Lovely Fall Afternoon

Today was one of those glorious fall days that are so scrumptious. The sky was blue, the air clear, the temp very comfortable level and the trees aglow with yellow, orange and red. I just love fall!

After lunch the kids all headed outside to enjoy the lovely day. I grabbed some computer time, reading messages and catching up on a few of my favorite blogs.

Hannah and Dan exploring something?

Gabe and Rachel reenacting a scene from Narnia

The kids raked up some leaves and dumped them into the chicken's pen. The chickens love this. They scratch and peck around in the leaves and find all sorts of tasty morals. The leaves also help to keep the pen dry.

Hannah and Gabe spread out the leaves

Brian was home a few hours early today. He has been working a lot of hours and wanted to catch up on some outside chores.

His first job was to put up a temporary fence for the chickens. During the summer, we let them free-range around the yard. As fall arrives, we often get more predation as the natural food supply dwindles. We are pretty sure it is coyotes. We still like them to get the grass, bugs and other natural things in the yard, so we put up a large fenced in area that they can use in the day. This gives them protection from other animals and then we close them in at night.

Bessie decorates the new fence with grape vines

Dan loves to help Bri

The "girls" and Big Diesel were very happy

The next job on his list was to clean the chimney for the woodstove. We have had some very chilly nights and it will be nice to be able to use the woodstove to take off the chill. He finished his outside work by leveling the camper and getting it ready to winterize.

My roll in all this was to tote and fetch material and tools and to make sure there are no children playing on the ladder, in the way when Bri tosses things off the roof or backing up the trailer. Basically, supply person and crowd control.

Dan clearing the birdbath of leaves

Bess with a new found stack of books from the garage

A lovely fall day spent in doing good work and enjoying each other's company. It doesn't get much better.