Farm feels oddly quiet today. Perhaps because 4 of the animals left yesterday for the butcher. Not comfortable enough in my skills to tackle that myself so I'm paying to have someone else do it. Still got the other cows on site and of course the chickens, such a joy to have them around, but it is getting late, I'm hoping they'll be ready by the end of November to hit the freezer. We are so not prepared to overwinter anything but ourselves on site. Maybe next year we'll have more opportunity to actually upgrade stuff on-site rather than just fixing what's here from previous owners.

Bit of a circus loading the animals as the steer nearly jumped the fence to get back with the rest of the cattle. Managed to find a potential solution, will check into it this weekend for next year, lots to learn I should have had them rounded up before the truck arrived but still wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Just been watching the wild animals this year, grouse population seems down, probably due to the number of coyotes around, deer seem to be common enough though I can't see them well enough to tell if I'm seeing the same 2 or 3 in a couple different fields or if there's really that many around. Locals are telling me there's a big black bear around but I so far have not seen it or sign of it being around, well unless you count the neighbours hives being behind electric fencing now as sign of the bear. Not sure if it was preventative measure or reacting to bear caused damage in the first place.

Off to the city this weekend for provisions, found a decent wholesale spot so time to stock up before the snow really flies and keeps me closer to home.

Be well all

Harvest Time

Well it's been a pretty busy month, harvested the rest of the garden, potatoes, beets, turnip, parsnip, carrots galore.

Thanksgiving has been and gone, both had company on the farm and went to the city to visit other company. Great times.

Getting the place ready for winter now, cold enough that I am draining the garden hose on a nightly basis to keep it from freezing. Barn got cleaned up, just have to tear down an old fence and put down a new ramp to one of the outbuildings, be much nicer for storing the equipment in.

Once again reminded that I still need to find a suitable beater before winter so I can tinker with it, maybe even rescue the neighbours lawn-mower that they bent the blades on which I believe also bent their output shaft from the motor. It'd be something to work on that I might get a use for instead of making more afghans or quilts that we have tons of here already.

Still waiting on "work" to call, hoping to hear that I've got a position to get some income rolling besides what is here on the farm.

More books from the library, so awesome the libraries being in a huge network if local library doesn't have it (which is true for most of what I want to read) they can order it in, free of charge. Only trouble is you don't always get to renew the stuff that's ordered in if someone else is on the waiting list for it. But I stand by the library, so much cheaper than buying even a couple books a year new, still have to see if they have wi-fi or not.

Well, its a nice sunny day so I better get outside while the sun is shining and... pick up debris I think, still got a couple sections of fence that fell over and need broken apart for loading into the dump wagon / burn pile. Grass kind of overgrew a lot of it so still discovering where some of the bits are. Easy to turn an ankle out there.

Be well.