Thursday, March 17, 2011

spring forward

We have eggs. We have, in the past, managed to maintain egg laying through the winter, but not this year. And not last year either. We were really only successful at it when we had very few hens. Maybe we should go with that.

There are also seeds in the ground, things sprouting. Coltsfoot is blooming. Goat is getting big but only beginning to bag up . . . and she is ancient. Between the bear and a neurological incident, we've only got the one female left and I hate that. She's the daughter of our first milk goat too. We'll know about the cow only later.

The potatoes from the garden are sweet -- full of sugar as they think about sprouting. It is getting warm enough that I'm beginning to think of how much I will miss cooking on the wood stove. I'm thinking about doing bread again, building a bread oven, an outside kitchen essentially. It has always been on the list.

We had a couple of deluges of water and the road is seriously bad in a couple of places. I find it interesting how that moves. At one time it was the steep part that was difficult, and given the chance it would be again but for now, the water is channeled off of it. This time a culvert was overwhelmed and water came down a place that has never washed before. We think we'll leave that part as a new ditch and just move the road over a bit.

Which might illustrate an important thing to homesteading: not having one way it has to look like but looking instead for what works. That works in parenting too. But you know, the road only needs to work, not necessarily be in the same place; or the kid needs to eat some veggies, not necessarily those veggies.

I am once again trying to find a place. It is tough to have a foot in two paradigms honestly. Maybe I can find a way to step out of that other paradigm and yet remain in horses. I know how to step out of the paradigm, and I know how to remain in horses -- it is the combining that I'm not sure of.

I do love daylight saving time. And St. Patty's day!

5 comments:

Madcap said...

Oh my gosh, I forgot that today is St. Patrick's! I'll have to do something about that.

Speaking of goats... a client was telling me yesterday that she named one of her goats after me. (Apparently it's a very sweet goat, so obviously it wasn't type-casting.) So now I have two four-legged namesakes!

CG said...

I gotta get that photo! I owe you two actually. Hope it is warming up up there. Today it is supposed to get to 70 here.

Madcap said...

There's some light snow happening this morning, but in the last couple days we've been hovering around 0, and it's so NICE! The light! The (relative) warmth! It makes such a difference to everyone's outlook when, just to have some sunlight again.

el said...

Happy St. Pat's CG!

Oh you would love an outdoor kitchen and/or bread oven. It's finally warm enough that our masonry oven is usable again (didn't get a roof on it in time for the snow/ice last fall) and what's so great about it is I can cook a week's worth of meals, not just bread, in the thing: pizza for that night, bread, roast chicken, a pot of beans, a winter squash...then, overnight, I let my yogurt set. All on scrap wood, fallen limbs. So I hope it climbs up the list; it would be a fun project for all of you to make together...it was for us.

happy spring to you.

CG said...

yes, it is that sort of plan el. What I'd really like is a bread oven (or masonry oven, or whatever -- I'm not keen on the proper names of anything but I would like proper dimensions and likely no chimney like bread builders) AND another wood cook stove like is in my kitchen. One never knows what will catch fire (metaphorically) around here.