Here’s what it looked like at 5:45 p.m. last night from our front porch, or for that matter, looking out the living room window.
Fifteen minutes before I took the photo, the sky was all yellow where the red is in the photo, and I thought, “Well, okay, we just might get the rain predicted from the hurricane coming north.” And then, the red appeared. Note that the camera really didn’t do the colors justice: it was about 5 times as intense as pictured…but still, quite lovely. I DO love this place!
Today is the first day back on Eastern Standard time, so I woke up early. I am looking forward to it’s being light at 6:30, instead of 7:30, at least temporarily! I can get the chores done earlier. Last night, one of the rams was ramming something…not quite sure why: they have girlfriends enough to amuse them. Maybe he was hungry…or smelled a girl NOT in his group in heat. Rams are peculiar during breeding season…they really seem to be slaves to their testosterone. Poor things. Luckily, in a couple of weeks, it will pass, and they’ll settle down for the winter, only getting rambunctious when one of the unbred lambs goes into heat, which will happen every 18 days for a few months in winter…Then, when a ewe gets very near to lambing, the rams will act up again, something which might help me determine if a lamb is soon due, if I paid enough attention to it. Usually, I don’t…
And tonight, it will be dark an hour sooner, around 5 p.m. or so. Winter is soon upon us…but not really until the days start to get longer again, one of the amazing miracles of the year for me: while the temperatures plummet after Christmas, there is hope of spring, visible in two minutes more of light each day, approximately, reminding us that this, too, will end and it WILL warm up, if not for another three months! I love winter, but come mid-February, it starts to get a little old!
