Bleah

That glorious, warm, sunny October is gone.  Now we have a wet, cold, blustery October and I think it's going to stay that way.  Our wonderful (to me) mid-80s temps have been pushed aside by a cold front and we're now hovering just under 40.  The 10 day forecast doesn't have us topping 50 for the coming week.  :-(

With this cold front we finally had rain - just over 4.5 inches of it.  The weather people will probably look at the last 6 months and now declare it 'average' for rainfall.  Weather stats have a way of making wild weather seem bland in retrospect.

I've been washing sheep coats recently, a couple of loads every few days.  I had started earlier in the year but then with the drought I let the job slide.  Now, however, with hay season looming fast I need to get them all done and repairs made to those which have need.  Over the years we've really snag-proofed the barn and feed bunk but they still manage to catch the coats on things we haven't found or even the sharp stubs on the woven wire fence in the pasture where the vertical and horizontal wires intersect, wrap and are cut 'flush' - not flush enough sometimes.  I'll probably have dozen or so to fix and I'm making a pile so I can do them all at once.

When the rain started Thursday I was tempted to shut the sheep out so they'd get washed off again but it was pouring buckets already at chore time and driving them out would have been an unhappy affair for all concerned.  Plus, the rain was supposed to be (and was) an all day affair so coming in sopping wet at night they'd be bringing gallons and gallons of water in and soak the bedding.  We broke into the new, 'this year's' hay and fed in the barn and "picnic area" in the old feed bunk.

Friday was the same rain - just pounding - plus it was in the upper 40s - so they had a second day of hay. Today it was a more normal type of steady rain, but barely 40.  Hay again.  We're hoping to get them back out tomorrow.  We'll be turning the flock into the north pastures again and they *should* be able to keep grazing for a couple more weeks.

These mushrooms popped up as if by magic on the lawn.

At least something can flourish in the cold, wet end of the year.