Our weather has been rainy and foggy, cold and warm again.  We even had a dusting of snow a couple of weekends ago.  The jet stream is to blame, moving north and then south again.  A fickle thing the weather is.

Steve and I tried to take Stewie, our beige alpaca, to the vet for a scheduled check up yesterday.  I had to call at the last minute and cancel.  We could not get the stubborn animal in my SUV.  We would lead him up to the tail gate and each of us would pick up one of his front feet to lift him into the car and he would cush!  Just lay down and refuse to budge.  It was impossible for Steve to lift him as he weighs over 100 pounds and he was resisting with all of his might.  I guess it was bad planning on my part.  We really needed three people to lift him.  But, we had managed to put two other alpacas in the SUV by ourselves before and I did not really think it would be a problem. I figure the other two were too sick to offer much resistance.  Stewie seems perfectly healthy and when he saw the small interior of the vehicle he just decided,"Hey!  You people are crazy!  I am not going in there!"  I still have a scheduled appointment for Prince on Dec. 6.  I will try to get another helper to load him.  Then we will have the vet show us how to collect blood from the alpacas.  That way we can just take the blood sample in and have it tested for Valley Fever instead of taking each alpaca in.  I really don't know what good it will do to find out if they have Valley Fever or not.  There doesn't seem to be any way to prevent it or cure it.

The coyotes have been out in full force since the nights have gotten colder.  They were howling very close to the house last night and seemed to be all around.  Buddy, of course, stays on full alert all night.  I bring my favorite cat, Loki, inside .  He seems to prefer to be in the nice warm house at night.  Mikie comes into the barn and sleeps under the heat lamp that I have up to keep the chickens warm.  Steve wrapped all the exposed pipes so, hopefully, we won't have any frozen ones this year.  It hasn't really been that cold yet but I'm sure it will be in a couple more months.

I am thawing out our huge Royal Palm turkey in the frig in preparation for Turkey day.  He takes up a whole shelf all by himself.  Next week I will be making pies and planning our dinner down to the last details.  Tomorrow I am off to Tombstone.  I saw an item there that I think will be a great Christmas gift for Steve.  Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Pumpkins and zombies and ninjas! OH My!  Lots of dressing up and fun stuff in October.  The McDoles all went to the Zombie walk in Tucson again this year.  I am always impressed with the imaginative make-up job my daughter does on all of them to turn perfectly normal people into horrible zombie creatures! Ha!

And the yearly trip to Apple Annie's for pumpkins that turn into fantastic looking jack-o-lanterns.  They bought me a scrump-didly-licious apple pie with crumbles on top, my favorite.

I have been sewing like crazy too.  My sewing machine of 35 plus years finally gave up the ghost and I bought a new one which I haven't taken out of the box yet.  But I will, for there are many sewing projects to get done especially stuff for Christmas.

Our weather is changing again but not nearly as dramatically as places north of us.  Our temperatures have cooled off to the 80s, yes, we suffer so! This weekend it is supposed to drop down to the 60s for highs.  If that happens I will have to bring in my plants because it will be in the 30s at night.  Steve is trying to get the bump-out painted before we get any precipitation or freezing temps.  He also built a little platform for Buddy to sleep on so he will not be right on the ground.  I don't think the dog has set foot in his sleeping area since we put the improvement in for him.  Go figure!

We had three of our tom turkeys harvested.  They were huge.  I kept one and he is taking up most of the freezer space until I get him out for Thanksgiving.  We gave the other 2 away.  I sincerely hope they turn out to be good.  I am thinking of moving the 2 remaining turkeys and two old hens back to the empty pen next to the barn.  That way all the critters will be close to the barn for the winter and I will not have to go so far to get them all fed. 

It is hard to believe it is November again.  I will have to get Christmas shopping done soon if I want to avoid the crush in December.  Shopping in Tucson after Thanksgiving is a total nightmare.  Also must review my blogs and diary to see what fun things I can put in the Christmas letter this year.  Busy, busy, busy!  Well. Praise the Lord!  It's better than, well, my friend used to say, "It's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick."  Yep, much, much better than that!