Fall might finally be getting here!

 

After spending a little time outside today I think fall may have finally arrived! While the sun is shining and everything is still bright and warm, there is that beautiful fall breeze rustling through the trees. The leaves around our home are just beginning to turn color and some have already begun to drop to the lawn. This is our pup, Boomer's, first fall and he is loving chasing the leaves around and pouncing on acorns!

 

 

The turning leaves and colder nights are a beautiful thing, but they are also a reminder that winter is coming and that we need to get more firewood rounded up, split and stacked. We also need to order some more heating oil as we cannot heat out home with the fireplace alone. :(

We're down to only 7 chickens at this point with the Cornish-rocks now in the freezer with the beef cow but maybe that's not such a bad thing as we head into winter. The Silver Laced Wyandotte pullets should be laying by the end of October and I can't wait to see their little brown eggs (hopefully in the nest boxes where they belong!) More updates to come on that later!

I recently ripped out some of my summer vegetables and re-tilled the soil before placing rows of carrot and beet seeds into the ground. The tender seedlings are poking up through the soil and ready to produce round two of our beets and carrots for this year's growing season. The green beans have slowed down dramatically and we've decided to try and save some seeds for next year so we will be letting the remaining pods grow and big and lumpy. We will then dry them and take out the seeds and cross our fingers that next spring we can buy at least one less seed pack!