Neversummer and Nocturne

Autumn is a very busy time of year around here. This year the fall work seems to be squeezed into a very short period of time. What would normally be spread out over a couple of months is needing done immediately, all of it. There is no grass left in any of the pastures so cows are needing to come home now that would normally stay out till mid winter. That means fences need fixed before they can come home. Extra calves are being fed in the feed lot, again because of the drought, and again more fence fixing. And the biggest thing of all, the corn is ready to harvest. This also needs done before to many cows can come home as the corn fields are where they will be living. More fencing will be involved I’m sure.

Some of this I am enjoying immensely. These four-wheeler guys allow me to bring my horse and help with the cows. But that is another story.

For the most part it just means I never see my husband. It’s hard to go out side and do the things I used to do with a very small child in tow. Next year when she’s bigger she can come along.

Mostly though corn harvest has begun. The corn has been dry around 13 percent moisture. Yield is not as good as other years but great for as dry as it’s been. Got to love irrigation.

People keep telling me that Elly can’t play with toys yet. If that is the case what is she doing?

We got snow!

No frost yet but four inches of snow. This is just wrong.

Nocturne says  “I hate snow. Period.”

I got to go for a ride this weekend, two actually. My husband watched Elly and gave me time to ride. It was so nice to be out of the house, the days were beautiful. Those crisp fall days with the wind whistling through the corn stalks. Enough bite to the air to make the horse shy at every rustling leaf. Coyote felt good and once I began to regain my seat after such a long hiatus I enjoyed his spookiness immensely. I would have liked a nice run but that might have pushed my recently sliced open stomach a little to far. I would hate to have my guts spill out onto my saddle.

My favorite fall story is The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I always envision the headless horseman on a fiery Morgan. What a sight that would have been, galloping through the beautiful trees with their fallen leaves churning up under pounding hooves. Add pumpkins to the picture and all my favorite things are covered. So for an hour we pretended to be my favorite literary character. Of course we stirred Corn leaves not oak leaves.We could use more trees around here. I miss the fall colors.

Elly is lucky she was a girl or she might have been named Ichabod

This one is even the same color as Coyote. I see some other similarities as well, the evil eye and good temperment.

October is here! I love fall and now it’s officially late enough that I can start playing with my pumpkins!

I have a bit of a thing for pumpkins. We planted a nice little patch again this year. It may have gone just a bit overboard. There are so many different varieties how could I pick just one or two or three or four, oh dear. I think I stopped at seven. But really once that includes an acorn squash and spaghetti squash that really limits the pumpkin varieties. I planted big ones and little ones. Orange ones and grey ones. Flat ones and round ones. There are so many out there it’s hard to decide, next year I will just have to plant a few more. This year we didn’t do enough.

Now for my favorite part. I get to haul them to the house and arrange them just so. Add a few corn stalks and mums. Then sit back and look at all the pretty pumpkins. Some thing is lacking though.

There’s nothing to carve.

Next year I really will have to plant just one plain old field pumpkin.

She is obviously brilliant not even officially born yet, they start counting development from due date not date of birth on preemies, and she’s playing with her toys. I know, I know some thing only a mother is fascinated with.

I read that they should have supervised time on their stomachs to build muscle and something  so I laid a blanket down and put her down on her stomach. She buried her face straight down into the floor, obviously considering breathing to be unnecessary. Once we had that fixed, temporarily she kept trying to do it again, she started kicking and pushing with her legs. I put my hand behind them and she crawled (scooted on her face) right across the blanket.

All in all she is a happy baby, always giggling. Call it gas if you will I think she smiles all the time. She talks more then I thought babies did. Every thing gets commented on, whether a grunt or a squeal. Food is especially exciting. Lots of grunting and growling. She is a very bitey child. Nothing that gets near her mouth is safe when she senses that food is near. With a deep throated growl and a snap of the gums she will take a chunk out of the burp cloth or any finger that ventures to close.

She wiggles and squirms, bunching into a tiny ball I could almost envision still fitting in my stomach. Then flinging her arms out she stretches reaching for the sky and I know what was going on in my stomach.

We took a drive up through the Wellnitz fire the other day. It was huge and horrifying to see. So to take a brake from cute baby pictures here is what we saw:

From the beginning it has been clear who was her favorite. Here I spend all my time feeding and caring for her, searching Craigs list for ponies for her, and she likes her dad best. Isn’t that just how it always goes.

He keeps saying that she won’t want a toy tractor or that she won’t like the clothes with cars or other such boy things on them cause “she’s a girl”.

Shows what he knows. She is going to grow up knowing that she can do anything a boy can do, and do it better if she tries. She will go out with daddy in the combine. She will watch over his shoulder and learn all about computers. She will go with him and have the chance to learn about every thing he does.

Don’t get me wrong she will come with me too. We will ride horses and work cows. We might even do some girly things like cook, cleaning would be taking it to far. She can be a pretty, girly sort of tomboy.