My Day Off

I decided today is my day-off.

My road trip to the dentist with Dad got cancelled due to bad weather.

So I can do whatever I want.

No one knows that I'm home, alone!

Cranked up the tunes - Blues!

Sat down to blog!

Blog gets flagged in my spell check, so I goggled to confirm.

I love Wikipedia!

A blog is a " personal journal published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete entries...".


Discrete it is and spelled correctly.

Winter is lazy for me on days like this.

That is when I sit far too long in my rocking chair by the wood stove and read until my hearts' content needs to get up for school.

Soon as the door closes I'm back in my chair.

I have also been working on my garden, planning how I will run dairy my next summer.

This is my planning time.

I have been offered a box of heritage veggie seeds.

I said yes.

My friend Lisa and I are going to put in a field of potatoes I think, hope.

My root cellar stores potatoes well.

Another project is that I need to build a new, mouse-proof potato bin.

I need to give the root cellar a clean sweep and a make-over.

To much HGTV perhaps.

As far as the dairy goes, we have scaled way back.

May only milk one cow this summer.

Don't think that will be enough for what I want to do.

I made 374.25 lb. of butter in 2011.

Sounds like a lot but, it is surprising how much butter I went through over the holidays.

I gifted some in care-package Christmas presents as well.

So I'm thinking 2 cows and something for beef.

I also want 2 piglet sows to drink the excess milk and grow into pork.

Sows so that they don't need to be cut!

I love milk feed pork.

It is very sweet and the flavour divine!

Not to stack the deck but, we also want to have 2 dozen meat birds.

The chicken house at the farm is empty.

A good cleaning and we're ready.

That will have to wait until April.

I need to get some hatchery flyers when I am at the feed store next time.

Which reminds me that I need to get more feed.

The girls go through 5 litres of laying mash a day.

I have been cooking for them also.

They love the potato peel wheat dish the best.

People think that I am crazy when I tell them that I cook for my chickens.

My Grandmother used to do it and she knew what she was doing.

They need a warm meal now and then, they also need their veggies year round.

Carmen and I eat a lot of  root crops in the winter so, I cook the peels with wheat pellets on the back of the wood stove.

They appreciate it and give me 25 to 27 eggs a day, every day.

I have 27 birds - not bad eh!

In the summer I sour milk and feed them the curd.

Very high in protein.

It is good for the meat birds as well.

The meat is sweet.

They were a little on the fat side because the milk was not always skim.

I don't start separating milk until middle of August.

To much other stuff to do in early spring and summer.

Gardens, pigs, chickens, the beach!

The garden is a big part of my spring and summer.

I love playing in the dirt.

I got my first seed catalogue in the mail the other day, then I went out and bought the 2012 Farmer's Almanac.

Everything is beside my rocking chair in a basket.

I get up at 4:30 just so I can have this time to myself.

Greedy eh!

I build the fire up, read and drink coffee with the animals.

Sometimes I bake.

It is the best time of the day for me.

Mind you, by 9:30 at night Carmen is tucking me in and turning out the light.

I also get a kiss on the forehead.

My daughter is a night owl because, morning is definitely not her best time of day!

This discrete journal entry must end for now because I want to go look at my new almanac.

See what is in the stars for this year!

See, back  in my chair!