Fall is Still Lingering

The kids are out of school today and tomorrow.  We are all guilty of having the "sleepy head" syndrome.  All, but Hubby of course, who groggily went to work.  I, for the first time (other than when sick), slept in until almost 10am.  Yikes!  My 14 year-old actually thought something was wrong with me, ha ha!  Gracious, I am so far behind now.  But you know what?  It felt kind of nice to just take it easy.  Besides, we got a lot done over the weekend. 


Yesterday, we piled firewood on the porch, and (gulp!) fired up the wood stove.  Yep. You heard me right.  After Hubby consulted with a welder, and of course read the umpteen posts online regarding cast iron stoves, he said we are not replacing it.  And the shocker was that we were to use it as is.  We will of course either replace our stove pipe, or install a pellet stove next year (or simply replace the stove piping).  Which reminds me, I need to buy new fire extinguishers. 

In the meantime, I am restocking the emergency fund, and we'll make more decisions after this winter.  So far, there is no smoke coming into the house.  It's warming up nicely in here now.

Hubby tackled his "to-do" list again, and we are once again back on track with preparing for winter.  He completely finished the corner of the barn we re-roofed, cleaned up that same barn, and so forth.  We have to repair two barn doors on the goat/chicken barn yet, but made good progress this weekend.  It's tough when he works full-time, and many nights overtime.  And now the evenings get darker faster, making weeknight work more difficult.

Today, it's a must to replace batteries in smoke alarms, and in the carbon monoxide detector.  We invested in rechargeable batteries for two types of batteries, and it's been a huge cost saver for us.

I had to put our "no trespassing" sign back up on the big barn.  We've had an actual car (not just park on the road and walk back to the woods) drive in between the field and the property, and that barn is unsafe now.  Another beam broke and who knows if it will just fall on it's own.

My eyes are now scorned.  You'd think I was used to it, but I'm not.  I walked a strainer full of goat goodies to the barn, and happened to see my daughter out breeding Misty with Orion (goats).  She got a good laugh at my reaction.  

Shocked to not see another "pear" experimental recipe lately?  Ah, just taking a break from it I think.  You may just see one yet.

One last note.  Three girls need snow boots this winter.  One, more so than the others, as she cares for her goats.  In a search from new boots, I found very little in stores, that are affordable and practical for snow.  Typically, snow boots are out in stores before summer is over.  Not this year.