....whats cooking at the homestead? What keeps you busy now with the garden put to bed and fewer animals to feed?

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2001

Answers

Alison, I guess thinking about Christmas and planning the garden! For Christmas, we are discussing/planning an open house on 12/23....we always used to have a Christmas Eve Eve party for our neighborhood, but got away from it a few years ago. I think this would be a good year to revive it! If so, we need to plan the logistics of food, invitations, etc. So that could be fun.

The garden is my secret luxury...I stand outside in the rain and envision new beds of perennials in bloom; long rows of corn and raspberries suspended on wires....when I get tired of that, I daydream (sometimes sketch) new fencing configurations for the sheep; a big Monitor barn with a hay loft; an addition to our tiny house that has a formal dining room and huge open entertainment area...etc.

Then I get real, realize how much I'm making an hour and how long Mr. S. is going to be in school; how little our investments are appreciating, etc.

Then I just count my blessings (and blab on internet forums!)

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2001

I find time just seems to rocket by these days. In less than two weeks its my birthday, then my son's the following week, then the week after that we hit the road for Quebec. Whew..I am beat already. Plus there is all the stuff lined up in between..Sunday School Christmas Concert, cookie exchange, nursery school christmas wagon ride. About all the attention my critters get is their morning feeding..they aren't friendly anyways so it suits them fine. I wonder why I thought I could gentle these ewes into beind tamer...silly inexperience I guess. I could try with the lambs in spring I guess but I think they will learn from their moms. I get up, feed the kids and get online, putter around and feed animals, and then putter around somemore. I feel a bit aimless this time of year actually. The barn is up and being slowly finished so thats no longer a dream plan. The sheep paddocks will need dividing in spring for managed grazing..I suppose I could try planning that. I think I will cut some boughs of pine and fir for a holiday door hanging. That will keep us busy today before or after nursery school. Don't I sound DULL?????

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

Cleaning the house that has been ignored all summer long!! Also, going through the closets and pulling out the summer stuff to store away and dragging out the woolies, trying to find all the matching mittens and gloves and getting my emergency kit ready for the car. Let's see; I got my insulated bibs, my insulated jacket, ski gloves, coffee can with lid aka porta potty; candles and candle stove, cocoa mix, trail mix, tp, sleeping bag....what am I missing?!

I'm also battening down the animal shelters, adding extra bedding; and moving the portable ones to more sheltered locations. I need to order another dozen bales of straw and go pick it up to make a shelter for the barn cats (are they still barn cats if you don't have a barn?!).

I've been cooking up fattening foods and seem to often find myself leaning against the oven door with my snout stuck in a book as something bakes inside. Boy, I miss the old wood cookstove that I had one place I used to live! It was down basement and for a while (until an old neighbor took pity on me and brought me an electric stove) was what I cooked on - well, in addition to the crock pot and electric skillet! I got pretty good at moving stuff around the top til I got the right temperature! Old Mac came over to check on me one day and found me sitting in an old rocker with my feet propped in the oven, dinner cooking away on the stove top and water heating in the reservior for clean up - who says these modern conviences are all they're cracked up to be?! Now, I'm trying to talk Hubby into putting one of those ventless propane heaters that looks like a fireplace in the living room - guess I must be getting old!

I need to go downstairs today and dig through the closet and try to find my Christmas card to get done up and sent out. I ordered some wreaths from a co-workers kid and I need to decorate one up and get it out to the cemetary for Mama soon - guess that means a trip to wally world for some bits and pieces of gold stuff as she always loved that sort of thing! I'm also planning to get all the holiday stuff out and up the weekend of the 8th when I'm off work again. Got to get the darn cookies done too!! We still don't have an address for Ryan since he left for Kuwait, I hope we get some soon as the stuff we have gathered up so far is going to take a pretty big box - or boxes!

In January and February, I plan to get all my seeds from last year sorted and get my order in the mail for the other things I need. I'll spend a lot of time with graph paper and a pencil and ruler planning things out for the various garden areas. Uncle Ivan has pulled a tractor into the shed to work on this winter, so he will be down a lot and it probably won't take too much convincing to get him to set down for a cuppa coffee and talk garden. I'll probably get stuck working some overtime too, as soon as flu season hits hard and the census at the hospital goes up.

I'll spend some time with my moon sign book and try to figure out the best time to start my seedlings in late Feb or March. Once I get them started, the housework will go by the wayside once again!! Family will be out for Easter dinner and our annual Egg Hunt and then it seems like suddenly May will be here again - and I'll be saying "Dang, what happened to winter and spring? I'm not ready for summer yet!"

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

Container crops. But since our temps have been up, I been opening up the greenhouse so its almost like normal season. I am getting ready to do my yearly wine working with fruit pulp I freezed all summer though.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

Oooh Jay..buuuddddy, did you say wine? :o) I have been after my husband to get back into production but there is really nowhere in this house to keep it out of the boys mischievious little hands. Why, just now they were busy making construction paper angels with their cut out hand prints and foot prints..whats Ben doing? Squeezing the glue into the glitter shaker! Why? Because he's 4. That's why we haven't been brewing since the kids were mobile. :o) Got any glue free crafts anyone???

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2001