Hard rain, falling leaves, and driveway repair.

Day by day we see more color in the leaves, and more of the plants die off. The water pepper, a constant around the property and favorite food of the rabbits is on the way out, or already gone. One of the consequences of this is that we are going to have to start actually feeding the turkeys instead of just supplementing their diet of foraging with scratch, mostly to keep them coming back. As the fall comes I suspect we'll have an easier time finding the turkeys since they'll be wanting food actively.

The good, the pretty, and a bad review.

After a busy weekend where we weren't home as much as we might normally like, we have some good, some interesting, and some bad. First things first, another harvest from the bean plants has turned up a lot more beans to can. We let the beans get bigger this time, and are going to be canning them shortly. It's amazing how many beans we're going to have canned for the winter with just a few plants. If we do a full spread next year of beans we're going to have probably more beans than we need, which would be a nice change from not being able to put enough up for the winter. Next year we'll be out weeding more which will make a huge difference. The bush beans actually do a good job of out competing our weeds though, which is kind of nice. The balance between the pole beans and the bush beans really is the bush beans produce more, but are more of a pain to harvest. Sounds like a job for the Critter when he's old enough to take directions since he's closer to the ground. That's over a year off though, just planning ahead!

Moving ahead, leaving things behind.

Today we start with the unlovely, and move on to the lively. This weekend as I mentioned last week we got in a dumpster to clear out things that have turned from treasured personal possessions to trash. Things ranging from books, to only copies of photos, to very practical things like sleeping bags. All of that has been emptied from the barn, and the barn itself is now very much usable again. It has gone from not so much full as too cluttered to use, to organized, and with sufficient room to easily park the car with room to spare for a second vehicle. The shed is also empty of everything extraneous. Oh an emotional level it's tough throwing out things that in the past may have been precious, but let's be honest, our life has changed. There are better uses for the barn now that we're going the direction we are with our life. Once the fencing material is out of the barn there will be even more room.

Rooster out, rooster in, and good fortune.

Things are moving very quickly right now with the Lady of the House very busy with getting working on her art as she's got a show going this next weekend. With all of that, that doesn't mean things have slowed down around the homestead. I'm going to start with the things that are quick first.

First things first, behind me to my right (the left of the photo) is our sunchokes. We weren't sure when to harvest them, but I think it was probably long before now! they seem to be thriving, and I'm sure next year we'll have plenty of them to work with.

In other news, today I bred Dawn's Daughter with Herbie of all bucks. I was surprised he successfully bred a doe, but we'll see what comes out. I really hope he comes through, and it's a big litter of good looking healthy babies. This is the last chance for him to continue living with us, so here's hoping it's great. I'm going to be trying for a second breeding this evening, and seeing if any other does that refused this morning will go ahead and breed this evening. I'm hoping to get a couple other does bred before we're too busy for the weekend to take care of them. We'll see, as a rabbits mood isn't mine to determine, and I'm not going to force them to breed any more than I do by controlling when does are exposed to bucks. The kits are going to be ready to butcher shortly, so we're going to be back in rabbit meat which is always a good thing after a while without.