And a Merry Christmas from Woody and Cyrus!

I was worried about Cyrus leaving his "mark" on the Christmas tree and the presents underneath. So worried that I pulled up the good rug and hid it in the basement. Turns out Cyrus had no interest in the Christmas tree, but he celebrated his good tree etiquette by sneaking past the baby gate to go upstairs and leave his "mark" (both kinds) in at least 4 different spots, 1 of them my laundry basket full of clothes, another the good rug in the library. Oh well.

Woody on the other hand, found it to be quite a lot of fun to help us unwrap our gifts. Cyrus just sat and watched. Both were exhausted after all the excitement.

Hope you all are having a lovely Christmas with your well behaved family members, human and/or animal. We are happy that the weather has turned at least a tiny bit chillier than the 70° yesterday, but it sure would have been nice to have just a dusting of snow for Christmas!

Wishing you a Merry Christmas from Lester's Flat!

The Husband went on a photo-taking spree last week trying to capture some of the critters here. The weather has been unseasonably warm, meaning mud season has continued longer than usual. (Poor piggies! And no, they don't actually like mud. They only like it in the summer to stay cool!)

I just finished a book called Mud Season, by Ellen Stimson. A very amusing and fairly accurate description of our existence as well, although her life is definitely more chaotic. Perhaps her having children AND owning a country store made all the difference in the amount of chaos.

This is Cyrus and MonkeyCat's first year with a Christmas tree in the house. We have been blessed with their good behavior thus far. I hope that my last post of the year reports their continued good behavior.

Wishing you all a Happy Holiday of whatever sort you happen to celebrate!

Photos top to bottom:

1) Peter, Paul and Mary praying for the mud to freeze.

2) Lucille, our oldest goat, and her daughter Beatrice, behind her.

3) One of the 2 baby chicks that was born here. Both of them turned out to be roosters, but at least, so far, they are very nice roosters.

4) Again, no luck with the girls: All 3 of our remaining ducks are drakes. The 2 in the front are the ones that were born here.

5) I don't love having photos of myself on here (or anywhere!) but since The Husband was the photographer for the day, and since the boys were posing so nicely with me, I decided I could get over myself and post this. I am able to walk both of them on the leash at the same time. The only difficulty I have is when the boy ducks start quacking and running toward us. Cyrus has still not learned that they are not dinner.

Ho, Ho, Ho!