It’s been a long time since we posted, simply because this Fall has been pretty overwhelmingly busy! To give you an idea of some of the things going on these past couple months at the Flying T…
Fall was spectacular this year, and though we got a light dusting, we didn’t have a repeat of the Halloween snowstorm of 2011. Here’s a pic of the Flying T in late fall from the air.
The beginning of Fall also brought some new additions to the Flying T. One is “Rocky,” our new black labrador puppy.
He’s growing fast, and has made friends with just about everybody except the house cat.
Fall is a wonderful time of year in New Hampshire – the temperatures are perfect for us, and get us out and moving even more than in summer. Here’s our son showing off some moves on his bike and a makeshift ramp he put together.
Our younger daughter had a “coming of age” milestone – reaching the age we have determined is the minimum to be allowed to operate the tractor solo. She’s been very proud of her newfound freedom and ability to pitch in to some of the heavier-duty chores.
The ducks hatched their last clutches of the season. They were much smaller than earlier in the year. We believe this is due of the loss of our prime drake to a predator a bit before they started setting.
With the new arrivals, we also had a few departures. Another duck to a predator, and a hen to a mishap. And then another departure due to sheer meanness. One of the roosters, “Big Daddy Rooster,” attacked the kids one too many times, so he is now at freezer camp.
Of course, the big news for the region was Hurricane Sandy. We escaped most of its wrath, though we did lose power for long enough for us to get the PTO-driven generator running. Our biggest need for power is to run the well – the horses alone go through about 30-40 gallons a day.
We found by running it only a few hours a day, we could replenish water supplies, get the family through the showers, and run a load of laundry. Thanks to all the linesmen and emergency workers who got power back up and running so quickly!
The power company also did us a huge favor this summer by cutting down some of the trees that had been threatening the lines (and thus our road and driveway also), so we had little cleanup to do post-Hurricane. However, since I was told to stay home from work, the chainsaw still got some work as we got back to clearing more of the back pasture.
I also ended up flying a few Hurricane response missions for FEMA with Civil Air Patrol. You can take a look at some of the 175,000 damage assessment photos we took at this link:
http://fema.apps.esri.com/checkyourhome/ (Zoom in about 3 clicks until you start seeing green dots around the NYC area. Each of those is a photo).
And so, as the fall winds up and the winter starts to move our way, we’re finishing up our preparations… just like this snapping turtle who two of our ducks escorted off the premises on her way to hibernation.
Hopefully it won’t be too long before we can post again! Blessings to all of you as we approach this season of Thanksgiving (though every day ought to be a time to be thankful)!
Comments