Fall has arrived

 And right on cue with the equinox. Seems that one day the leaves were just starting to turn, then- boom- full out fall colours.

And gorgeous sunrises!

 I have been pulling my gardens; the peas are done, potatoes and carrots are half pulled, and the flower beds don't have much left. 

That  really tall sunflower produced a large head that is still hanging in there. The poppies are done and now I wait for the seed heads to dry out so that I can harvest the seeds, some for eating and some for next year planting. 

Still on the to do list is pull the gladiolas and prepare them for the winter; dig up the rest of the potatoes and the carrots. I decided to cut up and freeze the carrots.

My niece gave me some green tomatoes so I was able to make my green tomato mincemeat, as my one tomato plant didn't work out. Yay! Mincemeat tarts for the winter! 

The baby boys are doing really well. We didn't do the photo shoot but I did get some cute cell phone photos. 

Dogs spotted!

I started them on turnout, now that Leo is doing well with haltering and leading. First just the two little barn pens which got them all excited to have room to run.

Leo only ran because Tuffy did. He seems to have a very calm disposition. 

Cant wait until he fills out and grows up! 

I opened up the larger grazing pasture for them today; it has rope hotwire  on two sides and I want Leo to get used to that before I combine the herd on the big 15 acre pasture that has the flat hotwire tape on the long side.

There was no zooming, just nose to the ground and chowing down. 

This is bow hunting season and my niece bow hunts so I had to send her this photo of an early morning visitor.

Mule deer bucks are on a draw here, not open season, so hopefully she will be able to get drawn next year and he will still be around. 

I had some troubles with blogger, it wasn't updating my feed so I missed a bunch of your posts for a few days but it seems to be sorted out now. It also is telling me it will be deleting some of my older videos. I am opting not to put videos on my blog for now because it is such a pain to have to upload them to you tube first, and I really dislike the you tube advertising they stick on there. 

September flowers

 Why is it that the flowers are best in late summer?

The cosmos took over my little flower bed at the house. They self seeded.

That sunflower is about 11 ft. tall and just bloomed the other day. Under all the cosmos are snapdragons, calendula, poppies and nasturtiums. 

Escapees

Messy but beautiful!

My gladiolas are finally coming on. This color is blooming first:

There are a couple more colors to come, this one is next:

I should be able to add it to the bouquet in a couple of days. Should also be some yellow ones.

I may have planted them too deep, they took a long time to surface but I am so glad my glads are flowering!

That in between stage

 Tuffy is really shedding his foal coat now. He is very growthy too being 12. 3 hh at the hip and just under 12.2 at the wither.

He is still a good boy and is learning to come when he is called. His feet are a work in progress, I need Ted to hold him while I work with them as he tends to walk away, or if it is his fronts he will kneel when I pick up the foot. That could be a good thing when he gets to be 16hh!

That red tail though! 

It will eventually shed all the red out but it's pretty cute for now. 

We are near the tail end of summer here; the geese are starting to flock up, waiting for harvest time so they can glean the grain fields. 

My heart goes out to all the folks who are affected by the fires west of us in B. C. where fire is still raging in the Okanagan as well as down in Washington State in and around Spokane. So far our area is good, we get a lot of thunderstorms that are keeping things wetter than usual here. 

Good boy Tuffy! 

A new to me variety of poppy, I love it! Growing amid the cosmos and snapdragons. 

My raspberries are producing great this year, and Ted built a cage for them to keep the deer out- they had already snacked on the new canes.

We will line the bottom half with chicken wire to keep nosy deer noses out!

I made some raspberry jam; sugar free, sweetened with honey. We have a honey farm not far from us and I stocked up on honey for the winter. My veggie garden is doing great too- I am getting enough peas to last the winter, and the carrots and potatoes will soon be ready. I think I will freeze the carrots, I don't have any luck storing them. 

Wild things and flowers

 I enjoy sitting in the gazebo in the afternoon and watching all the birds that fly along the river; the osprey diving for fish and the cedar waxwings catching bugs as they swoop down from the surrounding trees. There is a stump near the gazebo and every time I sit there the little house wren comes for a visit. 

It is the cutest tiny bird!  

