Farmer Girl

The husband has been in Colorado this week visiting his dad. He’s on his way home today. His absence was a big motivation for me to clean the house. It’s easier to do when he’s not here, and it stays cleaner longer. On Wednesday, I tore apart and cleaned the living room, then swept out the old garage. Yesterday, I cleaned the kitchen and two bathrooms. The sun came out yesterday morning, so I also mowed the grass after lunch. (It’s raining again now.) I’m taking a break today to run errands and record next week’s podcast episode. Cleaning our bedroom can wait until tomorrow.

I’ve also been responsible for animals. I handle the routine chicken chores most days, but the husband takes care of the pigs. Before he left, he made sure that there were some bags of food in a garbage can in the chicken coop so I wouldn’t have to haul 40-pound bags of feed over from the garage. We don’t usually keep feed inside the coop because it encourages mice. For the pigs, he gets a 1000-pound tote of feed every couple of weeks from the farm store. The tote sits on a pallet next to the piggy palace, surrounded by hot wire so any hungry bears passing through won’t be tempted to gorge themselves. The feed gets scooped from the tote into feeders on the wall of the piggy palace. There is also an automatic watering system with nipples so the pigs have constant fresh water.

The husband is all about efficient infrastructure.

The hardest part was getting the animals onto my schedule for the week. He normally does a walkaround before he comes to bed and tucks everyone in. I don’t stay up that late and I wasn’t going to alter my schedule for livestock. I also didn’t want to be wandering around by myself in the dark. The first night, I coaxed the pigs in earlier using marshmallows. They learn quickly and I haven’t had a problem since. The chickens, given the option, would stay out partying all night in the chicken yard (and Dave would start crowing at 3 am). I don’t give them scratch grains until I’m ready to close up the coop, so they have to come in if they want their treat.

It has been a mostly uneventful week. Sarah brought a few more trays of plants to the greenhouse. She’s going to come over next week and help me organize what goes to the plant sale and what stays here for my garden.

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I would have liked to have had some sewing time this week, but I also like having a clean house. Part of the reason I swept out the garage was so I could work on the Juki 1541 now that I have the motor issue sorted. I have a stack of bag projects that need to be finished as well as some of the husband’s pants to mend.

One of the topics that comes up frequently at sewing is ideas for new items to make and sell. If I had time, I would make up some of these cute zipper pouches:

Moda has a whole Pouch Club with patterns for various kinds of zipper pouches. (coughSarahcough) These would be great for using up scraps.

I can’t get my sewing projects under control, though, so all I may have to sell this year is a stack of potholders. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Things might slow down in June once the garden is in. We’ll see. I scored a nice chunk of royal blue stretch poplin at Walmart the other day (for $4!) and that’s going to become a pair of Style Arc Linda pants.