A Touch of Fall In the Air on the Farm

When we moved to Tennesse 10 years ago, our Jack Russell Annie was just barely one year old.  Now at 10 going 11 she finds snuggly spots to nap inbetween her hunting jaunts on the farm.  She still goes, just not quite so fast.  Her once all-brown face is now mostly white.  My, how time flies!  She will soon snuggle with the other dogs in their heated dog house.  As I walked around the farm, with fall in the air, our dogs, horses, plants and landscape has changed so much from the past 10. Walk with me for a moment and I will show you.

 Anna, my old show mare, was my favorite mare.  She gave great rides for both me and my oldest grandson, until we retired her to broodmare where she has given us some great foals.

 Blue came with us from Kentucky.  Now at 14, he is still one of my BF horses.  He and Anna are sharing a field since Anna's last foal was weaned a few weeks ago.   Now their pastures are eaten down and dry, needing a rest over the winter to be lush and green next spring.

 This is Depo, a JackRat, from Annie's first and only litter when she was just a year.  Depo used to have a brown face too.  He has found himself a good place to nest for his afternoon nap as well.

Some of you have met Toby, now 7, and adopted dog at 4 years, who won all our hearts with his not so smart dog routines.  Tobes makes some of the antique shows with us, travels well, visits well, and loves to ride in the car.  All the grandkids love him; he is very kid friendly.  Toby stands on a stone retaining wall that surrounds the far side of the pool.  We added the pool and the patio 6 years ago.  My husband and I hand-laid 15 pallets of patio stone to create the wall and stone patio.

 
This is Rascal, my grandson's Jack Russell, who came to live with us 3 years ago, after my grandson and his mother moved back to Kentucky.  Rascal had spent so much time with us on the farm, that he was not ready to make the move when they were!  He still goes bananas when they come for visits, and sometimes he makes the trip with me to see them.  He is always ready to go, but always ready to come back.  Here he is accompanying me by the pool to photograph the dried grasses.  We added all of the landscape by the pool as well as many around the yard.

 With all the drought, we still managed to have one last bloom on the Hydrangeas by the corner of the house.

We built the horse shelter in the field, as well as adding many sections of white fencing over the farm.  All of the fencing was run-down and delapidated when we bought  the place, not to mention overgrown, and overrun with weeds and junk.  We replaced all the fencing with white and began some weed-control(bushhogging), and now the place looks liveable.

This past week I scraped and painted all the rails, posts, and trim on our front porch.  Now a refresh of the mulch and it will be good to go till spring.  Earlier this spring, I tore out all the old bushes and junk by the front to replace it with some shade-loving plants and bushes.  I have lost almost half of what I planted due to drought and heat.  Guess I will bite the bullit and replant again.  Still glad I did it.  It will look better eventually.  Can't believe my maple tree in the front yard is still green and some have already lost all their leaves. 

The last of the few tomatoes still hanging on.  Time for fried green tomatoes!

Oop!  This one snuck in sideways.  This is the last of the color.  Sounds like our first freeze could be happening this weekend.  Love lavender.  Started this from seed 2 years ago.  This was a weedbed over my headed when we bought this place.

My plants are in the greenhouse for the winter.  My husband gave me the greenhouse for Christmas a few years ago, and I  have loved it.

The last little bit of color left in a patio pot.  The geraniums and petunias are long gone.  This is a portion of the patio we added.

We are still picking pecans.  Our huge old trees are still producing bumper crops year to year.  We just picked up another 5 gallon bucket today, with probably 10 more gallons on the ground.  We just get tired of bending over.

I managed to put a little fall vignette on the sunporch table.  Love the hedgeapples for fall, even though I hate the Bodock trees they come from.   If you have ever been stabbed by the thorns from these trees, or tried to mow around one, you would understand.

And finally, a bouquet for my table with zinneas, lavender, basil, and Echinacea seed pods.  It was a good day on the farm.  Thanks for letting me share it with you.