Life On Regal-Hill by Gail Hillriegel

Now that we have had several frosts here at Regal-Hill, it is time to clean up the flowers and garden. As soon as we got the first damaging frost, I pulled or dug up the Dahlias and Gladiolus bulbs. Then I cut off the tops and prepared them to dry before storing them.

Although George finally finished haying for the year here at Regal-Hill, there still seems to be plenty to do. Now that the pastures aren’t growing as fast as they were, hay is taken to the pasture where the heifers are, nearly every day. We don’t want to put them in the barn any sooner than we have to, hopefully not until the first of November.

It was a bit cool here at Regal-Hill this morning. Even though the sun was out it hadn’t warmed up much yet. As I left the house for my morning walk I picked up the mail I had ready to take to the mailbox and as I reached the corner of the house I could hear a fire siren going off. I returned to the house to tell George, who was burning papers in the furnace to warm up the house.

It looks like the sun has finally decided to shine today in earnest here at Regal-Hill. The previous two days weren’t very good for drying or anything else since it stayed so windy, cloudy and cool. This time of year the sun makes such a difference in how warm it feels.
Finally, George is going to try and mow some more hay. He gave up wanting to harvest another cutting in the meadow, so soon the heifers will get to enjoy it and mow it for themselves. Thunder, Allegra’s horse, is already in the meadow where he has been fenced in. He seems to be enjoying it even though he can’t chase the heifers now.

Life here at Regal-Hill has been rather boring lately. We finally got a good rain and wind, then it didn’t want to dry off so more hay could be dried or other outside work could be done. We still have berries to pick, a garden to harvest and flowers to cut or stake. Every morning I am thankful there hasn’t been any frost yet.