Pretty much every Monday morning I give our three youngest girls the morning off.
hey get to sleep in until about 10, and I take care of the animal chores.
One Monday morning a few weeks ago, I thought I should snap some photos to share with you all. These were all just snapshots taken with my phone, as it’s been too cold to take out my professional camera, plus it gets in the way during feeding.
Up and at it at 5:25 for some prayer time with hubby.
5:40 Out of bed, and straight to the washer and dryer!
I’m excited to see how my load of ‘laundry’ is looking this am!
Ahhh… freshly dyed fabrics. It’s especially fun when trying new ways to dye.
Coffee time.
Start the bread maker. I need 3 or 4 batches of dough for today’s baking.
Time for my morning devotions & writing in my prayer journal. I’ve been doing this for about 18 years now. A very good habit to start my days with!
Time to fill up the water jugs and a bucket of raw food for the barn cats.
Scout & Bentley join me for the walk to the barn.
First up, piggies. This is Oreo, our sow. She’s a purebred Berkshire.
We’re hoping she’ll have babies this spring. If we timed it all right, and all works well, she should have piglets mid May!
And this is Red, (I called him Tam, but the kids outnumbered me 3-1). He’s a purebred Tamworth boar who’s staying with us for a while. If he did his job well, we’ll know soon enough. He gets to stay at least until things warm up. For now, him and Oreo keep each other nice and warm. I’d rather Oreo have company for the cold months. Once things warm up, he’ll be going back to his farm. Who knows, maybe he’ll come visit Oreo again next winter. 😉
We bred Oreo to a tamworth because her sister had been bred to a tamworth and she had the most delightful little red piglets with black spots. Both breeds are great, so we thought we’d try the cross for ourselves. My kids never saw her sister’s piglets, so they are anxiously waiting to see if these piglets turn out as cute as I said they would. lol
This will be our first time ever breeding a pig, we’ve always just raised weaner pigs in the past (piglets that have been weaned) so it’s pretty exciting. Of course we have no clue if it’s going to work, and if it did, how many piglets Oreo will have, and even if they will all survive. It’s all a guessing game until the end. I guess you can’t count your piglets until …
Time to feed the sheep!
And the horses anxiously await their turn!
Munch munch munch, horses are happy once again.
Time to feed the chickens, ducks, and guinea hens.
And pick up the rewards!
Two kitties who are staying in the house when it’s cold since they’ve not been feeling great. (We do keep a heated place for the barn cats in the loft, but when they are kittens, or sick, I like them inside when needed) Patches, our almost 17 year old cat, dares to allow the kittens to share in a plate of salmon. This is not usual. lol Grumpyoldcat doesn’t like to share but was too busy being excited over the smell of salmon that she didn’t mind them too much… this time.
Worstebrodjes all finished for dinner. It’s ground beef and pork mixed with spices, rolled into small sausage shapes. Then you wrap that in bread dough, and bake.
( I should have taken some pics of the process).
While I made the worstebrodjes at the table, the girls did their school work.
I seem to have missed taking anymore photos after this point. The day just gets away on me.
After school I cut fabrics and sewed, and sewed, and sewed some more.
I’ve been working on a couple of blankets as well as pads.
We had our simple dinner of worstebrodjes (truth be told, they were our lunch too. We couldn’t wait until supper time to dig in!)
And then, off to bed. Tomorrow is another day!
Some time when the weather warms up a bit I’ll follow the girls around while they each do their morning chores and share a day on the homestead from their perspective. Perhaps one day one of them would even like to blog about their days!