We had a couple nice days and it was time to start working on our leaves. We have so many trees on the homestead… which is wonderful and nice, until the sugar maples start to drop their huge leaves! It does take us awhile because we just don’t have a lot of fancy equipment yet to deal with these yearly things… we have rakes and a mulching push mower!
But that’s okay. We have them and it’s good exercise and with the three of us working on it, it doesn’t take toooooooo long.
A good hour and we had the front of the place looking pretty nice. One last mow just to sort of make the place look tidy. We hope in the spring to be able to get a nice older riding mower and we hope one of those lawn sweepers to pull behind it!!!
I just love little Dreamweaver…. He is our pygora buck. He’s such a sweetie. He doesn’t act at all buckish… and since we don’t have any shortie goat does, he can hang with the other hoofies without worrying about making more little pygoras! Some day we would like to find him a cute little Mrs. Dreamweaver, a colored pygora girl. But until then, he just has to dream about Miss Buttercup, his new lady friend. They are good buddies. She tolerates him and he adores her.
It was so nice to finally be let outside to ramble about! Of course my girls kept a good watch over me and all, but I did do a good deal of raking, with frequent breaks. I just feel fantastic… that surgery was the best thing for me. I think I was just dying a little bit every day with that nasty tumor growing and stealing all my blood! Shesh! Now? I feel awesome and every day is better than the last. And the best part? No more pain! That really is wonderful.
Buttercup and Dreamy were so happy to see me and I was so happy to see them! I am not a goat person, really… but these two are sure trying to make me one! Buttercup was sooo excited to see me she was trying to get in my lap and snuggle and sniff me like I had been gone forever and a day. I guess to them, I was.
We had started a fire to burn some of the leaves and of course, that meant the sheep were going to keep their distance.
Unless, of course, I brought out snacks. That would have been a different story.
Jess takes a moment to survey all we had done. It’s looking better. It actually took us about two days to get most of the leaves up. We will have to do another clean up day in a few, just to sort of get it all finalized. We use some of the leaves as mulch, some to compost down for the garden and some to just burn. We just end up with so many! The animals try and eat up some, but it’s no match for all the trees! That one sugar maple in front of Jess drops so many that the ground around it is all leaves. No grass at all showing.
Still, it felt lovely to be outside, enjoying the reasonably nice weather and just hanging out with all the critters. They just love to visit and we love to see how they are doing and just have time to be with them. It’s a big part of what we love on our homestead!
And Duke kitty loves to have a warm lap to snuggle on by the fire! 
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I am so glad you are feeling better. That was the best thing i ever did, too . I am glad to read your posts and hear your good news. Sounds like a great day you had. :o)
Patty
I am so glad to hear and see you’re feeling better! That’s a LOT of leaves!
When I first got chickens some years ago, I used wood shavings the first year. (I don’t live in an area where the farmers grow much oats or wheat for straw.) Someone suggested to me before the following winter, to use leaves to bed the chickens. It worked out great! I bagged lots of dry leaves in the fall and a good thick layer of them in the coop seemed to last longer (before getting smelly) than the wood shavings did. The leaves were FREE, too.
So glad to hear you are feeling good now and after a cozy winter can hit the ground running next spring! I will wish your family no more medical problems! Enough already.
Thanks everyone! I do feel sooooo much better! I’m sure that the big old thing was causing me gradual issues for a good year or more! Just didn’t truely realize that something was wrong, just something wasn’t right and no one seemed to be believing me… Thought it was just sort of the new normal for my age. I’m SOOOO glad to find out it was not! I can not wait for a few months of rehab, in the winter, so to speak and then hit the ground running in the spring!!! Thanks for all the nice comments!!!
Sherri