Cooler Weather

I know it is too early to say that fall has arrived on the ranch - but we have certainly been enjoying this brief relief of cooler weather!

Yesterday, we thought it would be a great time to bring out Ol' Junie and put her to work!

New Fowl

About a month ago, we decided to harvest most of our remaining chickens.  If you remember, we lost all but one of our producing, baby chickens during this summer heatwave.  So we were down to one egg a day.  The older chickens that survived the heat had decided to stop producing.  They'd been slowing down, but with the heat they just decided to stop all together.

So we decided, rather than let them stick around, eat up all our food and basically have a free ride, we'd harvest them and start over with some pullets (juvenile chickens near laying age.)

Well, this past Friday we re-stocked.  Not only did we bring home a few new chickens, but we also got more ducks!  I know, you're thinking to yourself - didn't Fergus the dog kill your last chickens?  Yes, yes he did.  But we have a new plan.  These ones are going to live in the coop until they are big enough to move in the corral with the pigs.  That way, they can be free range - but not free enough that Fergus can hunt them down again.  :-)

JL loading up the new cargo

The kids are so excited!

Isabel was set on getting a Golden Chicken.  By the luck of the draw - that's exactly what she got!

Wyatt with Chuck the Duck

James holding Grammy's Ol' Gray Duck

Scoping out the new arrivals.

Chores

One of James' new chores on the ranch is tractor driving.  He's great at it!  A couple of Saturdays' ago he was out helping JL trim up a tree.  After the trimming, he loaded all the branches into the back of the tractor and then drove them (and JL) over to the brush pile.  I hadn't witnessed just how good he'd gotten at driving that thing!  I was amazed - and so proud!

James hauling off a giant branch

And off he goes!

He's great at driving that thing around!

Storm

August 18 - started out as a typical Saturday.  JL had a bunch of ranch chores lined up.  We all started outside early in the morning to work on the garden.  Me and Quatro supervising while the kids helped JL move and haul stuff in the tractor.

Towards the middle of the day it started to get really dark.  The sky was full of beautiful gray clouds.  This was a sight that we haven't seen in a very long time.  True, this summer hasn't been near as awful as the last one, but we still aren't exactly swimming in rain around here.  Not to mention THESE kind of dark clouds.

Manny checking things out while I admire the sky

Woo hoo!  Could that be rain?

Beautiful E posing for me

The boys coming back in with a load of mulch.  

Quickly spreading out the mulch before the sky opened up.

About 10 minutes after the boys wrapped up the mulch spreading the rain started to pour down.  We were over joyed to see buckets of rain start to fall.  About two hours later we were over the moon when it was still going!  By Sunday, we were in disbelief that the rain hadn't quit yet!  We ended up with over 4 inches of rain from that storm!  It was fantastic!