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
The Kitchen's Garden 
48 responses to “Flux”
That is an enormous amount of work on your list. It makes me tired to think about it.
You are indeed a busy lady! I like the way you think, can get more done in a day. Tima the Naughty…I need to read back, can’t believe I missed the drama.
I had to change a little fence i had made with a board so that Tima would not go close to the ducklings and scare them, yesterday i called her, she was of course in next to the ducklings and she ran to me and jumped the little divider, it must be 8 or 10 inches high, she just ran at it and jumped it like a horse.. A JUMPING Pig! alarming! c
Alarming but cute. Of course, not so cute when you need her to stay put…but still…just like peanut butter and jam on a little kid’s face!
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife@wordpress.com
I like your tips on how to get more done in a day. I have less than two weeks until the exam week that signals the end of my second year at uni. I’m studying hard and need to get as much done as possible each day. Getting up earlier helps (I work better in the early morning), as long as I don’t get distracted by all the new blog posts which have landed in my inbox overnight. 😉
By the way, that light in your current header photo is stunning! Have a lovely day. 🙂
I do something a little similar when I have a big cooking day. Everything prepped in order, stove and oven temperatures grouped according to what I’m cooking, baking pans ready, space cleared in the fridge and freezer. Getting a system going is a HUGE help, you’re so right. And my other trick when I know I have a lot to get through is to leave my books where they are instead of treating myself to a half hour read…
But I like my first 15 minutes sitting on the doorstep drinking tea and not really thinking or doing, just sitting and sipping 🙂
That is your thinking 15 minutes, a very important 15 minutes, I mean ANOTHER 15 minutes for the work you are thinking about.. I agree .. never give up your thinking time.. c
Any duck pictures? 🙂
They keep hiding when they hear me coming, they are SO shy, however soon i think they will start coming out to play in public, and I have a problem with Boo, he has found a way in so he can lick them, they are babies after all and so this terrifies them further, poor Boo, for the next few days will have to be either at my heel or in the barn, he cannot adopt these birds .. they will die of fright..
Have you added in a tiny swimming pool for the ducks yet? A wee photo of them swimming—they swim at birth, would be fun for those who have never seen a baby duck swim.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife@wordpress.com
they have a roasting dish to swim in.. the irony does not escape me!.. c
No it would not escape me either! 🙂
ROFL – poor Boo! They’ll get braver later and may well scare him.
I asked because I often show my sister pictures of your pigs. Yesterday she asked me why there were no duck pictures 😉
I shall stalk them today for your sister!.. c
🙂
important to make sure those little ducky faces are clean……*laughs* Mirrhi is also a face cleaner, the chooks get a good licking when she can get to them.
I am in that flux stage, too. Have not got my summer routine down…probably because summer is so slow in coming?
Maybe so, there is always extra work needed for the baby animals and birds when it is not warm enough.. c
I have no idea how you get so much done by yourself! I have only chickens, cats and dogs. Forget the housework and laundry – it eventually gets done . . . or not. lol
And I have already failed this morning as I am enjoying a cup of coffee and reading your blog. But before I sat down I did put warm water in the wells of the incubator and candled the eggs.
Does that count?
That most certainly counts, i have never hatched my own eggs.. are they from your own chickens? c
Good morning, Celi. I usually hatch silkies from my own birds. And currently have 6 chicks in the dining room which hatched 3 weeks ago. They are heading to the brooder on the porch today. But the eggs in the incubator are a mix of black, blue and splash English Orpingtons eggs from my friend in Tennessee and 4 of my own English Jubilee Orpingtons.
The Jubs will join my own flock. I have also been known to hatch chicks for my neighbors. I love the process of hatching.
Nice! Lately I’m in terrible overdrive trying to get ready for the art and garden show. I remember those steps of timing myself. Have to start that again. 🙂 Thank you for the reminder.
Morning Veronica, i should have added that this way of working is only for a short time, like now when you are getting ready for the art and garden show, and me getting all the food in the peoples freezers for the winter, after that Ii put my sleeping time BACK IN! Take care and good luck.. c
“So, do you still want to come for a Farm Stay?” – I didn’t know this was an option! Is there a sign up sheet, or what? 🙂
My best time of the day is most emphatically NOT before sun rise, so I’m not sure how useful I’d be!
Nancy
http://www.workingmomadventures.com
Wow! you are busy! Could you tell me how you distinguish healthy milk from infected milk? If you don’t mind of course I’m just curious 🙂
You will be pleased to know that you are 9deg warmer than me today 🙂 (if we can believe the world news weather guy). While you are revving up into top gear for summer I’m doing my level best to sink into winter hibernation. If I have a busy day I can not switch on my laptop and check my favourite blogs while I’m having my breakfast 🙂 I can just see Boo with a row of little duckies following him. Look after yourself. Laura
Thank you – that is great advice. Mom is taking it to heart and will attempt to put some motions into plan. Thanks again my friend! XOXO – Bacon
Okay. Gotcha. Off I go to tidy the kitchen, lickety-split, then shower and off I go to water our wee little community garden plot. I’ll be thinking of you and all you very, very hard hard down on the farmy. Have a great day.
Oh Celie, your routine sounds like how I lived my life way back when the kids were young, I had animals and land and a full time job an hour’s drive away. Nowadays, thank goodness I don’t have those responsibilities, because my energy level is at diddly squat! Boo still has his nannying instincts – could he be nanny to the new calf instead of terrified ducks?
Love,
ViVx