It's been a few weeks since I shared our daily routine. Fall brings on a new schedule with school, preserving, and care for the animals. In some cases a slowdown, but in others an increase in business! Like in the kitchen, Wowzer! I have jars stacked on all my counters and a mountain of produce to conquer. Let's get to it!

On the homestead, I tried to wake early so I can get all of the chores done and eat a hearty breakfast before 9 a.m. which is when school starts in our house. This means I'm up and dressed by 7 or 7:30 at the latest. I make breakfast and wake the boys. I do a few indoor choirs in the kitchen while making breakfast. Things like figuring out what's for supper, getting the meat out of the freezer, collecting items from the root cellar, and doing dinner dishes if they didn't get done the night before. I usually get the boy's plates ready and I, of course, go try to wake them up again. I almost have three teenage boys and they like to sleep. I eat while they slowly wake up. Once I know they all are up and out of bed, I head out to milk. I milk two girls in the morning. Once the milk is filtered and in the freezer to cool, I head out to help my youngest with the meat chickens. We moved them out of the brooder, Monday. They're loving the green grass and sunshine! After that is done I walk around the homestead, checking that all chores are completed. Once they are all done, I return to the house for school until noon. We take an hour break for lunch. This meal is almost always leftovers. At 1 p.m. we begin a 20-minute cleanup of the house, I usually am doing dishes while the boys are doing things like sweeping, dusting, moving the laundry to the dryer, or folding clothes. We then move on to our list of fall projects. This week we cleaned out the laundry room, trimmed goat hooves, and cleaned up the garden.

In the garden, things have slowed way down. I only have a few crops still growing. I am still having to water as our Wyoming fall rains have still not started. On my list next week is to get a few cover crops planted, clean up the pumpkin area, and mulch as much as we can.

In the kitchen, we got almost all of the tomatoes slipped and turned into pasta sauce. I was hoping for 24 quarts and we so far have 22.

Once these big projects are done, I spend a few hours writing blogs and building our online courses that I hope to release soon. This brings us to 5 p.m. when I begin to make supper. We eat supper as a family and then all clean up together. Once the kitchen is back to normal, we all go out and do evening chores. I of course milk again, but only one doe this time. Everyone does their evening chores and George helps me and my youngest move the chicken tractor for the meat chickens. Now that sunset is at 7 p.m, we all get a few hours to relax before lights out at 9 PM. Everything will slowly change as winter arrives. Until next time.

Pray, Just Plant!