     

Robin (I assume juvenile) with a white tipped tail. Sorry about the crappy photo; taken at a distance in a hurry from my cell phone. 

Then there is this fellow, pretty sure he is the same one I have seen for the last couple years. 

Other than wildlife, there are flowers happening here, finally. 

Cosmos and calendula that self seeded for the last 2  years

This is a tiny flower with foliage that is similar to maiden hair fern

Snapdragons

Portulaca

We had some dramatic clouds last weekend. 

Love it when there are fingers of light poking through holes in the floor of heaven. 

And of course, one must include horses! Dally has literally no forelock left. 

Who needs a forelock, anyway?

Summer lull

 I have flowers! Finally.... 

The one I want to share with you is an iris I brought with me when we moved from Creston 4 years ago. It didn't like the 1st location I chose for it- too much morning shade- so I moved it to a full sun south facing location last year. This year it burst forth in all its glory! 

The name of this iris variety is Starship Enterprise. My sister gave me the rhizome 6 years ago, it did bloom once in Creston and I am so happy that it is happy! I do have one more that I brought with me but it isn't quite ready to bloom this year. I am hoping it is orange, but more likely it will be purple- cant remember which one I brought with me.  

We had a little change of plans with Happy- I am still sending her to Shayla at weaning, but since she seems to be quite healthy other than the melanoma lump on her neck she is getting one more year at least. Shayla won a stud fee to a very well bred stallion called French Eye Candy who is a son of the great Dinero (aka PC Frenchmans Hayday) Barrel racing fans will know who he is. So Happy and Tuffy have been there for the last week; I should be picking them up this weekend. 

Interesting thing about this stallion, he had a color change from sorrel with a flaxen mane to dark chestnut with a darker mane. 

Yes it is the same horse, I checked his markings closely. 

I also have an update. Some of you may remember that Gussie had a foal from Shayla' s Percheron stallion Layne, and she threw a blue roan filly. That filly, Evie, is now 3 years old and getting started under saddle. 

Pretty girl, isn't she? Draft crosses are becoming very popular, especially as trail and ranch horses. 

I got all my hay in the barn now for next winter; I opted to buy last year's hay, same supplier, as it is going to be iffy for putting up hay without rain around here, and first cutting hay will be already over ripe and stemmy, which also means later cut doesn't give much time to put up a second cut. So I figured to get hay that I know is good, even if it is a year old. 

Now, some summer weather please, with no tornado or hail warnings, all of which have been ongoing for the last 2 weeks. 

Sunday Silence (aka it's time to start using my real camera!)

 

Enough already

 April came in white. Started snowing/raining last night, and this system is supposed to last all day. Enough above freezing to make it snow but warm enough that it's melting on the vehicles but not on the frozen ground.

My footsteps on the walk way this morning, to and from the barn. It was bare yesterday.

My garden containers, a long way from being able to plant. 

The mares have settled into their new routine. Their hay bale is on the other side of that shelter; they only go in there to eat but don't hang out in there. They are currently standing out in the weather in their favourite spot in the winter pasture. 

Happy also has free roaming in and out of the barn, I put most of her hay in there and one flake on the lee side of the barn- and that is where she prefers to be, probably because she can see the other horses from there. 

She too is currently hanging out in the weather, unconcerned with getting wet. All the mares are still sporting their winter coats, guess they knew something we didn't. 

I found this beauty in Walmart and couldn't resist adding a splash of color to this greyness that is hanging in there.

Let there be light and love.

 In all the sadness of the recent weeks, I choose to look for the things that make me happy, to deflect my thoughts from the creeping darkness of this world. 

Hello little ladybug, how simple your existence is. 

Being injured and in pain definitely slows  down one's ambitions, plans and goals. 

But it's nice to get extra Thumper cuddle time.

Having plenty of pasture left for the winter makes me happy, as do shiny, healthy horses.

Patsy aka Pattycakes will be headed back to Shayla later this week. She has grown a bunch and is still the sweetest filly. 

Flowers and bees and butterflies? Happy making for sure!

The moose hung around the riverbanks until the next morning. And now the deer are starting to come back, like these 3 does who didn't have fawns this year, showing up at daybreak. 

View from my dining room window. Can you spot the third one?