We broke out our coats this morning. Not our jackets. Our coats.

47 degrees and rainy.

Dark and cloudy.

And cold and dreary.

Yuck!

It was misty and my battery was low, but here's my little Carhartt crew.

My guys had to go feed the chickens this morning before school. Speedracer’s asthma is kicking up with the weather change, so the Cowboy went along to help him out since he’s not feeling good.

Penny didn’t go along. When I’m not out there she tries to snatch the left over toast out of the bowl herself. I understand it’s hard to resist–I mean, they’re carrying the bowl right at her nose height–but I’m hoping she out grows that eventually.

He's so cold he's not even sucking on his fingers while he's waiting!

We’re trying to teach the kids to use their pockets instead of pulling their hands up into their coat sleeves. I keep saying it’s because livestock farmers never know when they’ll need their hands at a moments notice and can’t afford to have them tangled up in their sleeves.

That’s basically true, but really I just can’t stand that habit. It annoys the be-jebbers me.

The sheep want something too.

We’ve just started grain feeding the sheep too. Part of me likes this time of year because they get really friendly and they’re staying in the fields closer to the house so you can get to know them and all their little habits and personalities all over again.

But part of me gets tired of never being able to leave or enter the house in peace.

No more quiet cup of coffee while watching the sunrise over the back field…

No more sneaking out in the dark for a cool, quiet moment before the bedtime drama…

No more watching deer graze the field from the end of the porch, oh no.

As usual, they were running, shoving, and racing the whole way back.

As soon as that door squeaks open…as soon as I so much as poke my nose out to check the temperature…

A thundering herd of ovines (you didn’t know sheep were called “ovines’ did ya?!) gallops to whatever side of the house I’m closest too and the baaaaa-ing begins. And we’re not talking about the soft, counting sheep in a nursery rhyme kind of bbbbaaaahhhh. Oh no, we’re talking 65 yr old, life-long chain-smoker with a megaphone BBBLLLAAAAAAHHHHH!

Who ever said life in the country was quiet, didn’t move to our neighborhood!