Green and Chickens

We have been in full swing with school lessons, feeling the chill of the new autumn air.  The week before last, the chill just swept in, shocking us a bit with the sudden cold weather.  To my pleasant surprise, the outdoors remains mostly green.  The grass is still as green as ever, not the drab, dead brown of our previous desert home.  The leaves began turning awhile ago: beautiful shades of gold and red, but many of the trees are bare now, except for the bright green moss that grows on many trees.  I am enjoying our new home.

A few weeks ago, Husband took us on a trip to get chickens.  He built a remarkable chicken coop out of old scraps of wood, furniture, and other materials.  He even made it so that our chickens can free range all over our whole garden, eating lots of bugs and vegetation.  With every opportunity he gets, he looks for ways to improve on their diet and their environment.  Because of their age and the cold weather, the hens are not yet laying, but hopefully they will be soon.  Each of our children has named a chicken.  The little hens often follow us around the garden and like it better when we are outside with them.

Husband has also ordered a lovely turkey straight from a farm, for we will be celebrating Thanksgiving here, as we would in America.  We have invited a few people to join our family, so we may have an even fuller house again.  There is much to do to prepare, though I have already planned most of the dishes we will serve.  I've been able to order a big roasting pan for the turkey and a pie pan for pumpkin pie.  A thoughtful neighbor even stopped by with a homegrown pumpkin for us a few days ago, which we will use for homemade pumpkin puree.  I love homemade baked goods with pumpkin in them--pumpkin muffins, pumpkin pie, pumpkin cookies...