Fall Photos

As I mentioned in my last post, fall was full here. Here are some gratuitous photos from the last 2 months. 

When hauling the paddle boat and row boat in the truck, we disturbed a mouse who had been nesting under the metal seat in the row boat. (It is reinforced with a block of styrofoam.) She ran back and forth on the truck bed ledge behind the cab as we drove across the upper hay field, much to the delight and concern of our children. 

One night, returning home with my kids from the children's choir my girls are in, we saw a low-flying hot air balloon. "It looks like it's close to our house." Someone commented from the back seat. When we pulled up, it was just drifting over the garage, and I snapped a few photos as we waved and listened to the roar of the flame.

Despite the drought, the fall colors were beautiful this year (on the trees that still had leaves) they were just short-lived. This is morning light on a brilliant maple along a stretch of our drive with the upper hay field in the foreground.

And it was nice that the hay got green again too! On this windy, glorious day the leaves were just beginning to change colors.

Here's a pic. of some toad stools that struck my fancy as they pushed up through the fallen leaves. There are a lot of fungus, lichen, moss, and ferns in these parts.

And I think those are the only random pictures I have from this fall. But I do have some pictures of berries to make a post about, some deer pictures and a post about deer hunting to throw together, and a post concerning All Hallow's Eve that's coming too! So stay tuned... so to speak.

Posting Hiatus

The leaves are down. I can see the water of the lake from the house now, glimmering through the trees beyond the rise in the upper hay field. Frosts have been regular and heavy. In the half-light of early morning, they have looked like snow. The cold wind is blowing. The temperature has been dropping all day. Tonight the low is forecast to be 23 degrees. And I've missed a month and a half of posting. 

I started out slacking off just because I was busy. My husband has traveled more than I could keep track of in the last 2 months or so... California, New York, Philadelphia, a week at his lab for a plug-fest, Germany, California again, Nevada. I may have missed a few trips. I know in October alone he logged 15,000 air miles. In the meantime I was running kids to extracurricular activities, grocery shopping with 4 kids in tow, tending goats, schooling children, paying our property taxes at the court house, going to an out-of-town birthday party for my nephew, carving pumpkins with the kids, having an All Saint's Day celebration with them, and doing everything without help. Plus the kids had a round of fevers AND a round of nasty colds. 

When my husband was home, it was the time of year that chores were waiting to suck up the little time he had here. Leaves needed taking care of. The gazebo needed taken down. Firewood needed stacked. The edge of the hay field needed mowed with the flail mower. The long gravel drive needed graded. Goat hooves needed trimmed. The van needed an oil change and tire inflation, etc. etc. Plus, we managed to squeeze in having the family of some college friends over for brunch, hosting a last minute camping visit from my in-laws and brother-in-law's family, attending a choral concert one of my girls was in, voting, celebrating my oldest daughter's birthday, and most recently, hosting thanksgiving. Oh, I almost forgot a little boating and a camping trip on our land that we had promised the kids would happen after the cows had left the pasture that was squeaked in too. That sounds relaxing, but in my condition and with my husband's tired state, it wasn't. 

Also, speaking of my condition, there's the pregnancy factor. I mentioned in a previous post how huge I get when pregnant. I wasn't exaggerating. When I sit on anything soft, I have to spread my legs to the sides because my belly otherwise gets pushed up so high by them that my lungs are compressed to the point of hardly being able to breath, and my stomach is so compressed that I feel like I'm going to throw up. As it is, when I sit in this unladylike fashion, my belly rests on the chair. It is uncomfortable and embarrassing. My mother-in-law informed me that this baby was probably going to be bigger than the last, but that she didn't know where "it" was going to go because I was already very large.

I'm also a mile from anything I sit or stand in front of. Washing dishes, cooking, scrubbing tables or counters, these tasks are back-breaking now. Sweeping up things into the dustpan? Intensely painful, as well as a bit scandalizing to watch, I imagine. Trying to correct schoolwork or eat at the table is difficult and excruciating. So the idea of typing blog posts on my laptop hasn't been appealing. I mean, I don't really have a lap to set it on, and I can't get very close to a laptop on a table. 

Then there's the exhaustion factor, another element of pregnancy for me. My poor kid is so constricted inside that he seems to only get to move freely when I am lying down. The nightly boogie sessions, combined with the regular Braxton-Hicks contractions that I get as a result, along with the indigestion, heartburn, and general uncomfortableness (sciatica, etc.) aren't conducive to my sleep. I get short snatches on and off all night and wake up with an interrupted sleep cycle hang over. And this has been worsened by kids with nighttime coughs and colds that keep them and myself up.

But anyway, lest this turn into a complaint session instead of an explanation, we'll leave this post topic for now. Suffice it to say that we've been busy, and I've had very little down time in which to post. I'll do my best to catch up a little over the next week.