Well, I wish I could say that we are accomplishing all I had hoped we would, but that doesn't seem to be the case. But, that is ok. We've had plenty to be thankful for over the past few weeks, along with a few blips. I was finally able to make up our new schedule, that will include: no milking, Isabella's horse work/lesson time changes, and putting Jonah on the 'must be schooled' line up. We were supposed to start on it yesterday. However, there were other things that needed tending to. I had to prepare for being gone yesterday evening, and then I returned to a few sick kids. I knew it was coming as Isabella had a sore throat, runny nose, etc. But now, all three boys have runny noses. Nothing bad, but it seemed to disturb Jed greatly in the middle of the night. I didn't get much sleep! Trying to rest/sleep-in didn't work either. Oh, well, I suppose I will be hitting the hay early tonight.
Along with our regular daily things, and the need to plan for this coming baby, I am also trying to plan for some other activities, learning times. For example, we are need of some herbal tinctures. My first go to is homeopathy, but I still have a lot to learn to get the right remedy each and every time, so herbs are our back up. I would really like to get a couple of books, but that won't be possible. So I get to spend more time searching the web for herbal recipes. I have found a few, but trying to organize things seems to be impossible lately.
We really, really, *really* need to get back to stocking up our food storage. After months, and months of having to cut back, we have to cut back yet again for another pay check. Which I know I really should just assume will be forever more at this point, to not get my hopes up. But, this is going to be very hard to do since we ran out of a lot of things this past pay period. Not major things, but lots of little things. And I already know that those little things add up. Sigh. It can be so discouraging to read of others experiences, and tips, and realize...at this point there isn't anything more I can do to make room in the budget to get caught up. Very frustrating. Even with what seems to be a no win situation, I need to think outside the box to see if I am missing something. Because I really can't just sit by and feel helpless.
UGH! In the couple of minutes it took me to type...Aubrey redecorated our living room floor with paint (he was trying to paint on paper and didn't quite keep it there). Our boys are exceedingly destructive. I have to balance doing work around the house, and cleaning up the aftermaths of the hurricane/tornadoes they create.
Anyways, as I was saying, there is just lots to do around here. Big and small. We need to get a light in with the chickens asap. With 30+ chickens we are getting a whopping 3 eggs (if we are lucky!) a day. Not a good return on our investment in chicken feed! We need to breed our two oldest goats in the next coming weeks. The baby goats are still too small for our liking to be bred this year. They have really picked up growth since we send someone out to fend off the chickens, who were eating their food! Silly goats. They would just let the chickens take over. Our adult females would never let that happen :-) But finally the baby goats are filling out and up. We will be trying to space the breeding so we don't have all the babies born at the same time. Way too stressful for me!
We really need to find a good time to work on gardening and the off site fruit orchard. I think because we don't *have* to absolutely rely on them, they seem to take second place, or 6th or 10th! But, really, with food prices rising, a large percent of the USA's meat cattle being wiped out, and the usual, we *need* to see it as a necessity. I was talking with a friend the other day about gardening and she was saying up North they had an amazing garden. Tons of stuff growing, huge harvests, etc. But down here, she said the soil is just soooo bad. I started thinking of my dad's, grandfather's gardens and the lush gardens of some bloggers I follow. By golly, they all live in the North! Here we have an amazing growing season (length wise), yet horrid soil. So, my plans, which I have had on a list for the past 3 years (!!!) to really make it our chief goal to obtain, and make our own compost really needs to be the priority list right now. We had great success with our first garden here in the South, but we used the double digging method, and due to the all clay soil, we put in a TON (not literally) of compost to make it usable. Our soil on this land isn't filled with clay, and so we put a few inches of mulch on top of the yard. That has not been cutting it. At first we thought the mulch we had lay down may be inhibiting growth, but I've seen plenty of success with other people's gardens that use that method. I am now thinking it is because the soil is just bad. So we need to think of building soil, instead of building a garden. Hoping that made sense.
I am hoping to one day actually start taking pictures again. My favorite lens broke, and then my second lens, which I don't care for broke. It is still usable in manual focus mode, but that makes it very difficult to capture anything that is moving...like my children :-) But I do miss documenting our days with photos. Everyone grows so fast that I don't want to let months and months and months go by without snapping some pictures. I suppose I will need to see what I can do with my manual focus only lens since a fix, or a new lens isn't in the picture right now (yes, pun intended!).
Alrighty, after Aubrey just made another mess... I need to scoot and get some things done. Maybe I should make, find some duct tape be on my top to do list? Ha, ha!
(sorry for any typos, don't have time to read through)
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