This year we became livestock barons:  the South 40 is now a working ranch with 5 4 head of chickens (everything was going fine until a hungry hawk came along).  It's funny how your attitude towards wildlife begins to change once they become predators and start doing damage.  Trish and her Sweet 16 have also had to defend the chickens against rattlesnakes and other pests.  What we do for those chickens and they don't even appreciate our sacrifice.  Fresh eggs are sure nice though.

We put in a small garden around the house this year.  All things considered, it did quite well.  I don't know if it was weird weather in the spring or what, but the beans and tomatoes didn't really start producing until September.

As usual, we had lots of fun watching the bluebirds.  But this was, "The Year of the Hummingbird."  It was one continuous, intense, non-stop, high velocity, no holds barred aerial dogfight all summer long.  Wow!

Construction Report

It's sort of embarrassing:  Last year we built the entire deck and finished up the siding, soffit, and facia.  This year we did the front porch (and yard), and a few other odds and ends.  The old clock seems to be winding down.  Trish was sort of sorry to see the last of our attractive blue and white house wrap go.  Now we can no longer tell people to just look for the unfinished house.

We didn't really do any formal music this year, just informal picking sessions.  Our spring rendezvous was cancelled due bog-like conditions in the picking arena.  Our fall rendezvous was pleasant and well attended.  I keep thinking about picking up one of them there video cams and then T&A could become the next big Youtube sensation.   We did go to the Big Picking Festival at Winfield again this year.  We're again looking forward to closing out the musical year with good friends at a  down to earth picking party on New Year's Eve.