Christmas Coming

Morning shadows on the farm ~

We are in full decorating mode. This year I set the Christmas village up on the front porch. Not quite finished yet.

I think I need Julia's help.
We bought a new artificial tree at WalMart. It's not huge (6.5 feet), but we have quite a small house.

Our previous tree (4 feet) went on the front porch with the kids' decorations.

You know how it is -- the decorated parts of the house look lovely, but the REST of the house looks like this:

Adam is doing his live garlands for the front of the house again. He snipped cedar branches:

And he assembled them with florist wire on the porch. I must say, we've used that porch a lot since he enclosed it!

He's been leaf-gathering again. 'Tis the season of mulch-making! He even drives the truck to other people's houses, with the lawn mower, and mows and bags their leaves, and hauls them back to the farm for his compost pile. He's committed!

He's also working on our floor in the dining room. It had some "soft spots" -- dry rot. He painted on some wood sealer/hardener of some sort, and then filled the spaces with a wood filler. The areas are now quite hard and solid to walk on. He also sanded this high-traffic area. Next we will pick out a stained polyurethane. The whitish parts won't show then.

We took time out for a little date last night at Aggie's for our usual cheeseburgers and fries after I got off work. Adam is writing his Christmas cards. I used to send out Christmas letters years ago, but then we all got email, so I stopped :)

One day this week I let the chickens into the orchard to forage. It was a bit tricky getting them back into their enclosed yard/coop.

Here is Punkin, and Punkin's back. She has a bare spot with no feathers. It looks rather bad, but it is not raw or bleeding. She is Bernie's favorite, so he pulls her feathers out like this. It doesn't seem to do her any harm, but it does worry me a bit. I know if she's ever bleeding, the other hens will peck her quite badly, so I keep an eye on it.

There is absolutely nothing green growing in their yard (thus the foray into the orchard), so I usually throw them a handful of something over their fence. I feel so sorry for them, with nothing green to eat! I've discovered they love sorrel but dislike collards and turn their beaks up at lettuce.

And now for something darling. This is a little boy from my work place. He made a paper airplane. Look at the words.

Can you figure out what he's written? Pretty clever! He's only in 1st grade.