Autumn is upon us.....

Fall Colors

Ringo

(Doesn't every farm need a mascot or three??)

...or so the calendar says. The temperatures belie the season. The next few days are suppose to be very warm in the upper 80s and lower 90s. It seems strange and its hard to think it really is fall. Leaves are falling, but there is very little color change happening. The sumac in the fence row seems to be one of the exceptions and has turned a brilliant scarlet.

The sheep are subdued again, as the hot weather makes them uncomfortable. The weather is suppose to become more seasonal next week. I hope so. Next week I set up the breeding group here, plus send three ewes to Allena's to go to a different ram. I will be posting pictures later on.

I evidently pulled my back at some point, so I've had some off and on problems the last week or two. Very bad timing as I need to get the girls wormed and give them their pedicures! Its feeling much better today, so hopefully I can work on some of the sheepies this weekend. I have most of the catch pen set up and will finish that up tomorrow. I also need to make sure everything is ram proof in the breeding pasture, before Locksfield Griffin joins the girls.
Next week is vacation and I have lots on the to-do list! I'm hoping to get things caught up around here and ready for winter. It will be nice to have some time off too. I'll try and be more consistent with the blog. It promises to be a busy fall! In lieu of pretty fall foliage photos I thought I would post these um, unusual ones I took the other night. The purpose was to get a photo of the Harvest Moon, but the moon is barely visible in the photos as a tiny round white speck in the middle. I'm not sure what this 'crop' is--I think its millet or maybe milo. It seeded itself years ago when I had a bird feeder on that side of the house. Every year it reseeds and comes up---quite an abundant crop. The birds start feeding off it in early fall and pretty much have it harvested by late October. Does anyone know if the stalks could be fed to the sheep? I mow around a selected number of plants in the Spring and let it grow all summer. It would take over the yard if I didn't mow bunches of young plants down. Hope you enjoy the photos (and they don't bring to mind images of Children of the Corn!)