A Rainy Morning

We've had some nice, gentle rain now for two days. 

We've had the doors and windows open, and the air conditioning off.  

The little guys are spending a lot of time indoors, either in their barn or in the henhouse. 

Goats don't care for rain. 

I thought the walnuts were the only ones losing their leaves, but look... these are under our old maple by the deck! 

The Duck Pond Express has not had to be used for the last few days.  That saved a lot of bucketing on my sore wrist. 

This is what I saw as I came down the drive from getting the paper this morning.  The "hump" you see in the right is a hill about two miles away.  This part of Kansas contains gentle, rolling hills. 

All morning, I've been watching the ducks and chickens run back and forth between the chicken yard and the goatyard.  The brown thing you see is the back of the goat hay feeder, which the chickens love to lay in, and the goats love to nap in.  The ducks for some reason love this yard... there is a fortex in there full of water, and a bucket inside the barn (for the goats) and they played in the water in the yard for a good fifteen minutes this morning.  Then, the chickens began running in and out as well, so I enjoyed listening to the crowing and quacking as I sat here reading blogs. 

That's a lone starling in the foreground, but there was quite a group of them out there for a long while, eating. 

The clouds are beginning to drift away now, and it is considerably lighter out. 

I am going to Leavenworth this afternoon for an appointment, and going to get ready now after a pleasant morning spent (partly) reading your blog entries. 

I'm going to have a giveaway for the first time, hopefully tomorrow... and those of you (Sandy!!) who wrote about how to do it, thank you so very much for your comments and suggestions!