Milking season is over. No more race to keep up with the goat-ladies making cheese and yogurt every day.
Garden is put to bed. Planted garlic a few weeks ago, threw a few cartloads of compost on top of the beds, and called it a season. See you in April, garden!
Preserving season is over. We are beginning to eat the pickles, pears and chutneys that I put up in the summer. There is still kim chee in the fridge. I didn't get around to sauerkraut.
Hay for the winter is put up (I hope we won't need more than what we have). Fences are recently mended. Animals are wormed, feet are trimmed, and everybody's pregnant who should be pregnant, and no-one is who shouldn't be (touch wood).
Homero has made two big batches of biodiesel, so we won't have to fill up the bug for quite some time.
Don't get me wrong - we can't sit back. There's always more to do. There's stuff we need to do to get ready for winter. We didn't get the small pasture fenced for a winter sacrifice area, so everyone will be out in the big pasture like usual. The beehives are not yet insulated and wrapped. The propane tank is only a quarter full. I have to get more mittens and socks for the children. There's something wrong with the gutters on one part of the house and there's a patch of mold growing on the walls and ceiling of the storage closet that is underneath that area. We never did set up the rain-catchment system; it's still just a bunch of big plastic cubes on the porch. I meant to get our diesel generator wired into the house so that when the power goes out we will have emergency power. The cars all need new tires - the van's tires are as smooth as a baby's bottom.
Some of the stuff that didn't get done didn't get done for lack of time. A lot of it didn't get done for lack of money. Sometimes it was a lack of guts: I just didn't want to open the hives again. And sometimes I just forgot about things. Money is going to be short for some time, most likely, so big projects will not get done soon. That mold? I'm thinking bleach and a fan, for now, and don't store anything important in that closet.
2 comments:
You may want to make sure that they mold isn't the kind that causes neuromuscular disorders or death before you just bleach 90% of it and blow the rest around the house with a fan.
Also: you should write about Ro's potential 'off the grid' project. I think it's a great idea, if only because it is a fantastic way to learn through carefully controlled failure. Which is how most engineering science is learned.
Sometimes while I'm stoking the wood cookstove to cook a meal, or packing veggies into jars, or sorting potatoes, or scrubbing crocks, or scouring cast iron pots, I will look at Christopher and say: "You realize we are crazy, right?"
While the vast majority of Americans are watching TV and shopping or looking for ways to entertain themselves, we are always busy and usually have a pile of things waiting to be done in the garden, on the farm, and in the kitchen.
It's nice to know there are other crazies out there too.
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