A lot of what we do is routine – especially with the Bread deliveries, right now. Setting up for bread is a daily process with sourdough, then there is cracker day, pizza dough day, and then the day before baking where all the bread loaves are shaped (all of that is a lot of arm and shoulder power!) and put into their baskets for cold fermentation for about 15-17 hours. And then baking and delivery day.
Other days are spent right now checking/emptying taps and refinements to the sugar shack (including building the chimney/evaporator), bringing in wood, pruning fruit trees, and the generalities of running a homestead (paperwork, home improvement, meals and dishes and laundry!), and homeschooling (which involves integrating the child into all of these tasks). Smaller but no less important tasks include making yogurt weekly, making pasta/flatbreads/bread for meals, sharpening knives, treating the island wood top, making new rugs and dishcloths, and cleaning.
The home improvements come and go, right now the laundry room needs the electricity and plumbing to be moved and fixed, and then a floor and walls put up – and then we can add shelves and appliances. The wide-pine-flooring for the kitchen and the dining/front room still needs to be tea-stained and put in (but only after the kitchen subfloor is leveled). And the windows and doorframes in the kitchen need to be mud and taped and then everything repainted. And then we can consider buying more floor for the other downstairs rooms.
It is also time for seedlings to go in. One set of shelves have been put up and are ready to go. I will get those little magickal seeds into some yummy soil, set the lights and heating pad and grow, grow, grow!! I’ll do a batch of microgreens right now, herbs, and some strong brassica that can go into the cold frames early (cold frames that still have to be built).
All this happens around my PhD dissertation and teaching and tutoring. And new plans for the homestead and deliveries – we’re always trying to come up with new and exciting ideas. And soon it will be boiling time! Oh, sweet maple goodness. And then more seedlings, and then chickens, and the garden…I’m dreaming too far ahead now. Let’s get through the end of Winter first.
May your routine be invigorating to your soul!
Check-in with us, we might be boiling this weekend! This is what last year’s syrup boiling set-up looked like:
Rock Bottom Homestead 