Monday, May 31, 2010

An Absurd Amount of Stuff - or - The Tradeoff

This weekend I chose the staying-home-and-getting-things-done side of the tradeoff vs being social.  I'm naturally a task-oriented person (as opposed to a relationship oriented person), so this choice fit my nature.  My social options were things I was going to have to force myself to do anyway - large parties where I only knew a person or two.  As soon as I gave myself permission to not be social this weekend, things got really good. The weather was wonderful and I got a totally rude amount of things done.

I cleaned the chicken poop out of and took apart the chicken playhouse.  Here's my Home Depot/Wal Mart deee-luxe chicken poop hauler.  I put the manure across the street where the dogs can't get it, since I don't have a compost pile - yet.

I washed and sanitized 40 bottles, preparing to bottle the 5 gallons of cider I've had fermenting for the last month.  This was a chore.  (Remind me next time to do a better job of cleaning the bottles right after I empty them - before yukky things get a foothold.)
I made raw milk mozzarella cheese and then had one of those balls with fresh basil pesto for dinner last night.

I planted more basil, melon, zucchini, squash, more tomatoes.  Now everything I've started is planted.  The only thing left to plant is the fig tree I bought last week.  Don't judge - I LOVE figs.  Yes, I know figs don't do well in anything less than zone 7 and I'm at zone 5b.  That's why it's not planted yet.  I have to figure out what fantastically creative thing I'm going to do to keep this guy alive so it can make figs for me.

Today I re-arranged parts of the kitchen, which involved taking something apart and putting it back together, hours later.

AND - this is the big one, even though I'm not doing the work - logger dude brought his carpenter friend over and they framed in my new woodshed (with a 6-foot extension for the ATV and lawnmower).  What you see here is 4 hours of work for them, that would have taken me infinity hours more than that.

Now, even though I have 3 more gallons of milk and was planning on making more cheese - I think I'm going to give myself permission to stop working.  Take a shower and sit in the shade with a book and some hard cider.

PS - the other big project that I think I've got covered is that I think I've found the guy I'm going to hire to build a big shed/barn thing to house the animals and hay for the winter.  I think I'll skip spending money on a new-to-me sofa this year in favor of getting this thing built. 

Last summer I looked forward to months of big projects, trying to do stuff myself.  This summer I've smartly found other people to do the big projects, and am instead looking forward to small projects.  The relief is incredible.

4 comments:

  1. I talked to one sister about the fact that I'd paid the guys last winter to paint the bathroom, while they were working and I didn't usually pay others to paint and I felt guilty and she reminded me that sometimes it is our job to pay other people so they can feed their families, too.

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  2. Well done:) Great successful weekend!

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  3. Three words: Figs in pots.

    http://livingthefrugallife.blogspot.com/2010/04/food-production-in-small-spaces-fig.html

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  4. What Jody said. My mother-in-law has an in and out fig that produces a few. It's ok to have others do some of the work, especially if you can afford to pay for it. There's enough to go around.

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