A Peaceful Time Of Year

Our temperatures have been gradually getting cooler and we've had more rain. The Cliff Swallows and Redwing Blackbirds have disappeared, the Starlings are flocking and the Goldfinches suddenly seem to be everywhere. Blue and Remy continue to spend their days in the corral. I dare not let them out until almost all the green grass is gone lest they get laminitis (founder) again:

But they seem content, and all the extra handling they've gotten has them behaving beautifully:

The cattle are fat and contented, though the flies are a persistent problem:

Little Ruby is growing rapidly but Scarlett, her mom, is still swollen with more milk than the little one can drink. That won't last, though, as Ruby grows and wants more milk:

I planted Armenian Basket Flower seeds this spring but none came up. I waited a long time for them, then bought some half price Red Hot Poker roots to replace them. The four Red Hot Pokers came up, although I worried that they weren't hardy enough to endure our winters. Then one day I said, "Wait a minute - those aren't Red Hot Poker leaves." I looked online and discovered they were Armenian Basket Flower (AKA Giant Yellow Knapweed) leaves after all. Four of them were growing and one now seems to be sending up a flower stalk:

Some neighbors came to collect all my windfall apples (that 55 gallon drum was almost full, as were a number of pails and coolers). They will feed them to their pigs:

Flowers are almost done for the year, but I managed to put together three vases full to bring to church on Sunday. This one included mini-sunflowers, pink Rose Mallows and Tree Hydrangeas:

All sunflowers, but various colors. Someone from church had a death in the family the previous night, so these flowers went to him after the service:

Peony leaves (turning autumn red), various colors of Yarrow, blue Delphinium and Rugosa roses:

These baby fantail pigeons were not siblings, but they had found each other, established a friendship and slept together in a nest. I found it heart warming:

The flock is now so large that I will have to sell some as soon as the babies are all on their own: