FLIES, FLIES, FLIES..........!!!!!

Although our nighttime temperatures are in the 30's (no freezing yet) when it starts warming up in the morning here come the flies.  We're still putting on fly masks & putting leggings on Jenny & Quilla to protect their legs from fly bites.  This time of year the flies seem to be particularly vicious, I guess they know time is short.  Our days are still in the 80's, so I would imagine until the daytime temperatures get lower on a regular basis, we will continue to have flies.  

This afternoon we will be taking Sunny in for his pre-op appointment.  I miss the good old days, when you took a kitten in , they neutered him & you brought him home.  Now it's a 2 appointment process.  That's fine for people that have extra time to waste, but we usually don't.  

We think his momma, Hobo has kittens again.  There is a trail in the new hay, at least I hope it's her trail.  She's finally letting us pet her without swatting us, so once the kittens are out & about,  one of us is going to sacrifice our skin & blood (read that to be me) to grab her, hang on long enough to stuff her in a crate.  First we'll have to figure out if she will come up on the porch if there is a crate sitting there.  She won't if the live trap is there.  And she will not eat canned food, so we can't drug her in food.  But she definitely needs to be spayed.  There is a big yellow tom cat that shows up often, I would imagine he's Sunny's daddy.  And the new little ones, of which I hope there aren't many.  Sunny had a brother or sister, we don't know what happened to it though. 

Jerry has settled in & is doing a great job picking up poo & keeping the water buckets filled.  He picks up 2 or 3 times a day & picks up in areas we never did, so it's looking much nicer around here.  

We'll have to start getting ready for the annual Open House, the 1st week-end in December.  This will be our 5th year to participate & it's always a lot of fun.  We don't do a whole lot of getting ready, but it still takes time.  This year we will have a pop-up shelter so whoever is sitting at the table won't have to sit in the sun or cold wind, whichever we have.  Last year was really nice, the year before, not so much.  Some friends are suppose to come out & trim trees, around the pens & along the driveway to make it a little easier & safer for people coming in.  We get use to ducking or stumbling around & over things, but you can't do that with other people especially "City Folk".  One year I wrapped a cactus with bright colored tape.  A little girl came to me & wanted to know what that was.  I told her it was to warn people, so they didn't get stuck.  She looked at me like I was nuts, but people have a way of walking into cactus.