Be Quiet!

I may have to revise my opinion of fall being a quiet season.  Walking along the driveway strewn with fallen leaves sounds like walking through bags of potato chips, rustling and crackling with every step.  Acorns dropping on the shed roofs and truck bed sound like we're being bombarded with boulders.  Woodpeckers are jackhammering away, packing stores for winter.  Crows may have a large vocabulary, but how they understand each other is beyond me since they all talk at once, yelling at full volume as they crowd together on the power lines.

With the earlier sundown, Pick-Me-Up Peggy has been going to bed with the flock and I've missed her earnest little face looking up.  She evidently had the same thought, as last night she came out of the coop as I was shutting doors and again asked to be held.  I find her so endearing as she snuggles in my arms.  The hens have started to pick up production again after a fairly long (dare I say it?) lay off.  One or two eggs a day does not a dozen make and I've had to tell my customers we were out of supplies on several occasions.  It's a case of feast or famine; either there's not enough or there are buckets of eggs overflowing in the fridge.  With each egg being laid throught the day, the pep squad gives a loud cheer.

Hormones still rage in the goat pen.  It's hard to sit in the milking room, listening to the thud of bone on bone as the quarreling girls head butt.  The males are not let out of the barn until I'm done milking, and Nineteen whines continuously, apparently thinking he could help the situation.

Whatever made me think it was quiet?