From Average to More Series: Chores, Plus Some Springtime Extras

It's seems I skipped a week! I could make excuses but I am a mama of two, pregnant with the third and that is all you need to know. Yet, I will go into detail as to how I have been feeling which did influence said missed post. But, first, would you like to see how big I am??

Sorry, it's a phone "selfie". Is that even spelled right? I hate that term. Anyway, there I am, that was a week and a half ago at 16 weeks and change. I was in Michigan at the time which was a great trip, by the way. I love my cousin and her family out there, if only we lived a bit closer to each other!

So, as the title suggests we will be talking about chores. I cringe over this currently because I have been somewhat restricted recently due to contractions and the like. It's been concluded that I am not having preterm labor but I am to be monitored a bit closer for it and not over extend myself especially with lifting. When Montana Man is home he has been helping me tremendously, but when I am solo I am doing the best I can. Sometimes my best is still too much and I end up having contractions at night which I calm down with an herbal tincture and half a beer. It's frustrating and tiring but I will make it work! Because of where we are with house construction and my condition we have decided to scale back our barnyard ambitions for this season. Grudgingly and with some relief also I cancelled getting the goats. I'm not super woman and really waiting another year won't do us any harm. I think we might also be waiting on pigs as well. The house is progressing but slowly as we are building it ourselves from this point and do not have a crew. It should be livable before baby arrives but it might be close! The chores I am left with I will illustrate for you as small as they may be.

The chickens we will be adding to this year and the flock will be quite large for the summer but will be whittled back down in the fall when we fill the freezer. I have mentioned getting heavier breeds to be for both meat and eggs and intend to increase the laying portion of the flock to around 20-30 so that I can sell more. My hope is to end up with some broody hens next spring and have them hatch next years chicks. Caring for them will still be pretty minor especially once we get a proper coop and run done. It's a basic feed, water, clean, collect the eggs routine that would take less than 30 minutes a day total.

The horse is still pretty easy what with his free choice hay and not using a stall. Obviously I am not riding him but I do want to get back to some ground work with him soon. We will move him back over to the "pond pasture" for the summer and then over to our new house when his paddock is done.

What I currently do is do chores either during nap time or after the kids have gone to bed. Very rarely do I get up to do them before the kids are up in the morning. I have no shame in saying I am not a morning person and if I were to get up before Puzzle Boy that would be 5:30. No, thank you. So nap time will be my aim since during the winter months that would allow me to actually see what I am doing. I will probably steal outside for a couple minutes just to let the chickens out in the morning but the rest will have to wait for nap time. And, that's it! Nothing to exciting.

Spring is still at war with Old Man Winter as it is cold today and snowed two inches overnight. NOT impressed. However, everything in the greenhouse is either coming up or thriving including the onion and cabbage seedlings I moved out there a couple days ago. I forgot to take pictures but I will soon! My four small raised beds are full of tiny white and red Russian kale, spinach and Rainbow Chard as well as peas that I planted along the back edge of each box. When the peas are a couple inches tall I will make them a trellis of yarn so they can crawl up along the sides of the walls out of the way of the greens. If this works well this might be a new ritual for springtime to get a jump on the growing season with the little greenhouse! So far the greens seem to have germinated well if not a little slow but given I direct seeded them all it took was a few days over 50 degrees to get them to take off. Hopefully it will stay cool enough to get some good spinach without bolting. We'll see!

And, a final note... while I was having testing done to make sure I wasn't in labor we found out we are having a... boy! Yay! Sweet little man.

Til next time.