Evening sunset, or "moonrise" on the Donaldson Homestead....



Well summer is officially over here in the southern hemisphere and fall has begun. In this area, that doesn't mean much this early in the season; however, we did have a week with some cooler temperatures. Two weeks ago, the days cooled down to the lower 80's and the nights to the upper 50's and lower 60's. This lasted for a week and then the temperatures returned to upper 80 degree highs and upper 60 degree lows.

During the cold spell, the children thought it was really cold, so they all got to test out their new winter coats that their Grandpa John and Grandma Fran sent money for. Here is a picture of Joseph and David one early and "cold" morning. :)



Dane completed a new and improved chicken tractor for our laying hens. The hens didn't take long to make themselves at home.



We would like to expand our flock soon in order to have eggs and meat to sell, so Dane is currently designing a chicken tractor for meat birds and a brooder for chicks as well.

Dane's right hand man, Elijah, has been a big help lately. In the following picture, he is painting bee boxes.



Can you find Elijah in this picture? If you can spot the red shirt in the middle of the picture, that's him. Here he was harvesting bamboo for Dane's chicken tractor projects.

Joseph has been busy finding interesting things lately. In the picture below, he found a brightly colored flowering weed.

This is a picture of a beetle that he found and carried around on a stick for about an hour one afternoon.


And one night in the garden, Abby found this praying mantis.

Lastly, I had another doctor's appointment on Wednesday. The baby has dropped and the doctor doesn't believe that my pregnancy will continue until the 25th of April, so possibly my dates have been off, but we will see. No doubt we are ready to welcome our new little one, but all in the Lord's good time. We will update on any new developments as they occur.

Have a blessed day,

Jessica