October...Already!!

Tonight we will likely have a hard frost. Definitely the signal to shift out of Summer mode. Need to put up all the hay equipment, figure out the best strategy to graze off the remaining pastures and extend the grazing season, send steers to the Vermont Beef Producers sale (this weekend), get ready to provide our customers with delicious free range turkeys, butcher off a couple of hogs, and post the land against the hunters that don't bother to ask.
We are experiencing the empty nest farm this Fall. Chauntel comes home now and again to give riding lessons to her students. Quentin rarely gets out off campus from Norwich. Actually Linda and I are enjoying the new "nest" farm..... seems easier now. At least when a gate or door is left open we know who did it.

Porcine Plowboy: this hog and others like him are used around the farm to uncover metal or sharp objects that cattle may ingest or our horses decide to injure themselves on. The pigs will clear the areas that all others fear to tread, including farmers due to poison ivy, nettles, burdocks, et al.