pond bond

This can be a challenging time of year for outdoor photography.  The trees are bare and the grass is dying. The flower garden is flat and empty. We have beautiful blue skies, but Indiana winters are brown, brown, brown. 

Except...I can still find flashes of color if I try!

Leaves are still vibrant beneath our front bushes.

I see flits of color in the bare tree branches.

A few bright berries are still clinging!

A cedar waxwing left behind a few colorful yellow-tipped feathers.

Even our fallen apples provide some nice texture and color, along with a hearty meal for possums and deer!

Even without color, winter foliage can be really dramatic.  Great shape and movement by the back pond!

Fireworks!

Softness and sway.

Life goes on, right along with the falling temperatures.  All in a day's work for Claudia:  drinking from the front pond...

...keeping us "fed" with her bounty...

...and guiding us around the property on short walks.

She missed this mouse!  We have live traps in our barn and they're checked at least once a day, but sometimes a mouse will literally die of fright in containment.  They get tossed in the field for the animals.

Todd's hard work in the fields has made it easy to see and enjoy the back pond.

Even in chilly weather, it's fun to congregate there.

Blue skies, sunshine!

Have a great week!

awesome possum

We've had rain...

...frost...

..and finally, our first snow!

Hopefully this will upload!

It wasn't much...but definitely a sign of things to come!

The deer have been coming in droves to collect our fallen apples.

A possum has been visiting at night, looking for some spare cat food.

Claudia soaks up the sun whenever she can get it.

Our front pond has a skim of ice most mornings now...

...and our porch pumpkins are slowly changing color in their constant freeze/thaw habitat.  Hopefully it's not too late to collect seeds!

Somehow, there are still spiderwebs...

...and sunrises continue to be glorious.  It's a perfect morning view from my office window!

I've been frantically working on Christmas gift lists and craft projects, but I did find one shortcut that utilizes my Cricut machine.  I'm cutting out Star Wars snowflakes with it instead of by hand, and it's so much easier!

I love how the leftover bits on the cutting mat look like Gremlin faces.  :)

I think I'm on track to completing everything right on time. Phew!

Have a great week!  

apple grapple

The last pumpkin.

We've had a few more beautiful frosts...

Winter is coming...quickly.  But still...ootheca!

Ootheca!

Ootheca!

I'm finding them everywhere.  And despite our rapidly-falling temperatures, I saw a praying mantis, alive and well, a couple of days ago!

Still seeing a few mushrooms...

I dug up my dahlia tubers this week and was pleasantly surprised.  I did not fertilize, stake, or in any way care for my dahlias this year - they grew and fell in my 'weed patch.'  I had to follow the flattened stems to their bases for the tubers.  Some vole damage, but still a nice crop.

I mowed the garden and will leave it as-is until spring, when I'll lay down paths again and pull up the dead weed stumps.

We picked as many apples as we could...I estimate around 50 pounds!  Good thing, because the wind picked up and most of the remaining apples dropped.

These apples draw deer out of the forest at sunset.

Those sunsets are spectacular!

Days are shorter, and cats everywhere are curling up on blankets.

In other news, we've been stocking up for the arrival of our new pup.

Truth:  as a homebody with generalized anxiety issues, big disruptions to the home environment land me into a funhouse-mirror alternate universe, where everything familiar is distorted and slightly sinister. Even knowing this, I've been struggling a bit with this new pup since she came home yesterday afternoon.  She isn't interested in toys, food, or treats.  When I try to take her outside, she just shudders against my ankles in the cold wind.  All of the training videos prepped me for a frisking, treat-loving pup that I could immediately start to train and bond with, and I'm at a loss with how to handle a puppy that only wants to lay quietly in my lap.  We're hoping that a little bit of time will draw her out.  I won't be able to relax until we're in a definitive and familiar schedule.

Enjoy the last bit of fall!