Critters

 We have new pests err critters hanging out here. 

They have decided that they will clean up the bits of suet that the birds drop from the feeder and are using Ted's Jeep as a vantage point. They are quite entertaining but Thumper doesn't think so. 

We will have to make sure they can't get into the bird feeder that we will be putting back up soon. 

We had a spectacular sunset last night...

 

And a Chinook arch this morning. 

Dally is looking pregnant finally, and still is not getting winter hair.

 The other three have good thick coats coming in. 

Tuffy has curls!

I am making progress with Leo's feet; I have his fronts rasped and can clean his hinds. I will likely be able to rasp them tomorrow. 

One of the kittens is getting brave enough to show itself  but not for long before it scurries back under the bales.  I have decided to keep them as they are both male and I am getting too many mice in the barn. They can earn their keep. 

First a little paw ...

Then he peeks out

This one I have named Mr. Smith, the other one is Mr. Jones. They are 6 weeks old now. 

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. 

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?

So far

 If you haven't entered the foaling contest yet, go to this post to read the details

No foal so far.... 

Did you see that one of the horses entered in the Kentucky Derby is named So Happy and is ridden by 60 year old Mike Smith? Guess who my pick to win is!

It would make me So Happy  if my Happy foaled on Derby day! Coyote Belle's last foal by Beamer was born on Derby day (and named Derby) . He is really doing well with his owner, the same one who owns Rio. 

Since I have no foal yet to show off, here are some of the other sights around the farm. 

First butterfly having a drink of water from the leaky hose

Shy ladybug

Feral cat Boris, who is probably the daddy of most of the Siamese type kittens

Camo deer- all that snow is gone now.

 

The first robin from a couple weeks ago

Goose steppin' on the ice- that ice too is all gone now

I do have some exciting news to share, but not quite yet. I will keep you in the dark for another week or so! 

This weekend we have the Horse Expo in Red Deer and I intend to go tomorrow and catch the demos by Warwick Schiller - and maybe do some shopping at the huge trade fair. 

Wordless Wednesday

 

Wild things

 Or in this case,  not so wild. 

Ted and I visited the Medicine River Wildlife Center for their open house last weekend.

They had Otis the owl out for an educational talk. What a gorgeous bird- I did feature him on a previous post. Here is a writeup on him. 

   https://centralalbertaonline.com/articles/otistheowlturns-21

They let people come up to pet his chest so Ted did. 

Otis was tethered but showed off his wings a few times. 

Also on display was Bruno, a young porcupine that was rescued when he was 3 days old, found by his dead mother . I found him quite adorable, I do like porcupines!  

He loves strawberries! 

 

Also on the not quite wild side are the barn cats;  no takers for the kittens so they get to just live in the barn with the other cats. They are big enough now and are weaned. They will remain semi feral. 

 

They are so entertaining, using the bale stack for a race track and play fighting in a rolling tumbling ball of fur!

On the truly wild side we have a buck here that I hope makes it to next year..

He is pretty cagey and hunting season ends in 4 days so we just wont let hunters on the property. 

I was trying to get a photo of the kittens through Gussie's steamy breath and got this double exposure, no idea how . That is apparently Velvet who maybe moved her head in frame just as I took the shot?

Or maybe she was reflected in the steam? I don't know but it's a fun photo.