Autumn! Best Time of the Year!

Autumn, the best season! 

Despite some higher-than-normal temps, it is beautiful here in northeastern 

Kansas. 

If we could just get a little rain....

Four days were promised last week, with storms warned.  We did have clouds and 

thunder on Thursday, but despite a few sprinkles, the storm moved over.  Friday, 

we got a light rain.  I'm back to watering the plants again. 

I took that at sunrise on Sunday morning.  Yes, it's really that beautiful, and I'm glad to be alive and well enough to admire it. 

I put a bowl of cat food in the pasture daily for squirrels, the feral cats, and anything else that wants to eat it.  I stood and admired the view.  Yes, I miss seeing the sheep, but no... I do not miss emptying the 

heavy troughs every few days.  I am considering... right now, just considering... broadcasting some wildflower seed and letting the pasture grow up next year.  However.... this pasture was not cut the 

year I moved back, and had to be cut down with a tractor and bush hog (Called a "brush hog", here). 

So, there's that.  

It would make it hard for the wild critters to get around. 

It also kind of admits to defeat for me. 

A beautiful web in my garage on Saturday morning. 

Alas, by the evening, it had been destroyed, probably by a

 cat going through, or a chicken (on the anchor strings). 

This garage and the accompanying shop, a small barn with a cement floor, were 

near the original house on the property, which was on the south fence line. 

It was a u-pick berry farm back then, and encompassed my neighbor's ten 

acres and my neighbor to the east's acreage.  

My happy boy, Jester.  He is going to be ten this year, a venerable age. 

He is maintaining his weight, and except for the burst anal gland, has been 

getting along well.  I have switched him to a food that he seems to like, Bil-Jac Picky Eater. 

(chicken liver flavor).  We are going to the vet every six weeks now, for anal gland expression, and sure enough, last Monday he was found to need it.  The vet and I just looked at each other.  It will be a regular thing now. 

I am having trouble finding a good picture to show you all how very tiny Olive is.  She is the smallest of all the hens, probably not even a pound.  She is a Silkie, and that is Pipsqueak, one of the two Silkie roosters next to her.  One of the bigger pullets (now hens, they are all laying) is particularly mean to her, and she doesn't often come outside.  I would put her with the three Silkies who are in their own little pen, but I am not sure she would be happy with them. 

Those are two of the young pullets.  This is NOT the one that is attacking Olive. 

Can you see Molly? 

This beautiful girl is Cleo, who started out in the Little Red Hen House. 

Part of a big group of feral cats from Missouri, she is truly wild. 

She has been neutered and had a set of shots, but will not come 

near me.  I have learned to look in the morning and evening in the fenceline, to find her waiting for some canned food.  She is living now in the wild 26 acres across the road from me.  It's funny, because I can sense when she is around.  She will let me come within ten feet 

to put her plate down, and the porch cam has caught her eating on the deck many times. 

I go out at 5:30 in the morning in the dark to put a bowl of cat food out so she can eat early. 

There are Wanda and Yeller on deck on the seventeenth.  Wanda will meow to me  now when I go 

in the shop morning and evening to fill their dishes.  I keep dry cat food out there all day, but take it 

up at 8 so the darn raccoons won't get it.  Yeller will lay and stare at me, but he is not ready to be friends yet.  I have actually not seen him for two days, and am a little worried. 

Wanda is mousing at the big hen house too. 

Rusty has been missing for a week, but I am not worried... yet... of all, he can take care of himself. 

The harvest moon on the horizon... I got a bigger picture but it did not have the perspective! 

These are mourning doves on the feeder one morning. 

I have to say something here about the wild birds. 

Last year, I spent hundreds (probably thousands) on the 

blend of wild bird seed I have fed for years.  Like everything else, 

the price of the grain has been passed on to the consumer. 

I am no longer feeding from swinging feeders except for one 

very small one on my deck. 

Every night, I go out to the flat feeder (on the right just barely visible in this picture) and I scoop out 

what seed is not used that day.  I leave just a tiny bit for the raccoons. 

In the last three weeks, almost no wild birds have been feeding.  I have not seen a woodpecker in a month, and I actually threw away suet that had molded ... no one had been eating it. 

Several other people here locally have mentioned that they have not seen any woodpeckers. 

I would say only a fifth of the birds who normally eat have been coming to the feeder. 

I have a separate feeder for the small birds, with a blend of small seed, sunflower hearts and 

dried mealworms.  There are some still eating there. 

I do not attribute it all to Molly lurking around either, because others locally are 

writing about it.  I suspect natural food is in great abundance right now. 

It has been so good to have a respite from the expensive feed for a bit. 

I am not going to feed with the swinging feeders this winter, and won't put seed out in 

abundance as I did before.  

The only remaining swinging feeder is in back of Molly here. 

 (laughing)

There is a comm tower across from my bedroom, and I always watch it for birds. 

Here is a vulture (my favorite bird, and soon to leave us for the winter) in the horaltic position last week. 

Two weeks ago, I was ready to tear the plants out of the 

big planters in the forefront here.  They all looked dead.... and then, miraculously, the weather got a little cooler, and the vining plants began to bloom again profusely, and the geraniums perked right up! 

I have actual sweet potatoes growing under those vines, and next year, I'll plant only sweet potatoes in those planters, as the calibrachoa got drowned out. 

 Some nights I don't get the bowl in fast enough :-). 

Proof that this is my little slice of heaven. 

A good thing to remember when you are wondering what your life is about.