Nervous Animals

        All of the animals in the barn seemed a bit nervous and on edge this evening when I went into the barn for their evening feeding and bedding down. The dog became edgy and whined and barked and tried to pull away from the lead.

        It took me a while to find out what the problem was but I was successful. I looked behind the open barn door on the wall side and found an extra animal that was not as popular as the rest for some reason.

        I encouraged it, gently, to leave but the spot seemed to agree with it and it was not  coming out. Finally, I left it where it was and did some other chores away from the barn and then went back to see if it had changed its mind. It had. It was no where to be seen.

        I have seen this little animal a few times during the early morning but have not been able to get a photo. This time I was more lucky as I had my headlamp with me.

Striped Skunk - Mephitis mephitis

Leroy

         It's been a while since I have posted a photo of our donkey, Leroy. I had several photos of frosty flowers and leaves that I took this morning but decided to put up Leroy instead. Hee haw!

Road2Hope Half Marathon

        It was very cool running today with temperatures just below and then just above freezing with a 15 to 19 km north wind. If i could run a race like I say I plan to, i.e. run for fun and to finish, I would have more enjoyment out of the races; however, I tend to get caught up in "racing." Today it was when I passed the 2:30 race bunny at the 10 k mark that I started wondering if I could get my half marathon time to below 2:30 again. So, I tried in spite of a knot in my left calf that had started at the 4 k mark. By the last two k's I was in a lot of pain with my left hamstring and left ankle competing for pain supremacy. I ran through it with a couple of extra short walks, and made it over the line at 2:24:49 which was a bit faster than the last two years when it was over 2:30. I was a bit disappointed when I saw that I was 16 out of 19 in my age group and then, when I got home and looked more closely, I found that they made an error in my age. If they did not make any other age errors, I was 2nd out of 3 in the 70-74 men's group. I wrote to complain and am hoping for the 2nd place metal.

On the way down the escarpment towards Lake Ontario on the Red Hill Parkway.

New Rooster

        Fleur-Ange made a connection to get this new rooster for us. He will look even better when we get him outside in the sun for a photo with a proper camera instead this one taken in the dark barn with the iPhone camera.

November Friday Flowers

        I did not see many blooming flowers today as I had some errands to run and did not have time to visit the Waterfront Trail. At this time of the year most of the flowers that I find are not far from the Hamilton Harbour on the Waterfront Trail. I spent about an hour in the Royal  Botanical Gardens Arboretum and found 21 flowers in bloom. I guess that's not too bad for November 1st but I expect to find more flowers tomorrow on the wildflower walk that Fleur-Ange and I are leading on the Waterfront Trail.

       Meanwhile, here is one of the flowers that I found today. It is Herb Robert, Géranium de Robert in French and Geranium robertianum in Latin.