This old barn has sheltered many animals in its long life. A families milk cow, for cream and butter. A flock of chickens for eggs for breakfast. A horse or two to help work the farm. There is character here, in its well used appearance. I like looking at this old building that sits across our back pasture in the neighbors field. I wish it could tell me some of the stories, that it holds in its secret places.
 

Here is another one of my photos from my chilly trip up the hill this morning. We live very close to a high power line, so I used this in my composition, since I couldn't really get away from it. It was in the way, but I likes this one. I did a little bit of editing on this photo, but I liked it, since it has the promise of a bright and cheerful day ahead. 

This morning I walked up to the top of Dick's hill to take some early sunrise photos. It is the highest hill around here to see the sun wake up in the mornings.It was COLD out there! I had gloves on but they just got in the way of my camera controls. I was hoping to see some deer but they were all hidden and didn't show themselves. Here is one of the photos I took this morning.

This afternoon I thought I would bake a cake. This one is for the little ghosts and goblins. It is called Boogers and Slugs! It had such a cute name I just had to make one. It is basically a spice cake but it has 4 cups of diced green tomatoes in it and yellow raisins and nuts. Together these give it an unusual look. But it tasted wonderful. It was moist and fruity. Ed like it also. I put Caramel Frosting on it, and it complimented it very nicely. Now, the only problem I see with this cake is that there are only two of us to eat it, and I don't want to eat that much cake!! So I may send some to work with him tomorrow!

Here is an example of last years fall colors. Indiana did us proud and I think we could have rivaled anywhere in the northeast! This is a county road that was being used as a detour, since the main highway was closed due to the removal of a hill and straighening of a dangerous curve. If we had not been detoured, I would never have known this road was there! It was worth the extra time to see these beautiful October scenes. 

We have finally gotten our barn full of hay! We spent the day Saturday hauling hay and stacking it in the barn. It has 590 bales in it and it is full! We are feeding 4 horses, and their sole diet is hay, so this should feed them until new hay is cut in early summer. Lets just hope this will be a mild winter, OK? Now the two barn cats and one wild, feral tom cat can find a warm place to sleep this winter!

The fall leaves haven't been very pretty this year. We haven't had a frost yet, so they have mostly just started to turn brown and fall off. There is a little color here and there, especially the maples. Here is an example of the color this fall.

Since I couldn't get this one to post, I will try again here:

Each day we never know what color eggs we will get. It is like an Easter Egg hunt!

Jelly and Eggs!!

Last Sunday I found some wild grapes growing up in a scrubby tree in the fence row behind the barn. Ed was using the tractor at the time which gave me an idea. When he finished his job I asked him if he would help me pick those grapes and this was his answer:

I mashed the fruit and strained out all the stems and seeds and this was the result of my efforts. Ed said it is pretty tasty, as he had some on his toast this morning.

Our chickens are in a laying frenzy right now. We have 7 hens, of which five are pullets that just started to lay in mid September. We are getting 4 to 7 eggs a day! Our farrier came to trim the horses feet this morning and I sent two dozen home with her. She said they eat a lot of eggs, especially her 3 year old daughter. These are such pretty eggs too! Here is a photo of todays eggs.

It is a beautiful morning. Crisp and cool at 44° this morning. We haven't had a fall frost yet, so the leaves really don't have much color. But I expect that will come soon. I am enjoying these cooler days after the heat and humidity of August. The horses are loving it too. They are more frisky and NO huge horseflies to bother them.

I was sitting here working on my computer when I had a little visitor outside my window. I suspect he lives inside the wall of the house. I hear a thumping and rattling like nuts being moved around. The cat finds him very frustrating. Sometimes he will run across the deck and tease her. She is inside looking at him from 10 inches away, and he is on the deck, running back and forth, and sometimes stops and sits in front of her as if he is saying, "Ha ha, he he, you can't catch me!" Poor kitty, she twitches and switches her tail, but to know avail, and he knows it!

A couple of days ago, I watched two hen hummingbirds having an argument over the rights to the feeder. They flew at each other repeatedly, and knocked each other off the feeder many times. They did this for 15 minutes. They were oblivious to me, as I took photos of them. I stood about 18 inches from the feeder and shot many pictures. They knocked each other down into the wet grass once and lay there tussling and writhing with each other. Then, they flew up to the feeder and settled down and drank for a long time. Then repeated the performance! This was about 7:30 AM, and it was quite a cool morning. Here they are tanking up for the second go-round.

I think summer is over and soon it will be cold again. But in the meantime, I am enjoying these warm summery days. I picked a couple of large bowls of sweet peppers and diced them up and froze them in zip lock plastic bags. We love to use red and green peppers in our omelets, along with onions, mushrooms, and a little sausage. Sprinkle cheese on it and enjoy. Oh, don't forget the eggs too!!

Ed planted 7 or 8 plants and they all prduced well. Some of them are just huge! We also dug three sweet potato hills, to see if anything was there worth digging. Two of them were nice large lovely sweet potatoes and the other one wasn't worth bothering about. But there are 4 or 5 more to dig later. We found one that was really in a twist, here is a photo. I've never seen a sweet potato that looked like this one.

Ed and I saddled Katie and Sis and went back on the Nature Preserve for a ride. Sis isn't conditioned enough to ride far, so we didn't stay long. She didn't want to go. She did with some coaxing, but I wonder if the saddle is uncomfortable for her. She is gaining weight, but is still thin. So we will give her more time to fill out. I haven't been riding much in the last few years, but I have been trying to ride Katie everyday in the last week or two. I have missed about 3 days. She is so used to being a pasture ornament that she hasn't taken to it real well either.
But in the last 3 days, she has been more willing to go without getting too bent out of shape about it. She will get better as we keep at it. We are getting a little farther from the barn and her buddies each day. I sure have missed riding.