October

The peak of autumn is quickly passing by. The golden yellows will soon turn to brown and then the trees will be bare in the blink of an eye. I miss the eastern autumns where you get to see trees in every shade of yellow, orange, and red. Autumn is one season that isn't quite the same in the west. Still, I get to see high mountains with their uppermost peaks covered in snow and along the bases of these majestic mountains are many golden trees and orange-ish, reddish bushes. You don't get to see anything like that where I came from. I'm hoping that this winter we will get more snow that stays on the ground. For the past two winters that I've lived here we have gotten our most snow in November, then it seems to be all downhill from there. It's the wind... it blows and blows as soon as it turns cold out. I'm hoping, though, that this winter will be different. That there will be calm. That there will be enough snow on the ground all winter to play in.

Thanksgiving will be here before we know it. I plan on making a late Thanksgiving dinner - around December 1st when my in-laws arrive. There will be warm, homemade pies: pumpkin blueberry, and apple. I plan on making mashed potatoes, gravy, baked sweet potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, a big green salad with all the toppings in little separate bowls - tomatoes, cheese, black olives, green onions, cut baby carrots, radishes, and (of course) cucumbers. I'll make a plump roasted turkey that we raised ourselves here on our little farm. I'll make fresh, homemade bread rolls that we'll spread plenty of Amish butter on. Yes... it will be a Thanksgiving to remember. It will be nice to have my in-laws here with us to celebrate the holiday.

Now that I've sat here dreamily talking about autumn for two paragraphs I'll bring up the bad news of the day: at least 30 of our sheep disappeared. We haven't seen them since Saturday night. We've figured out that they crossed over the fence in the back of our property over to the land behind us. My husband came across one Shetland ewe and our llama, Oscar on that property back there. He figured he'd come back to chase them home and went farther back to look for more sheep. When he came back, though, they were gone. He came back home and we packed up the children into the vehicle and we looked for the sheep together. We searched until it was nearly too dark to see out. We finally retired from our search for the night, ate our dinner in silence, and went to bed. I keep hoping they'll turn up. We'll search more today. It's just so strange that a whole herd could disappear like that. They must be out there somewhere...

Well, I better go get ready for my day and prepare for the search. Until next time...