Aerial Predator

And now for some COVID-19 reading material...

Today was a busy day of cleaning the goat pens of a whole winter's worth of bedding pack.  It is a smelly and back straining job but we had a beautiful day for this necessary task.  The goats were in the pasture and the chickens were contentedly pecking about in the yard.  Suddenly, from the front of the barn, a proper ruckus could be heard around the corner.  Chickens were squawking and feathers were flapping.  Rounding the corner to investigate, Eric determined that the very large bald eagle that was swooping out of a nearby maple tree was to blame.  The chickens scattered into the barn and the eagle flew over the yard and house, circling and climbing into the sky.  The poor chickens cowered in the barn for the remainder of the day and the eagle was not seen again.  Interestingly, we lost a very old and slow moving chicken last week to an unknown predator.  It now appears that this was not the eagle's first visit to the farm and had returned for another chicken meal.

Caribbean Adventure

We just returned from a Caribbean cruise on Holland America.  

We greatly enjoyed hanging out with the little squirrel monkeys in the Dominican Republic.  As you can see they greatly enjoyed hanging out on Eric!

 We spent time on Saint John and Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas, snorkeling with green sea turtles, rays, lemon sharks, and colorful fish of all shapes and sizes.  

Teresa managed to read 4 books and we enjoyed a great variety of movies and entertainment.  Eric experienced the surreal glow of the Bioluminescent Bay for the first time in Puerto Rico. 

Fun, fun fun!

Walter and Winnie

Introducing Walter and Winnie!

 Both kids have found their legs and are hop...hop...hopping around the barn:)

Lola strikes again!

At 3 days overdue, we knew Lola would imminently kid.  At 9pm, we tucked everyone to sleep in the barn as normal with no signs of labor.  When Teresa ran out to the barn for a quick check at 4:45am, there was Lola with her two kids!  In typical Lola fashion, she had everything already completely cleaned up.

 Her little girl (name to follow) appears more exhausted than Lola:)

November Harvest

Cleared out the last of the veggies from the garden before the first snow of the year falls later tonight.  Quite the haul of carrots we got this year!

Rainbow

Hatching monarchs

Off to Mexico for margaritas!!