November 20, 2022

With the inevitability of winter coming on, John built Damien a better doghouse. We moved him to the back pasture so he could roam and patrol. The 3 acres are all fenced, or so we thought.  He kept finding holes in the fencing, so we’ve had to go back and do quite a bit of fence mending.  He is a guardian dog and likes to patrol. He needs a job. He was getting bored in his smaller enclosure and since the chickens are in their own secure enclosure, we figured we’d try. The first night, he dragged his bed out of the house and moved it to where he could see our house. He did this several nights, even though we kept putting the bed back into his house. One morning was exceptionally cold and we did not see Damien where he had been sleeping, and his bed wasn’t there either. When we walked around the corner, there he was, in his house, with his bed! He is a smart dog!

The garden is asleep for the winter. Katie cleaned out a few of the beds and topped them off with compost and mulch – we try not to leave any of our soil bare. There are several more garden beds that need to be cleaned out, but, truthfully, whether we do it now or in early spring won’t make too much difference. Our compost piles are still maturing, so if we leave them be, we will have much richer compost in the spring. Who knows, if we have a warm day in the next month, we may clean out another bed or two.

John was busy this month with some commission pieces, and now that the Bass Pro job is finished, he has a little more time. A co-worker at Katie’s new office has a side gig as Santa and he needed a new belt. John was able to source an awesome belt buckle (do you know how hard it is to find buckles for a 3 1/2″ belt?). Katie’s co-worker was thrilled!

John also has been hired by a woman in St. Louis who is renovating a restaurant. She commissioned him to recover six lampshades with rawhide. He finished one to send her to make sure it was what she wanted. She texted him as soon as she received it and expressed how much she liked it and to proceed with the others.

This fall seemed to fly by, but we are excited about celebrating the holidays!