November Farm Wrap-Up

We had a lot of pleasant weather for the first half of November, and the chickens enjoyed every nice day by scouring the yard for anything edible:

I collected windfall apples in five gallon buckets and stored them in the barn to feed the cattle - one bucket every afternoon. Alas, the mice discovered them and began helping themselves during the night. I had to put out D-Con:

I took down the cornstalks, which I'd used as Halloween decorations in October, and fed them to the cattle. The two pumpkins had already been hollowed out by wildlife:

The Wild Cucumbers set their seed in November and the pods turned brown:

The temperatures began to drop and the winds began to blow in the middle of November. My little chickens only went out in the nicer weather, staying indoors when it was too cold and windy:

Canada Geese flew overhead, honking loudly, both day and night. They often landed in fields. Alas, I only saw two small flocks of Snow Geese this year and was unable to get any photos either time:

The fantail pigeons enjoyed going outdoors on the days with nice weather. They had two babies, though, so I kept their window closed whenever it was too chilly:

The Rugosa Roses turned golden, which made a lovely match with the bright red rose hips:

Upstairs in my bedroom, my Christmas Cactus bloomed early. I guess it's really a Thanksgiving Cactus:

Fearful of a power outage during the ravages of winter, I purchased a generator and my friend, Rick, drove up from central New York to hook it up. We built a little shed to protect it from the weather:

It's a powerful Generac 8000 Watt generator:

Inside the house, Rick installed a transfer switch to control the electrical flow when the generator is running. Of course we all are hoping there won't be any power outages this winter, but if there is, I plan to live through it: