The colors of November

Around here, October is bright. But while it seems November should be subdued and gloomy, in fact it's quite beautiful. As I told Don, "October is brilliant. November glows." Here are some photos as proof.

In an otherwise cloudy sky...

...a last shaft of sunlight escaped just as the sun set, illuminating a row of trees on the hillside opposite.

The changing color of blackberry leaves contribute to this late-autumn glow.

The leaves transition to yellow and red.

On a distant hillside, where blackberries have taken over vast swathes of land, the leaves are red.

Wild roses also contribute to November's glow.

The rose hips are abundant this year.

Like blackberries, wild roses can take over whole fields.

Water drops amidst the brambles.

Where pine needles meet mossy granite.

The weeping willow in our yard had some bright yellow leaves.

They turned even brighter when the sun came out.

I'm doing some late-season garden cleanup, including trimming back the strawberry runners.

The strawberry leaves, too, contribute to November's glow.

A bit of sunlight broke through the clouds while I was raking leaves.

The sun made the leaves glow.

It made Mr. Darcy glow as well.

This time of year, the leaves have dropped from the wild apple trees, but in many cases the apples are still on the branches.

A sun halo, which by some accounts predicts rain or snow. Accurate (for rain) in this case.

And those are some of the colors of November. A blessed Thanksgiving to all.

Pet peeve

A couple of weeks ago, we made arrangements for some people to come over and see us about something. We had never met this couple before, but we spoke to them on the phone and they seemed pleasant enough. We confirmed our location and they told us they would be here at noon. They live about half an hour's drive away.

Accordingly, we cleaned the house and bathroom, tidied the yard, and (most importantly) put aside any additional plans we might have had for the afternoon.

Noon came and went, and they didn't show up.

We were in something of a state of limbo while we waited. We had a number of things we could have been doing, but those things entailed messing up the kitchen or disappearing into the shop or otherwise not being in immediate readiness for when this couple arrived.

One o'clock came and went, and still we waited.

Two o'clock came around and they still hadn't shown up. Don was absolutely fuming. If there's one thing that ticks him off, it's people who are late or who don't arrive when they tell us they'll be here unless they let us know they're running late for some reason. (Hey, things happen. We understand. Just let us know.)

So a bit after two o'clock, I called and reached the wife and asked if they were still planning on coming. "Of course!" she said. "We're almost ready to leave."

Almost ready to leave. And they live half an hour away.

So we sat tight and waited. Three o'clock came and went and they still hadn't shown up. So I called again. "We're just heading out the door," the wife assured me. "We just have a few stops to make along the way first."

A few stops to make along the way. After they assured us they would be here at noon.

Four o'clock rolls around, and they finally arrived. No apologies for the delay, no regrets about wasting our entire afternoon waiting for them. Just a breezy politeness as we transacted the reason for their being here in the first place.

We were polite. They were pleasant. But after they left, Don had absolutely no interest in ever seeing them again.

What is it about people's inability to value someone else's time?

Bovine injury

Our normal evening livestock procedure is to go out to the barn around 6 pm to button up the animals. We close the corral gate, put Stormy in the calf pen, and fill the feed box with hay for the rest of the animals.

The nice thing about livestock is they're creatures of habit. Once they're trained to do something (like coming into the corral at night), they'll do it without fail.

For this reason, we got concerned when we went out to the barn last night and saw ... nobody.

Maggie (our Jersey) and Stormy (her calf) were in the pasture just above the corral, and they came in without a fuss when we called them. But where were Mignon (our Angus heifer) and Romeo (our young steer)?

Way out in the pasture, we heard some agitated mooing. This did not bode well.

Keep in mind that since our entire property is sloped, it's something of a (muddy) climb to get up to the pasture from the corral. It was pitch dark. Since I was the only one wearing boots (the corral is pure mud), I took a flashlight and went to explore. Somehow, stomping all around a large pasture in pitch darkness illuminated only with a flashlight while searching for black cows made the pasture seem a whole lot bigger.

If you remember, we had subdivided that pasture last spring. After ten minutes of searching, I found Mignon and Romeo on the other side of the fence line. They were both on their feet and seemed fine, but disinclined to move. Why?

To get to the other side, I started following the fence line toward the open walk-through gate when I saw the problem: One of the T-posts had been bent at a 45-degree angle, and the field fencing around it was pretty mangled. To bend a T-post to this extent must have taken a tremendous blow.

As I approached the animals, it wasn't hard to piece together what happened. Mignon was in heat. Romeo, even though he is a steer, was all over her. Evidently at one point he had slammed into Mignon and sent her crashing into the T-post, tangling her up in the wire of the field fence. I could deduce this because even as I approached, randy Romeo was still trying his best. (Removing the equipment takes away the ability but not the interest.)

I didn't see any blood, and since Mignon was standing on all four legs, she hadn't broken any bones. But clearly one of her legs was injured, possibly a sprain or perhaps a strained tendon or ligament. And Romeo wouldn't leave her alone.

By this point, since I had been gone for some time, Don risked his sneakers in the mud and came up to help. Together we were able to gently shoo both animals toward the corral. Except Romeo, that randy twit, would not leave Mignon alone.

We got to the muddy sloped path leading down to the corral gate. Don held back and tried to keep Romeo at bay to give Mignon a chance to gingerly pick her way down the steep slope. Then Romeo broke free and once again tried to have his way with her. As a result, poor Mignon slipped and slid down that muddy slope and crashed into the fence just outside the gate. Grrrrr.

We finally got both animals into the corral and closed the gate. Once we filled the feed box, everyone settled in to eat, and we left them alone to calm down. I checked on Mignon just before bedtime, and she was laying down inside the barn, chewing her cud and looking okay.

This morning, after I finished milking Maggie, I kept the animals in the corral to keep an eye on Mignon. (Her heat cycle clearly wasn't quite over, if Romeo's behavior was anything to go by). She was on her feet and favoring her left front leg, but not cripplingly so.

Later we released the livestock into the lower pasture below the house. This, too, is a sloped area (nearly everything on our property is sloped), but there are some reasonably level portions that hopefully wouldn't strain Mignon's injury any worse than it already was. Also, this pasture is closer to the house, which meant we could keep a closer eye on everyone.

While the other animals grazed, Mignon spent a lot of time laying down.

At one point, Romeo came up and started licking Mignon's face. It would be anthropomorphizing to say he was apologizing for injuring her, but it was kinda sweet nonetheless.

Here you can see Mignon laying down on the left, while Stormy, Maggie, and Romeo pick at the grass nearby.

At one point she extended her injured leg in front of her. I'm sure it was very sore and tender.

Later I photographed the T-post and mangled fencing in the upper pasture. No wonder she got hurt.

We'll keep the animals in the lower pasture for the next couple of days and see how Mignon does. The fact that she can walk, however slowly, is a good sign.

And the fact that her heat cycle is over is an even better sign.

Not on speaking terms ... with AI

As you can imagine, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is on everyone's mind, particularly those whose jobs or livelihoods are threatened by the new technology. As a writer, I'm grateful I've carved my niche with both my fiction and nonfiction editors before AI became a threat. (That said, I have yet to meet an editor who even remotely wants or encourages AI submissions.)

Recently, while lurking on a writer's forum, the discussion turned to using AI as an aid in generating cover art. One woman, seeking a prototype for a western-themed romance cover, wrote the following, which had the whole forum cracking up (and proved this woman can write!).

She started by giving the AI some prompts, and it went downhill from there:

"I tried AI to do scene suggestions. I prompted it to give me two people, a man and a woman, on a horse fleeing through the wilderness. I got two horses. I politely said they needed to be on the same horse. This time it was two horses with riders fleeing a fire. I, more firmly, said they needed to be riding the same horse. I got two horses with the riders using English saddles. I refrained from calling AI an idiot and went back through the list. I finally got two riders on the same horse. But they were missing legs. With gritted teeth, I said 'TWO PEOPLE, A MAN AND A WOMAN, ON A SINGLE HORSE, WESTERN SADDLE, EACH HUMAN HAVING TWO LEGS, FLEEING THROUGH THE WILDERNESS, NOT RUNNING FROM A FIRE.' I got one horse, one rider, no bridle, and a fire.

I'm currently not speaking to AI."

Join the club, honey.

Misty Mountains

Years ago, we had friends who tried to get a bed-and-breakfast started out of their large and beautiful home. They christened their business "Misty Mountain Lodge" and, for a variety of reasons, it was not a financial success and they closed down. (There are several Misty Mountain Lodges currently in existence around the country, but none are operated by these friends.)

Anyway, at the time I thought "Misty Mountain Lodge" was something of an unusual name since our mountains weren't particularly misty.

The same can't be said for our current location. We have a lot of mist here. A LOT, especially in cooler months. As evidence, consider the following photos:

Bonus photo: Believe it or not, there is a whole flock of turkeys on the road in this photo. By the time I got my camera out of my pocket, they had moved juuuuust out of sight through the fog.

Should Don and I ever consider opening a B&B (which we won't), we could at least name it Misty Mountain Lodge and have truth in advertising.

All that fur...!

Older Daughter snapped this picture of her cat Frumpkin and sent it to me with the caption, "Guess whose winter coat is coming in?"

She also wanted to assure readers that "He's at a perfectly healthy weight underneath all that fur."

The dirty side of homesteading

Too often, homesteading articles, blogs, websites, and videos (including this one – guilty!) show only the successful side of homesteading. The abundant harvest, the completed projects, the fresh eggs and baby chicks and overflowing milk, the healthy livestock ... by golly, this lifestyle must be easy-peasy, right?

Yes and no. Of course things go right. And of course things go wrong. But what is seldom shown is the nitty-gritty day-to-day dirty side of homesteading, including the daily chores that must be done for the comfort and welfare of animals. For that reason, I thought I'd show you something I do every day, rain or shine; namely, cleaning the barn.

This, dear readers, is what the barn looks like on a typical November morning. Lovely, n'est-ce pas?

The mess includes puddles of urine, which tend to concentrate at one end of the barn (the building may have a slight slope to it).

The regular weapons in this fight against a messy barn include a dedicated rake and flat-edged shovel...

...and a dedicated wheelbarrow.

I work from one side of the barn to the other, starting with the milking stall (left) and calf pen (inner right).

Stormy, who is the calf of our milk cow Maggie, spends the night in the calf pen, so I make sure it's as clean and cozy as I can make it every day. This means raking out soiled hay and manure, scrubbing and refilling her water bucket, giving her a bit of grain (as an enticement), and making sure she has a pile of fresh hay for feed.

Here's the soiled hay and manure I removed from her pen.

After the calf pen and milking stall are cleaned out, I mentally divide the barn flood into six "quadrants." I clean one or two quadrants at a time, working my way toward the other side.

(Yes, the barn mats are a mess. We know that.)

By this point, the wheelbarrow is ready to empty for the first time. I usually have between two and three full wheelbarrows each day.

Here, I have the remainder of the barn waste accumulated in one corner.

Halfway through the process, I'm warm enough to discard my coat and scarf.

Time to fill up another wheelbarrow.

Once that's full...

...I cart it out to the waste pile.

Never undervalue a barn waste pile! Barn waste becomes compost, and compost is just about the perfect food for the garden. Believe me, we view the pile in the photo above as black gold.

Still, you can understand why this chore requires boots.

Cleaning up the barn waste is the hardest and heaviest work. Once that's done, the chore gets easier.

The next task is to clean and refill the calf's water bucket, which tends to get messy overnight.

I give the bucket a quick scrub...

...then refill it with fresh water.

Since I'm at the water tap anyway, I confirm the big tank is full. Here in mid-November, we're still able to use the float valve. When freezing weather comes, we'll remove the float valve (which would otherwise freeze) and insert a stock tank heater, at which point we'll have to manually fill the tank morning and evening.

I had been banging around the barn, inside and out, for about half an hour, without disturbing the two does that were lying down a few yards away. Deer are extremely common here, and these animals know we're not hunters and therefore not a danger to them. These two ladies stood up when I got within about twenty feet of them, but they were barely alarmed.

After filling Stormy's water bucket, it was time to sop up the puddles of urine in the barn. We do this with sawdust. Older Daughter's shop is on the other end of the barn, so she routinely shovels sawdust into a garbage can for me.

On a shelf inside the calf pen, I keep a number of necessities: A wind-up lamp, my milking crate, Maggie's leg hobble, scrub brushes ... and sawdust (in the white bucket on the left). This bucket is kept brim-full at all times. If I'm milking and Maggie suddenly urinates in the milking stall, believe me when I say I need sawdust fast. I toss it liberally over the wet mess and it sops it right up. I never want to get caught milking without that bucket full of sawdust handy. (It's amazing the sheer volume of urine a cow can unleash.)

During afternoon cleaning, I apply sawdust to the barn floor as well, putting an extra amount anywhere it's especially wet. It gets shoveled up during the next day's cleaning and added to the waste pile.

Then I top off the bucket with more sawdust, and return it to the shelf in the calf pen.

Next it's time to put out grain for Maggie and Stormy.

We used to give grain to all the animals, which trained them to come into the corral at night. However, gradually, all the animals sort of ... lost their taste for it, I guess. Now we don't bother graining Romeo (our young steer) or Mignon (our yearling heifer), since most of the time they just ignore it anyway. We still make a scoop of grain available for Maggie in the evening, but for the last month or so she hasn't wanted it. She will, however, eat a scoop in the morning when I milk her, and Stormy enjoys about half a can (shown in the photo above), which entices her into the calf pen each evening.

Next I give Stormy's pen a pile of fresh hay for eating (piled on the left),and her pen is ready. Of those two white buckets, grain is in the left bucket and water in the right.

Normally this is where I finish the daily barn cleanup. However about once a month, I clean up the duff that tends to accumulate on the floor between the hay bale and the feed boxes.

This material is too small and choke-y to feed the animals.

So, using a push broom, I sweep it into a pile...

...and then pull that pile through the gate into the livestock side of the barn, and spread it out.

Now the barn is clean and ready for livestock. The whole chore takes about 45 minutes to complete.

The very last thing I do is close the milking stall and calf pen gates. Otherwise, when the animals come in for water mid-day, they would eat the grain and hay, and foul the fresh bedding in the calf pen.

This, dear readers, is one of my daily chores. Some people react to manure and think "Ewww, cOw PoOp" and refuse to have anything to do with such tasks. But for me, it's just something that has to be done, and it's no more onerous than any other household task that needs doing.

In fact, by some measures it's the ability and willingness to do these dirty chores – day after day, cheerfully and without complaint – that will help determine whether someone is cut out to have a homestead.