Prepare For A Halloween Scare!

The dogs and cats have dressed up to give you a Halloween fright, - beginning with Seamus as Beanie Boy:

 Georgette as a naked Lady Godiva:

 Fergus as Pancho Villa:

 Bramble as Roy Rogers:

 Jack as a Fire Chief:

 Draco as an apparently drunken Siesta Boy:

 Clover as Dale Evans:

 Rocky as the Court Jester:

 Daphne as Calico Jack, the Pirate:

 Snoozey as Wyatt Earp:

October Harvest

You've seen photos of the corn field across the road from my house. Well, one morning they were harvesting the kernels and I opened my upstairs window to record the process. It made for pretty scenery, with the horses and cattle next door and the colorful trees in the background. The harvester took down eight rows at a time, stripping the kernels from the cobs and shredding the stalks and leaves:


You may have noticed, in the previous video, that the harvester was not shooting any golden corn kernels into the collector wagon. In this video, it begins at about the halfway mark:


In this third video, the collector wagon dumps its corn kernels into the waiting truck. It was a three person operation, with one operator for each vehicle. The truck driver, I noticed, had his small child along for the ride. The truck left with a load about every fifteen minutes, so they pulled a lot of corn out of that field in short order:

October Around The Farm

It's certainly been a lovely autumn around here and the chickens have been doing their job by looking picturesque:

The little hens spread out all over the driveway, lawn and orchard. They get a lot of exercise and eat a lot of bugs. They'll miss all this when the snow arrives and they get locked inside for the winter:

The fantail pigeons have been enjoying the autumn by coming outdoors more:

And they had one autumn baby:

This photo was taken only three days after the above photo. You can see how rapidly the little one is growing. I'm pretty sure that's Papa with the baby. The male is bigger and has a puffy chest, and also is the one who tends the baby in the afternoons. I've read and observed that male and female pigeons have such regular schedules:

The Rugosa Roses are putting on a spectacular autumn show:

A storm was rapidly approaching when I took this photo out of the upstairs bathroom window, looking toward the northwest:

And then I took this photo, looking toward the southwest:

Looking toward the north, with many yellow apples still clinging to the tree:

Looking toward the south, out of my bedroom window. This is my little orchard:

I had no second floor windows looking east, so I had go downstairs for this eastward photo. I hope these photos will help convey the great beauty here, at least at this time of year. It will look a lot different in a few months:

Dogs And Cats In October

It's been a comfortable and leisurely autumn for the five dogs and five cats in my life. This photo of Daphne and Clover, sharing a rumpled, fleecy dog bed, is a typical sight around here:

Impish Bramble has not grown out of his love of pushing the water bowls away from the wall to watch them splash, and sometimes manages to move them several feet. I love the innocent, casual look on his face in this picture, as if he was saying, "Me? No, I wasn't pushing or sloshing anything. I was just sitting here, thinking about philosophy:"

On really nice days, especially when I'm working in the barn or fields, the dogs get to stay in their fenced yard:

Georgette spends almost all her life upstairs:

All the cats have access to an upstairs bedroom with hiding places, food and water bowls and a row of litter boxes. I caught Draco eating when I snapped this photo:

The dogs and cats share the floor pillows and doggy beds on the kitchen floor. Seamus seldom used them in the past but often does so now that he's lost a lot of weight:

Seamus, Fergus and Jack - with Clover and Daphne on their ramp in the background:

Seamus and Jack, with the neighbors' barn in the background:

Bramble's favorite perch for watching me while I'm at the computer:

Bramble, Fergus, Daphne, Clover and Seamus:

Seamus, Jack, Fergus, Daphne, Clover and Rocky:

And one last shot of the dogs in their yard. Jack was there too, but hidden by the tall grass:

The Red Poll Girls

Little Pearl is growing rapidly, but it never seems so because, as the youngest, she's always the smallest of the calves:

 Merlin, Loretta and Pearl were together one day and I got a photo of them:

 Loretta was always a thin, deer-like calf, but she's beginning to fill out and look like the beef cow she's going to be:

 Gladys, on the other hand, has always been a bit stocky:

I've continued to give the Red Poll girls a bucket of apples each afternoon and will continue to do so until the apples run out:

 Rosella is now fifteen months old and very tame. I plan to have her bred so she'll calve next year:

It's a beautiful herd, and passersby sometimes stop just to tell me so:

I waited only a week after the hay was cut and baled before I began letting the girls across the road to eat the fresh grass which was springing up in the north field:

I began letting them across the road every morning, and then bringing them back across to spend the night in the south field, by the barn:

The autumn colors were muted this year, probably because it's been so dry, yet they still made a nice backdrop for photos:

Gracie looked up, hoping I'd come to offer her some kind of treat. Sorry, Gracie, I was just there to snap a picture:

The homestead:

October Is For Pumpkins

Even I bought into the local pumpkin craze this year and purchased some pumpkins. I was also inspired to photograph some local sellers, such as this one in Gouverneur:

And this brand new, extra fancy farm stand along the highway:

A smaller roadside stand:

And a super-giant, extravagantly displayed pumpkin retailer:

I don't know if this was an Amish stand or not, but the red barn certainly looked Amish:

A field of unpicked pumpkins next to a field of cabbage:

Pumpkins along Route 11B:

 More pumpkins, these with colorful price signs:

Pumpkins, tomatoes, cukes, beans - all beneath the comfort of shady trees:

The produce from someone's backyard garden:

Open for business:

I stopped here to buy a couple more pumpkins since the porcupine has been eating the first ones I bought. But I soon discovered that the $3.00 did not cover all the different sizes of pumpkins. The bigger ones were $5.00 and I could get them cheaper elsewhere, so I continued on: