The first cold front of fall has passed through, which means temperatures have PLUMMETED. The high today is only 85, and our low is an incredible 59 tonight. It makes for a welcome relief from the humid, tropical weather pattern we have been having lately. It's hard to complain about rain, though. September has given us almost 13 inches of rain, and the garden looks amazing for it. Okra, eggplant and tomato plants that in August were on their way out, now seem to be growing visibly each day, and one of the eggplants has 8 fruit on it. Yesterday I planted a relatively large area behind the vegetable garden with a mixture of native wildflower seeds, poppies, flax, peas, hollyhock and rapeseed in the hopes of creating a bee habitat. Fall is the ideal time for planting wildflowers in Texas, as the cooler temperatures and rain from now till May encourage vigorous growth of many such beautiful and delicate plants.
PJ and Mabel, our lovely Nigerian Dwarf goats, are rapidly approaching 'maturity'. We hope to breed them in November or December for a spring kidding. I was looking at some pictures of them from April and May, when they were still babies themselves, and was amazed at how quickly they have grown. I have been feeding them more grass and weeds lately to supplement their otherwise monotonous diet of pelleted feed, but I still can't get them to eat hay. Who ever heard of a goat that won't eat hay!? Well, I have tried grass hay, alfalfa hay, coastal Bermuda and even homegrown hay of cowpeas and garden clippings, dried in the sun on our porch. They just don't like it. They sure like the fresh stuff though.
Indoors, Sarah recently made a pair of baby booties for a friend's baby. They are just about the cutest things I have ever seen.
