Happy Halloween

photo by Tegin Helton

From Hootie and the gang at the Lazy J.  Remember the Saints on All Saints Day and decorate the graves of the departed on the Day of the Dead. 

Snow

A snow storm blew in this afternoon. It started as rain. We're to get one to two inches till it is over tonight. It is so welcome because we are so dry. It's colder, and our beautiful Indian summer is over. This is the turks first snowfall. The other evening I caught them watching the sunset from the garage roof.

Portland Youth Philharmonic

We had a special treat in Burns on Saturday night. The Portland Youth Philharmonic came all the way to Burns to put on a superb concert. They did four pieces, one of which was the Grieg piano concerto in A minor and a very little person, Hannah Moon, played the piano without music, and she was incredible. These kids are high school age and very dedicated musicians. The PYP has a special connection to Burns because it was started in Burns about 1910 by Mary Dodge who taught kids to play the violin. She moved to Portland in 1919 and in 1924 The Portland Junior Symphony was born. The picture does not do the group justice. The concert took place in the high school gym for Burns has no performing arts center. But there is a very energetic group working to build a new Performing Arts and Education Center. All but a few curmudgeons love the idea. It will take a while, but we are looking forward to it.

Hootie's Ladyfriend is Back

This morning I was sitting in the living room about dawn, and I heard our resident hoot owl hooting away. Hoot, hoot, hoot.  This is unusual. We never hear him hoot except in owl mating season and, guess what, it's hoot owl mating season. So when the sun came up I looked out the dining room window into the elm tree and there they were. Hootie found his ladylove again.  She was here last year but left in the winter to find and nest and have the owlettes. Hootie lives here year round. I tried to take photos, but have you ever tried to take photos of an owl in a tree with leaves without a telephoto lens?  The owls just look like two brown blobs in the tree.  Male Hoot owls are smaller than the females. They have great gold eyes.

Hootie the other day, solo, in Russian Olive tree

Brown blob on left, Hootie; Brown blob higher up, Ladylove, in Elm tree

I finally got some photos of our bummer calf, Guido. Bummer calf means he was an orphan and had to be hand fed. Our neighbor gave him to us for boarding their horses on our pasture this summer. Bummer calves inevitably are small, so Guido is very small for his age. He was born in April.  John says he is our emergency food supply.  He's really a cute, and his day consists mostly of eating and laying in his house or in the sun.  

Guido outside the door to the feed shed

Sun is nice. Ear tags are for identification.

Guido and hen friend

Waiting patiently for John to come out of the shed with his alfalfa and wet cob

We traded two of our four Tom turkeys for two hens. Our neighbor had four hens and we had four Toms. I wanted some hens. They are a cross breed, half of which is Bourbon Red. I like these guys much better than the White Broad breasted we raised two years ago. These are good foragers. They like to fly and have been seen on top the garage walking around. Maybe we'll have some poults in the spring.

Toms having a drink. They walk like dinosaurs. Thunder lizards.

The new hens

The four. Two hens in the middle. The Toms are about double the size. The Tom on the left is doing the fan dance.

 

Hope everyone is enjoying fall weather. We're enjoying Indian summer here, which should last another week.  It's mighty dry here.

CJ, our boarder, and JT