Birds descended upon our farm this week like… like… like LOTS and LOTS of birds raining down on my head.

Not really. I hid inside the house.

I mean, come on. One cat might not be all that scary (Yes it would be. I am terrified of cats.) but thousands of them would be, right?

The poop alone is reason enough to stay inside.

Come to think of it, there’s an awful lot of that inside too.

There’s no escaping the poop.

They just kept coming and coming and coming – landing on our freshly harvested soybean field and eating what they could find.

These photos don’t show how many there really were.

I had birds in my front yard.

In my back yard.

In my side yard (Yes. This is what my window really looks like. I feel bad about not washing them but really, why bother when the tractors just get them dirty all over again?))

It’s like they were arriving in shifts.

And they kept flying in until (I suppose) the last morsel was gone from the fields.

I think this was a preview of what Thanksgiving will be like at my house.

I’m still new to the whole photography thing – especially using my Canon.

But the fog was especially thick one morning late last week and after I fed the baby, washed a hundred loads of clothes, cooked breakfast, changed 150 diapers and started lunch I noticed just how foggy it was.

The colors in these photos are just so …. different. Richer, deeper. Just…. MORE.

All of these shots are straight-out-of-camera. I didn’t do any contrast enhancement or boosting the saturation or anything.

I wanted to go pull the girls out of school and make them pose but I thought the school might frown upon that. So I took a picture of their teepee instead.

(That’s my GOOD slipcover on those poles, by the way. Can you guess whose idea that was? Betcha can.)

The fog also made the mistletoe really stand out.

I love mistletoe.

I plan on asking the Cotton Husband to shoot some down for me after Thanksgiving.

Speaking of which… I am hosting this year. For the first time ever. Tips? Hints? Offers of refuge if I simply decide to run away?

Opening day of deer season began rainy and yucky. Did it stop anyone from going hunting? Nope.

Fortunately the rain tapered off (even though it was about 100 degrees – whew!) and I could bring Peanut out for a visit.

Did you know REAL hunters wear pink?

They do.

Our two oldest girls spent most of the day hunting with the Cotton Husband. CH used to hunt alone… having the freedom to go wherever he liked… say whatever he liked. Oh, how things have changed!

I think he likes it that way though. He gets to impart his knowledge and wisdom to a new generation (are you all laughing yet?).

When it got dark outside, I kept looking for them to come home. I should have known better. They’d been sucked in by “The Lodge”, as the hunt club is affectionately known. Truth be told, it’s just an old hog house that the guys fixed up (a little). It’s a great place for children to play hide and seek, chalk on the concrete block walls and well… just be kids.

The big kids like The Lodge just as much as the little ones do. It’s a turn your cap around kind of place.