December 10, 2022 - Day 13

The weekend! 

I REALLY look forward to the weekend because I get a break from doing the critter chores. I usually do Saturday morning, but since Friday was so rainy I was over being outside. So I asked for Tom to do the whole weekend :)

The first thing on our agenda was to go to the Battle Ground Wilco store. Tom is wanting a pair of rubber boots and Wilco has a decent selection of boots to choose from. After about a half hour Tom figured out what he wanted. So now I'll have to figure out a time to get out and shop for his Christmas gifts.

Farm project of the day - hauling wood chips to the momma's area. The pigs tend to wreak havoc in their areas. Especially along the fence. Bridgette and Skinny momma must pace more than Rexy & Fiona, their area is terrible! It's just going to get worse, winter hasn't even started! I'm wishing for a less wet winter, but I don't think that will be likely. We have experienced at least three Atmospheric River events in the past couple of months. Not Cool.

My indoor project was baking a loaf of Grocery Store White Bread from Joshua Weissman an unapologetic cookbook...

One of my favorite things is baking bread. It's just so much better than anything we buy at the store. 

Also, made a big ol' pot of chili, another favorite thing to make. I like it because I just do whatever. I get the basics out, but then add this and that to make it a little different every time. That will last us another couple of meals.

I might be retired, but I still look forward to the weekend!

December 4, 2022 - Day 7

Sunday is worship day for us AND I generally do not do the chores after feeding the critters on Saturday morning. So it was a rest day for me. 

EXCEPT - we needed to go to the feed store and pick up a bale of straw and one of alfalfa. The newly covered and cleaned pig house needed some straw for extra warmth. Not that the boys would care so much, but at least they wouldn't be sleeping outside in the rain/snow. It did snow yesterday and it was a little more cold than it has been in a few days. 

The remainder of the day was spent indoors as it had started snowing while we were at church and pretty much continued throughout the rest of the day. Fortunately snow around here doesn't last long and the snow on the driveway has melted and the snow on the ground will turn more icy, but at least there isn't much.

The other thing that we worked on is our brand fresh new fake-o Christmas tree. Straight out of the box and fluffing the branches. That took the both of us, each of working on it an hour at a time I would guesstimate. 

It looks pretty good I think. Once it's in place and decorated It will look much better! While this is a environmentally friendly choice I think I'll miss a live tree for the one month out of the year that we have the decorated for Christmas. I won't miss tromping around a tree farm looking for the "perfect" tree or continuing to look after we found the "perfect" tree. No water involved here or trying to get the tree straight in the tree stand. 

So my Monday project will be getting the living room rearranged for this tree!

What I Don't Do Well

There are a lot of things that I don't do well, but one of them is not taking care of myself very well. It's not like I am reckless and just go willy-nilly doing whatever, which I do, but not to the extent that I did this past Saturday.

You see, if I stand too much or lift too many heavy-ish things, I risk hurting my back. It seems that I've always had issues with my back for as long as I can remember in my adult life. An innocent twist here and a heavy lift there and BAM my back is unhappy. In more recent years I've decided that I don't like to be in pain more than I need to - let's face nobody likes to be in pain. Anyway, I've been getting good at asking the hubs for help lifting pretty much anything that is more than a five pound bag of sugar or heavier. A lot of times, I will carry the hefty-ish item myself on the sly, only to be discovered and then lightly reprimanded for carrying whatever. I'm glad for the help now that I know that it's for the health of my back.

WELL this past Saturday after I found the canning jars I was really excited to do some canning. The project of the day was potatoes. I got two bags of potatoes and after I was left alone for the afternoon I got to work getting the potatoes prepped. Knowing that standing too long will cause me problems, Tom was kind enough to find me a stool to use while I'm working on things that don't require standing. I set up my work table and got to work peeling 10 pounds of potatoes...all while sitting on my very comfortable stool.

One thing leads to another and pretty soon I'm moving back and forth from the work table to the sink and transferring potatoes from my giant bowl to a stock pot full of water for boiling. The stock pot by itself is a little heavy, add water and potatoes and it's a lot more heavy. Fortunately, my work area in the kitchen isn't vast. So transferring the pot from the sink to the stove is just a couple of steps or so. 

To be honest, I never think about if I'm going to be in pain at the end of the day. I'm just enjoying the process so much! 

Nine canning jars later I'm ready to transfer the jars along with the All American canner to the garage. Here's where it gets a little physically demanding. The cart that I use during my canning adventures is this ONE. It is the perfect size to tote my canner and the jars and other tools in one trip. The only problem with using the cart for this particular canning session was the fact that there was 40+ pound bag of scratch in the cart which made the cart hard to pull and left not much room to transport my supplies safely in one trip. I'll tell you what, that thing was HEAVY! I could have wrestled the bag out of the cart, but I would have been in much worse shape.

After I was able to get things out to the garage and the whole process started, I felt the first twinges in my back. It only got worse from that point. By the time Tom had returned I was in a lot of pain and STILL trying to get things done - I had to do two rounds of canning to finish the project on Saturday. Even though my back hurt and I knew better, I continued to do the lifting like I probably should not have. 

The rest of the day was not great. The pain was terrible and it was a reminder that I REALLY need to pay attention to what I'm doing and not over-do it so much. However, to do the things that are fun I have to fit them into the weekends that go by fast. 

The day is coming though, I won't have to work so hard to cram all the things into my weekends. That day can't come soon enough, now that I know that it will be here soon-ish. Until then I'll try to remember to be mindful of the things I'm getting myself into and rest more than I think I need to and be thankful for prescription naproxen!

This is more like homestead life...