The Mixed Blessings of Fall on a Farm

Brought to you in the form of a list, because, well, that seems to be all I'm capable of today.

Goats:

Our two does in milk are "drying off".

Yay!-

* No more milking in the cold & dark!

Boo!-

* No more milk until Spring.

* The girls will soon be coming back into heat, and so goat "interludes" must be arranged, which involves staring at goat lady-parts daily. Jealous, are you?

* The goaties will soon be on a all hay/grain diet, as the pasture grasses and plants die back. Translation - $$$.

Chickens:

With the decrease in light and the chickens starting their molt, we're getting only one egg every other day now.

Yay! -

* I got nothin'.

Boo! -

* The chickens actually eat a little more than normal at this time of year, with less forage available and higher caloric needs to generate additional body heat and grow new feathers. It's all work and no omelettes over here!

Garden/Trees/Plants:

The weather is quite wet, everything is about done fruiting and the deciduous trees are dropping their leaves like crazy.

Yay! -

* I can be done processing apples for a while! 200 pounds of fruit is a lot of fruit. Now I can focus on canning it up.

* We had a good harvest from our orchard, and managed to forage a good bit as well.

* No more watering necessary!

* The chanterelles and other edible 'shrooms should be popping up soon.

Boo! -

* We are going to have to rake up literally tons of wet leaves from our orchard trees and the big-leaf maples on the south side of our property. Hooboy!

Daily Life:

Daylight savings time ending, plus La Nina/El Nino, and good ol' Western Washington geography means at least 5 more months of daily prevailing conditions tending toward being either wet, grey or wetandgrey.

Yay! -

* I'm fully justified in sitting on my duff by the wood stove, knitting like a woman possessed.

* I like soup.

* I get to drink coffee 24/7 (more than I already do)

* Pumpkin flavored everything is available everywhere.

Boo! -

* Our farm's bottomland is going to be mud soup for the next 6 months.

* Seasonal Affective Disorder on top of Post-Concussion Syndrome. Oy.