We put in a few crops in our raised beds last month and at least some of them are doing well. The collards, chard, kale, and arugula. Also snap peas. Some of the others seem to be slow but maybe some growth is underground like beets and carrots.

Chickens have been OK except all this broodiness! When Zsa Zsa was done, then it was Sisi’s turn and she was broody for WEEKS and WEEKS. I was removing her from the coop a few times a day and we also tried ice baths but nothing worked. I finally just stopped doing anything and she actually seems to have finally cured herself. So I don’t expect eggs from her for a LONG time. I gather hens typically slow down egg production in the fall anyway and since Matt is molting, we only have one hen laying any eggs right now, and that’s Isis.

On my birthday we met up with Louise & John, and to my surprise, they knew it was my birthday! We enjoyed mini pies they brought and beers, of course!

It was actually pretty shocking and gory one morning when I saw out front that a dead deer was laying in our front yard! It was a full size deer that had its entire mid-section eaten away overnight. And not near the road. So who knows what took it down- maybe rumors of mountain lion are real? Anyway, per Paige’s suggestion, I moved the trail cam to our fence that evening to see what may be attracted to the carcass overnight. Unfortunately, before nightfall, something shifted the camera (seemed to be the neighbor’s cat). But the carcass was still semi in view. Around midnight, the camera picked up a deer walking by….and then nothing else. But when I went out in the morning, the carcass had moved like 30 yards!! So frustrating not to pick up the action on the camera!

We wondered briefly how to dispose of the carcass but quickly realized it wouldn’t be a problem as the vultures were all over it and in no time it was just some bones. Rob put the bones in a bag in the trash. Those vultures are kinda spooky and they were all over the house and you can hear their wings when they fly nearby and stuff. This was a little before Halloween so it was authentically spooky.

Weather’s been great so we can eat dinner outside often this fall, watched football on TV outside on the weekend! And I swam in the pool recently, about a week before Thanksgiving! Yes, it was chilly, but I stayed active for like 15-20 minutes.

Wheeled the TV outside to watch football.

I got a new app on my phone that makes it easy to create cinemagraphs, and I LOVE cinemagraphs. Basically you take a short video clip and then you can choose what part remains still versus video. So I tried some experiments and put a few things in my instagram.

I recently germinated some red wheat berries and we ate some of them but some other ones I threw into a flowerpot and they have grown into wheat grass that I feed to Pangea!!

We now have a dehydrator and when I was over at Regi & Sean’s I was admiring their Cuban Oregano plant and offered to dehydrate some since it wasn’t going to get used for anything. That was the first herb I tried. It worked, but the leaves need to be cut way smaller and dehydrator run for a long time. I’ll be trying to dry some other herbs too.

I learned later to cut these into teeny pieces as even then it takes a LOOOOONG time to dehydrate!

Now that we no longer have to inject calcium into Pangea I’m hoping we can be friends. So sometimes I heat a rag in the microwave and wrap her in it and set her on my chest. Sometimes she’s fine with that, other times not really.

We bathed the dogs recently outside using the hose which kinda went alright until the next day when Woody was acting weird and I realized that he was suffering from “cold water tail”!! It took me a bit to remember but Nimbus used to get the same thing sometimes after baths at Petco! Anyway, I think he’s already a little better. His tail is no longer sagging straight down- starting to rise up a bit.

Here’s how the dogs get into the car.

More pics in gallery below.