It has been a busy and invigorating November. Despite periods of intense rain (enough to trigger local flood alerts) and even some snow, the frost has not prevented us from being quite busy with the procuring and chopping, crushing and pressing of many apples. As you can see, we are old-school in our fruit-pressing business, and many malic acid-bearing fruits went to their doom in our medieval torture device.

The resulting pomace left over after all the crushing and pressing was put beneath one of our volunteer apple trees, to the great delight of the geese, who now find this to be one of the best places to graze and relax.


So far we have not yet seen the geese turning up tipsy or drunk, but then, one would have to wonder how we would be able to tell the difference; not always the most graceful of birds, they've yet to slip up to us, weaving as they slap us on the back with a wing to proclaim their love of their 'good buddies'. It's been business as usual - 'wark! Where's the food, jerk?' and the usual excitability whenever delivery drivers turn up with packages.


The ducks have been less interested in the pomace, or perhaps bullied away from it by the geese as usual. We have ten new Muscovy hens thanks to FedEx running over one of our previous hens, having tracked down a semi-local breeder - the new hens have settled in fairly well, and while still a little cautious of us, have taken a cue from our brown original flock in showing up for food, and staring fixedly at us in the hopes that we'll get with the program outside of usual feeding times.

The sheep are doing well also - Mitey's flock is the breeding flock this year, and the girls are definitely beginning to get that look - the look which says 'pay me no mind, this totally isn't a watermelon I'm trying to smuggle past customs, inspector'. They dive into alfalfa as a starving cannibal might into a well-fed Lutheran missionary whenever it's presented to them. All in all, a good start to the winter on the farm.