stacks. In the photo of Jane and Bill, they are fixing an auger to dig fence post holes. They got it working, but then they are very talented also.  Martha and Grady look on. Jane got four Dorset sheep this year, but they wouldn't pose for the camera so we see sheep butts. Jane loves those sheep! We went to visit Marion this week who has hair sheep. We talked sheep, geese, cows, and garden.

Fall along Palomino Lane

These are photos of the trees and bushes in front of our place. The yellow tree is now brown. After our first hard freeze this week, it was yellow in the morning and brown by the afternoon. We don't get a lot of fall tree color here but enjoy what there is. George the Head Rooster is in the second photo. We have seven roosters now. Most are hood ornaments. Serious sparring will come in the spring.

Fairchild

Fairchild and I always have a morning cuddle when I go out to feed the fowl and this time I had the camera along.

Hey, you forgot us

A couple of weeks ago we had Todd Titus come to trim the horses' feet. We brought them into the corral to get used to being tied up a few days before. We'd take them for walks since they aren't saddle trained. If one was out the other two would stamp and prance, maybe wanting to get out with her or wanting her to come back.  Harriet the pony is a bit rotund. She may be pregnant. We'll know in March. At least their little hoovies are trimmed for the winter.

Chicks again

These are the two left of the latest batch to hatch. They're about six weeks old now and mama should cut them loose any day. That's mama to the left and Black Beauty duck preening to the right.

The Last Turk

Here's a photo of the last turk in our flock. He gets butchered this morning. We decided the boys were getting so big and difficult to handle because they were so heavy that we would butcher and freeze them for the holidays.  People say that turkeys are stupid but I did not find that to be the case. They are personable, friendly and curious (okay and not the prettiest flower in the garden), and I was getting attached to the last guy so it is a good thing we get this over with. (And I HATE butchering anyway.)  At this point I wouldn't raise turkeys again unless they were a smaller breed. These commercial broad breasted turkeys are so top heavy they can barely walk. Yesterday our last tom took a dust bath, maybe as an ablution for the upcoming event. Of course Fairchild the cat had to investigate (see photo).  I won't take pictures of us plucking him, etc. Thank you turkeys everywhere.

Hay

Sunday a week ago John and I went to Shirley Minghus' ranch across the highway to collect six tons of hay in 90 pound bales (for the horses, of course). A machine called a squeeze helped load but it kept breaking the bales due to a machine malfunction so we ended up loading most of the bales by hand. I didn't know I had it in me, but there's a lot of hay can be moved by sliding and pushing with hands and feet.  Actually, John and I both felt energized by the end of the day but tired. We loaded, counted, strapped down and unloaded. Shirley is one of the amazing ranch women who can do just about anything. Her nephew ran the squeeze. We had to scare up two trailers and an extra truck and still had to go back for the third load.  But now it is under cover in our hay shed ready for the horses to eat this winter. Glad that is over!

Dust in the Sunset