Sarge, the World War II salvaged work truck of Pompanuck Farm, returned to our pasture today, he will be here for a week until Vince Vecchio, a reknowned big man in a truck comes to put gravel in the pole barn for the winter, and flatten out our bumpy driveway.

Then Scott  Carrino will take Sarge and our very excellent donkey manure back for the Pompanuck gardens. Every year, Scott warns me that we should only use composted manure for the gardens, every year I tell him we know that, we have been up here for years.

When he comes next Wednesday, Vince will take our growing manure pile and put most of it in  Sarge’s truck bed. He will add some gravel to the police barn, where the animals will huddle in the winter when it’s cold or icy. Otherwise, they don’t care much about the weather.

People forget that animals like sheep and donkeys are desert and mountain animals, they hate to be cooped in without ventilation. Our pony is hardy as a tank, no weather drives her into shelter if there is a drop of grass to look for. Ponies were bred as war  horses, Genghis Khan rode them across Asia.

We’ll keep some of the composted manure for our gardens, which will undergo some major expansions and improvements next year.

Sarge is welcome here, I love photographing him (he will be a portrait in a show one day) and his arrival is a sign of the end of summer. Even though it is hot still, and sticky, and the flies are vicious and thick, everyone with a farm is thinking of winter. Ed Gulley is bringing me 90 bales, Sandy Adams is bring about 25 second cut bales here.

There is hay available here, just a couple of hours in any direction there has been severe drought this summer, compounded by the absence of any melting snow last winter. The ponds and wells are low, but in our county, we have been spared drought or extreme weather.

The first and second hay cuts have been  strong, we can buy square bales for between $3 and $5 a bale (if it’s delivered).  Just a couple of hours a way, hay bales cost twice that much.

We seem to be off the track of the most severe weather. (If my grandmother were alive, she would spit three times over her shoulder to drive evil spirits away if I said that, any time you said a good word about anything, spit flew all over the place.)

I get very restless when there is no hay in the barns in September, even though the animals graze well into October, even November. I don’t really relax until the woodshed is full (it is but we need one more cord if the winter is cold) and the barn is stuffed with hay

This winter, we will be feeding 10 sheep, two donkeys, and a pony, I think we’ll go through 125 bales of first cut. We give second cut as an energy boost in extremely cold weather.

We are also replacing the frost-free faucet on the side of the house, Jay Bridge is coming to do that before the first frost. Our oil burner has been checked, the wood stoves have been cleaned