With the bulk of our food production for the year behind us, we can move on to other things now. Whew. It feels strange not constantly thinking about the garden after months of watering and weeding and worrying if the heat will undo all my hard work.

The pups are getting their winter coats, too, which means far less shedding and less vacuuming, so that’s giving me even more free time. It also gives my arms a break from constantly brushing them out! 😏

I do still have some white onions growing in one bed that I’m letting go for a few more days…

And I haven’t mulched the strawberries, asparagus and elderberries for winter yet, but that won’t take long.

Egg production is winding down and Fred’s work for this year is done…

We only had the one chick that hatched out of two clutches so hopefully we’ll have better luck next year. I think we may set up the incubator in early spring to help that along, just in case. We have to time babies just right so we don’t end up trying to sell pullets too late in the year or trying to keep them separate from the bigger hens all winter.

We only just put the one that hatched out a few months ago in with the others because they were so mean to her, it just wasn’t safe until she was bigger. So she hung out with the quail all summer.

Speaking of quail, we decided to dispatch (is that a nice way to put it?) with the rest of them so we can focus solely on raising the chickens and pheasant instead. We can always get more quail later if we change our minds.

We debated getting rabbits for meat, but… well… I mean…

Every time I go on Craigslist to find things for our homestead I come across pictures like this and think to myself, how can anyone eat these adorable little critters?!

I have eaten rabbit before, and it is delicious, but I don’t think I could eat ones we raised ourselves. I’d definitely want to name them and snuggle with them. 😄

As a girl, my favorite book was Charlotte’s Web so I don’t think I could stomach raising pigs, either…

Not that I don’t love bacon and sausage and a good pork chop now and then. It’s just that, again, they are sooo cute! At least when they’re little. Plus, we aren’t allowed to have swine here, so there’s that, too.

We are allowed chickens and ducks and turkeys and pheasant and quail and horses and sheep and goats and sled dogs, which is good because we’ve either had or have all of the above (except sheep).

Speaking of sled dogs, it’s almost time to break out the actual sled instead of running them in front of the buggy, which is exciting. We’ll also be going further up into the mountains here, which is where I love to be.

I can hardly wait until the bears are hibernating and the hunters have went home, especially after the story in the news about the woman in Montana who shot and skinned a husky thinking it was a wolf pup recently! 🙄

Urrgggghhh.

This year we might get a double musher sled we’ve had our eye on so we can both stand up instead of him driving and me riding in the front.

It would be nice to have the option of standing or laying down, depending on how I’m feeling, without the responsibility of actually being in charge of the team. It’s way more fun to be a passenger!

Maybe Santa will bring us one? 🤔