Flux

Every time another change happens on the farmy I need to pause, reset, and adjust so that I can sensibly create another workable routine. I have a milk cow, a beef cow,  dairy calf, beef calves, sheep, pigs, chickens, big ones and little ones and baby chicks, peacocks, peahens, the ducklings, dogs, bees, cats and Tima,  (Tima the Naughty is in a category of her own.) And two barns.   So the mornings and evenings are all about getting everyone fed and cared for in some semblance of a routine. 

When you enter a period of flux you must be very careful, this is when you can turn too fast and hurt yourself or someone else or worse, when going at speed, miss seeing something important.  It is best to pretend to be a bus  – driven by a veteran bus driver with nowhere special to go – and take the bend wide, slowly and with care.  Plenty of time to put the pedal to the metal when the road opens up before us.

Yesterday was a flux day. A study day. An adaptation day. The routine is in flux.  The animals and birds are moving from station to station.   I am regrouping. We have a new calf. Daisy has to be milked carefully keeping any infected milk separate. So Aunty Del the baby heifer only gets the clean house milk. One lawn mowed and one garden weeded a day. The cold is slowly lifting. Summer is creeping in.  But not fast enough. Hopefully this morning the Post Mistress will call with the news of the new chicks arriving in her Office. The meat chickens.  Then I can work them into the routine and we will be good. Then I shall put the pedal to the metal and engage cruise control.

So, do you still want to come for a Farm Stay?  By the end of this week I am at full throttle, laughing into the prairie winds and doing a kiwi jig and we will remain at full speed ahead until the end of September.  Love it!

My little Tips on How to get More Done in a Day.

1. Get up 15 minutes earlier (or in my case I have lengthened my day by 30 minutes) and use the time immediately. Fill that 15 minutes with work. Don’t take an extra 15 minutes to drink coffee and read blogs! (laugh)

2. Work faster. I mean FAST. If you are doing a job you hate, do it At Speed. Make your footsteps heard as you rush about the house. (You can tell housework is my least favourite!)

3. Time yourself. It takes me 6 minutes to unload the dishwasher. 4 minutes to collect a load of washing and shove it in the washing machine.  20 minutes to set up for the milking, 12 minutes to milk Daisy and 15 minutes to clean up afterwards. Do you see what I mean.  If you know how long each job takes you can fit them in when you have a spare 5 minutes.

4. For never ending jobs like The War on Thistles in the pasture or weeding the gardens, or mowing, or keeping the couch clear of clean laundry – work for a specific period then stop.

5. Work out what time of your day you are at your best. Use this time for the most important work of the day. Be it writing, painting, building or cooking.  I am at my best right now, just at dawn, after a shower. My mind and body are both wide awake and alive. I have done my writing, so off I go into the dark to open the ducks pen, bring Daisy in from the field to think about the milking,  feed the pigs and so on and so forth and then proceed through the list of the morning.

Good morning. I hope you all have a lovely day.

your friend on the farmy

celi