Portly Pigs & Plump Pumpkins

It was a much less eventful day here on Gael Glen Farm.  Thank goodness.

Ian went duck hunting in the morning and goose hunting in the afternoon.  I refilled the bees' sugar syrup.  Their buckets were completely empty!  There are still lots of flowers in bloom though, I noticed the ladies out enjoying my fall gardens.

Our honey bees on my autumn joy sedum.

The ducks - Emma and Abby, Callie and Kate - played in their pond.

We finally settled on names for our ducks. 
Emma (front left) in honour of our summer farm hand.
Abby (middle) because we like the name and it pairs well with Emma.
Callie (back left) because of a character on Paw Patrol.
And Kate (right) already had a name though Seamus calls her "Quack Quack".

Henrietta and Pecky Becky supervised all the goings on in the poultry run.

Henrietta is the pretty golden chicken. 
I think she is an Americauna and really hope she is not a rooster.

Ava stayed on her tether and managed not to eat anyone.  Everyone else behaved themselves, more or less, except Ham Solo.  I may have mentioned before that Hammy and Gloria are very hungry animals.  We are definitely feeding them enough but this morning Hammy decided that he simply could not wait for me to dump out the bucket of food.  He chomped down on my hand holding the bucket.  It was an effective manoeuvre to make me drop the bucket and hence gain him access to the food a second faster but ouch!

My first pig bite was all the encouragement I needed to get out the measuring tape and figure out if these two are ready for freezer camp.  Luckily Hammy is so immensely focused while eating that he does not move a muscle.  It was no trouble at all to take accurate girth and length measurements.  These indicated that he is close to 320 lbs.  This is a perfect size.  Next weekend has been earmarked in our calendar.

Since the farm animals were so well behaved today, Liam and I took the opportunity to escape for an afternoon adventure.  We decided that today was a perfect day to seek out a few gigantic pumpkins for carving.  We will not be trick or treating this year so I am thinking of ways that we can make Halloween night super special here at home; extra huge pumpkins for Jack 'O Lanterns seemed like a good start.

These are very large.
Liam was ecstatic.

Liam and I also decided to celebrate today's return of summer-like weather and the beautiful fall colours with what will perhaps be one of our last ice cream cones of the season.  We thoroughly enjoyed it.

On the whole, it was a relaxing and enjoyable Saturday.  I hope this gorgeous weather and today's exceptional barn yard behaviour lasts forever.

Our sugar maples.

Our horse chestnut tree.