Chores

Chores even on my day off.

I feed the chickens, emptied the compost, split and carried the wood, shovelled the steps, front and back and kicked the ball for Dixie again and again and again!

Dixie is our black lab and she loves to retrieve.

She is on her third soccer/basket ball since the summer.

She is six years old, long legged and sleek, with a greying muzzle.

She weighs about 65 - 70 lb., she gets a lot of broken eggs and farm fare.

Anyway, I'm back from the chores but, I still have dinner to make.

Stuck the Dutch oven on the back of the box stove with some burgers to brown.

Now for a vegetable.

That means a trip to the root cellar, so I better make a list.

I keep root crops and preserves in my root cellar but, I also have a freezer down there.

It's full of pork, blueberries, tomatoes and other salsa ingredients.

I should put a pot of salsa on the stove, only one jar left on that shelf.

I should have had the salsa made by now but, I was busy churning and filling my meat freezers.

That is why the "Tomorrow List" was born.

We put 756 lb. of farm-raised beef in the freezer, almost 600 lb of milk-fed pork and 374 lb. of butter.

I have a separate butter/buttermilk freezer.

That should hold us until next fall.

Speaking of next fall I have so many plans, projects and chores to do to get me there.

I need to learn how to properly prune old apple trees.

My great grandfather planted them

Vinegar Hill Farm was homesteaded in the 1880's when Mathias Rowbotham, my great grandfather, bought this hundred acre lot in the land sales when the area was first settled.

He was a Johnny Appleseed kind of guy.

The trees bare well now but, what would they do with a good pruning?

I would like to find out.

One of my favourite snacks is dried apple rings and Carmen likes to make fruit leather.

More to learn and do, I can't wait!

Dinner is done, the dishes are done!

Bread pudding for dessert - with fresh eggs - to die for!

My shift is over and I can go back to my chair and the basket beside it.

Almanac, library book, seed catalogue, farm magazines, reading glasses and my dried apple snacks.