Umbra moves on to a new home

Today was Umbra's last morning with us as he moves on to a new home, and in trade we are getting an unrelated American Blue male who is blue. We will miss his gigantic kits and experienced male production, but having an unrelated male that we know to be of quality will strengthen our lines. I brought him down to drop off at Michelle Chandler's Blessed Acre Farm this morning, and will be picking up his replacement from her soon.

Our life has been a bit on hold lately due to car buying going on. It has been a bit distracting, even to the point that I forgot to order oil before we ran out over the weekend! Stress makes you forget things, so we've been moving slowly and trying to not drop details. At this busy moment, the next round of kits will soon be born! Dawn as always has been the first to build a nest, and is already fur ripping. Her daughters Halley and Comet followed suit mere hours later, and Twilight got started on her nest last night, and informed me of her shortness of Quality materials this morning by flinging herself at the wire of the hutch and shaking the wire, usually reserved for lack of pellets. The major fur pulling hasn't happened yet, but we should be having kits very soon! It looks like this is going to be a cold winter, so we have the tarps ready if there is any serious rain expected. Even if we aren't below freezing I want to make 100% sure we don't have a repeat of the first litters of the season with the cold killing an entire litter. That's what this is all about isn't it though? Learning, and not making the same mistake twice, at least not twice in a row!

We have for the moment given up on keeping the chickens in their run. Every day we come home and at least 2 of them have flown out of the run, and are meandering around the run. We've considered wing clipping them as has been suggested by a few people, but for now want to avoid that. Right now they have the power and agility to fly up into trees or at least away if a predator shows up, and definitely have the instincts to do so. I'd like to leave them that line of defense, so in that mind we're just letting them roam once fed in the morning. They promptly head off into the brush and disappear into the woods line where you can only really locate them by sound for the most part. You wouldn't think such brightly colored critters could hide so well, but they are good at finding spots they blend into.
One of our real triumphs of the garden this year is finishing with a bang, as the Limon Peppers just keep producing and ripening at a crazy pace. I'm letting them stay on the plant until we want to use them to help preserve them. Tevis mentioned that we can just cut the whole plant and dry the whole mess of them at once. It seems efficient so I'm going to try it. We are almost at the very end of their life cycle, but are trying to eek those few last days out of them. We are also preparing to cut as many green tomatoes off the vines as we can and learn how to use those. The Lady of the House has been looking up lots of recipes, so we'll see what we try out.

And last, just because it is beautiful, the morning sky this morning with the moon still out. I hope everyone is doing well, and enjoying the turn of the seasons as it comes.