A Bright Wednesday

Well, we got down to 33 this morning... and I am so grateful that the hoses are running! 

Stiff, but running. 

For the time being, I'm still filling the duck pond.  Once it gets really cold, I'll put the pool up and then use the deep fortex, which will move into the chicken yard and out of the pasture. 

No feeding the wild animals this winter, I'm afraid. 

Not with little goat dinners stabled out there. 

The ducks have been sleeping in the lee of the hen house, behind the 4 x 4 pen in the yard.  They are protected from the wind there, and also have light from the yard light pole.  Last night, I put two big armsfull of hay droppings back there for them to nestle in, and they were very happy to find it. 

Obviously. 

Now the chickens have come out and scattered the hay, so as Keith said last night... it's time to make Fort Apache for the winter, and he's right. 

(our straw bale fort constructed to protect waterfowl from the winds and snows of winter). 

The red petunias at the henspa are still with us for a while longer. 

However, I don't know how long the pumpkins on the porch are going to be. 

"You mean US, MaaMaa????"

Uh huh. 

I've been picking up a ton of these in the last few days, and have about a thousand more to bend and stretch for.  Good exercise.  I don't have access to the Walnut Wizard this year, so it's not as fun.  The squirrels are going to get a bonus, though, at the brush pile in the pasture. 

I'm exhorting these guys to GROW every time I walk by them! 

And finally, from my mouth to God's ear.... and via Joyce in Iola, Kansas... I am so grateful to you, Joyce, you'll never know.  I stayed up late last night and read three fourths of my beloved book over again. 

And here is yours truly, at the age of 8 years old... in the Kansas City Star.... displaying my filled library summer reading card... "The Solar System".  It didn't take long for me to fill it, I was reading from the time I was a little thing, and my dad and I read the morning Times at the breakfast table every morning together. 

A life-long love of reading started back then, and the book above was one of the many reasons. 

I never made it to England, and I never owned a stable full of horses like I always wanted, but it's been a  very good life anyway, and the last ten years, bliss. 

Blogging serendipity, indeed!