I don’t know about you, but we had a drippy, return-to-November weekend around here. Yuck! Nothing Spring-ish or sun-shiny and bright, oh now. We had cold, drizzly, gloom. Luckily we had company this weekend to join us for family movie night and help run through some weekend chores. Saturday I got to talk crafting with my Aunt Annie, and Mr. Fix-It and my uncle got a load of fresh hay and filled all the feeders up to the tippy top.

I was taking pictures from the porch to pretend I wasn't worried about whether or not that was actually gonna fit...

The animals were quite excited about this development.

These pictures don't adequately convey the precariousness of the whole moment.

Then the guys headed out with the mower and weed-whacker to clean up the fence line so we can get the electric fence hot over in the big field as soon as the grass is ready.

Meanwhile I stayed inside with my aunt and the crew, doing laundry, cleaning up potty-training puddles, and sweeping the kitchen floor 60 or 70 times. There just wasn’t a lot going on. Which is fine with me, really. Excitement is overrated. Around here  “excitement” usually also involves mud, body fluids, and lack of sleep, so I’ve come to enjoy the mundane.

Blog readers, meet Annabelle.

I did take some cow pictures, in spite of the bad weather and my total lack of photography skills. We’re selling some heifers (young cows who have never calved) so I got some close ups to send off to our inquirers.

This little guy isn't for sale. He's just so cute...!

And I snapped one or two of our horse for the Cowboy’s scrapbook.

Blog readers, meet Hokie.

And the kids were thrilled the last couple days to see some deer.  Yes, we see them pretty often, but it’s usually when we’re driving and they’re running away. We don’t see them at home very often. (Probably has something to do with all the noise. That’s just a guess–but I’d be surprised if you could drown out my kids with the sound of a herd of stampeding buffalo, so it wouldn’t surprise me to know they hear us coming and head to the next County.)

Sunday morning we had about 5 or 6 grazing the field edge.

Our kitchen/dining room has a double atrium door that opens onto the back porch and from the table you can see out across the backyard and then down across the back field. It’s a great view.

They stayed for awhile and then moseyed off on their own, back into the woods.

And they were far enough away that they couldn’t hear the kids yelling through the door, either. We’ve also seen a ton of turkeys around lately too, but I haven’t gotten any good pictures yet. (Again, we’re usually driving.)

And we saw a hawk swoop down into the field while we were eating dinner Sunday night.

He stayed, flying from post to post for probably 5-10 minutes before taking off back into the trees.

I couldn’t really tell what it was. Even after cropping the pictures. The foggy, gray evening (and my total lack of camera skills!) just didn’t give me a good picture. But the Cowboy assured me that it was a Cooper hawk which eats mice, is native to North America, and is not endangered. I’m not in a position to argue and Mr. Fix-It said he might be right, so this weekend we saw a Cooper hawk in the back field. (And while I would love to think my kid’s a genus, I have to say “thank you” to the TAG reader National Geographic Wildlife Cards by LeapFrog. Seriously awesome for any budding Naturalists out there! Did you know that Macaroni Penguins are native to Antarctica? Ok, let’s be real, did you even know there was such a thing as a Macaroni Penguin?)

How was your weekend? Did you see anything interesting? And did you get pictures of it?