October

I love October. The air gets crisper, it finally starts to feel like fall. There are pumpkin doughnuts at Greenbluff. I love it.

 We always make the drive out to Greenbluff to get apples and pumpkins. It's a wonderful tradition, it supports local farms, and the produce is better than what we can buy in town.
We ended up with two white pumpkins and a Rouge vif D'Etamps. I had tried growing these so-called "Cinderella" pumpkins in our garden, but what with the wedding and all, our garden was sadly neglected this year.

 I think that Ponyo's distaste for the out of doors is a result of her spending her earliest years with an animal hoarder who kept her inside. It's unfortunate that she only tolerates being out, but she's gotten worlds better than she was when we first had her.

 After the ordeal that was processing the bushel of peaches I came home with last time we were at Greenbluff, we were more conservative with our harvesting this year.

 We took home a quarter-bushel of these scrumptious Red Delicious apples, and another quarter-bushel of baking apples.

 We always get the best apples because Mr. Bear is so tall, he can reach the ones at the top of the trees that others leave behind.

I feel very lucky to have a farm community so close to home, it's one of my favorite things about my hometown.

On the homefront, our new girls survived their first night with us. We've been enjoying watching them scurry about, falling asleep into their food, climbing all over one another. Hours fly by without us noticing, I understand what is meant by the phrase "chicken tv".

 Rosie, Marie, and Ruth hit the buffet while Ada naps.

 Rosalind, our Rhode Island Red.

They're ridiculously cute and charming. In a few weeks they'll go through a truly awkward adolescent phase before emerging as full-fledged hens. I expect they'll start laying in the spring, which will be quite a wait for us, we're excited about fresh eggs from happy chickens!