Notes From Around The Farm

Our nice weather held out longer than usual, so I continued to let the fantail pigeons out whenever the weather was warm enough:

They truly enjoyed it:

But there were two babies inside, and they don't handle the cold well, so when the temperatures became more winterlike, I closed their window for the season. I won't open it again until springtime:

The babies continued to grow feathers until I felt assured they'd make it through the cold:

The chickens also got to go outdoors when the weather was nice, though those times became less frequent and shorter:

I took down my lighted Thanksgiving cornucopia from the front door:

But there was no need to do anything with the Halloween pumpkins. This is all that was left of them by December:

I put up new Christmas decorations: Three candy canes, a blue and white snowflake, and a string of five, smaller snowflakes:

And speaking of roadside signs, my farm sign appeared in an ad for the sign maker and a man who saw it tracked me down and purchased my three oldest calves. As of this writing, however, he hasn't yet picked them up:

I looked out the back door one day and saw Seamus and Fergus harassing one of my hens. She must have fluttered over the fence, but why she would do that I'll never know. The dogs apparently didn't hurt her but she was so terrified that she lost a great many feathers. I got her back inside the coop quickly and she's been fine ever since:

I cleaned out the pigeon and chicken rooms, carrying out the shavings and poop to the tractor bucket:

Then I drove it around to the other side of the barn and dumped it on the manure pile. I also scooped up what was left of the previous year's manure pile and dumped it on top of this year's. A big pile of nicely composted manure and hay is a wonderful thing to have when doing any gardening or landscaping: