As we continue to be busy we've been trying to get some relaxing time in with each other, and honestly haven't been able to do a lot other than exist. This weekend we got lucky, and I happened to sleep in until almost 9 AM, and got up, and looked out the window, and saw an owl visitor being driven off well post dawn when I usually let the chickens out. The picture above is from last year, but I think it may have been the same owl. Either way, we, and at least one of the chickens got lucky this weekend due to me having a nice lazy morning. There have been a few other things going on as well, mostly with Gabriel, but also I have managed to, with help, get some things done around the garden as we look to see snow tonight.
In the flurry of getting things done around the house and new baby, our storage garlic and garlic seeds we'd saved ended up outside. Unfortunately that happened to occur A: when the chickens were outside, and B: when it was raining. This led to every last seed being consumed by the chickens, and the storage garlic wet. When I got home from work that day I saw all of it soaking on the deck, and immediately went to work planting it. I got all of the now wet storage garlic in the ground in the front slope where there were tomatoes this year, and then the help from others part was getting the whole area covered in rabbit manure and waste hay which should keep them warm and give them a lot of nutrients over the winter. I don't know if they will sprout, but I can hope. I am a little disappointed that the seeds are all gone, but if we got seeds once, we can do it again. Unfortunately we also lost our seed squash we'd saved for next year, so we're going to be restarting all of our seed projects next year. Having a child has sort of changed our focus, so between that and some bad luck we're back to step two. Step one was figuring out what the project was. Actually, we may even be ahead of that since we now know more on what we should be doing and how to do it better.
The other focus right now of course is the Critter and the Lady of the House. Gabriel experienced the betrayal and confusion of his first bath yesterday which was somewhat entertaining. We have hot water again, but our months without it have taught us a few things, the big one is that for washing dishes, and even for bathing the Critter, heating water on the already running wood stove, or even on the stove is just as easy, and we are less tempted to use more than we need by not paying attention and just enjoying the luxury of hot water. It's a small thing, but I suspect that it will reduce our use of hot water, and thus oil. We'll see how it works out in the long run. We are thrilled to have the ability to get hot showers again though, and that will make life much nicer, though it does remove one easy excuse to be more social than we tend to be up the hill in the form of going to get a shower. We are going to have to actively try to go out and be part of the rest of the world now that we don't have the prompting of going to get a shower to get us out. Especially with the Critter, the temptation to just stay home since we're tired/he's fussy/we want to spend us time is going to be high. We're just going to have to work to be social, and I know that with thought we can do that.
Other things going on right now is preparation for the Hilltown Seed Saving Network seed swap which is going to be happening on November 22nd. We aren't going to be doing much for that this year because we are busy, but I will be there at least, and helping with the clean up. We need to inventory what seeds we do have that we can bring since we weren't able to save a single seed this year sadly. The other thing of interest to me is a local discussion next Monday on keeping farming on the town. That should be interesting, and will probably be part of what I talk about next Tuesday unless life keeps me away from the meeting.
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