Another weird, discombobulating pandemic year rushes to an end.
Where did THAT AutWin go?
(AutWin is what our favorite naturalist Larry Weber calls the “awesome” season between
fall of the leaves
and fall of the first lasting snow.)
Despite restrictions necessitated by another round of Covid and the onset of winter, the weeks seemed to zip by.
Santa’s Busiest Elf© spent much of the time crafting artisan soaps
and mailing them off to customers all over the country.
Inventory and boxes took up much of the living room.
The gift basket she submitted to the 2021 national ADGA Bath & Body Products competition won a blue ribbon.
The goats stayed busy incubating cute little bundles of joy to be delivered in March. Blood tests confirmed that
Kuiper
Planet Nine
and Tzest are all pregnant.
Their barn features a new hay feeder
but the ladies continue to torment Barb by making her guess
which bales of hay they’ll eat and which they’ll snub.
With the first really cold weather most critters headed for the burrows they dug in our lawn. Pepe le Pew no longer pops into the barn to share Momma Kitty’s food and water dishes.
Now that bears are not a threat to the bird feeders, Barb puts out sunflower seeds and gourmet suets for her avian and sciuridaen customers.
Is that a big bird or squirrel perched in the apple tree?
Nope – it’s Momma Kitty
pretending to be a vulture
or pretending to be Snoopy pretending to be a vulture.
In the cold, snowy weather she hangs out on top of hay bales in barn, soaking up sun from the south window
with easy access to her buffet nook and its bottomless bowl of Meow Mix.
Our local greeting during the fall:
Newspapers feature gruesome pictures of hunters posing with dead deer.
Fall is hunting season for Dustin, too. Early one morning he was hunkered down in the kitchen staring intensely under the refrigerator.
Following a loud commotion, he brought his trophy mouse into the study to show off before he trotted off to enjoy the feast in privacy.
And he didn’t even hork it up again, as was the custom of our previous predators,
Bubba and Julius.
The only remaining evidence was a trail of blood on the kitchen floor.
Just as Queen Elizabeth progresses during the year to her various castles,
His Imperial Majesty Dustin moves throughout the day
to his succession of warm cozy beds
but continues to spurn the expensive one that Barb bought for him.
He snuggles up so intensely against the louvered heat registers that he may finally
slice himself up like a hard boiled egg.
When not stalking or napping, he continues to monopolize the office chair
binge-watch nature videos on YouTube
and keep up with the latest feline research.
We celebrated a joyous Thanksgiving with friends Hilary and Rumbi (with the requisite visit to the goats).
Our weird roller coaster weather continued to thrill. A few transient autumn snows fell, but not enough to relieve the persistent drought.
AutWin is a time of spectacular sunrises and sunsets as light slants across the cloudy horizon.
We experienced a record high 49 degrees on Dec 15th – followed by a weather pattern that the National Weather Service described as “historic”
bringing in short order high winds, rain, “flash freeze,” thunder, heavy snow, and rapidly falling temperatures,
but we were spared the tornadoes that touched down further south.
Christmas with the Santagoats was quiet but merry.
Substantial snow fell during the last week of 2021, guaranteeing a white landscape for the start of 2022, with frigid temperatures in the forecast:
We’ll “enjoy” a high of -3 on New Year’s day, plunging to -24 overnight.
2022 is Year of the Tiger.
Our favorite tiger joins us
and Baby New Year Tzest in wishing everyone
