Seasons Change

Today I awoke with a determined spirit to get my long list of outdoor chores done (sorry honey the laundry might have to wait!) since God has answered my prayer for a few more days of warm weather and free calendar.  Normally I am the kind of gal who completes an assignment the day it is given.  Tell me what you want for Christmas and it's bought that day.  Can't help it; I'm a list maker and love to check stuff off that list.  However, since school has began and my boys' activity schedules have increased I have found myself napping in my free hours or rushing to the grocery store or doing that laundry out of "oh no the boys are out of underwear!"  I've been exhausted and frustrated that I have to do chores in the dark and eat pizza in the parking lot (luckily we have a dvd player in the car so it feels more like home!).  This fall I've felt more like the suprised grasshopper than the prepared ant in the classic fable.  I don't like it one bit.  So after crying out to God and checking the weather forecast, once again He has given me a second chance.  No napping for me today.  Instead I will (and already have started some of these)....

Make laundry soap (so when outdoor chores are done I CAN do laundry honey!)  http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2008/04/09/making-your-own-laundry-detergent-a-detailed-visual-guide/  I of course either make my own soap or use my lovely friends soap made from my goat's milk. 

Cut open gourds or pumpkins I want to grow again next year and dry out the seeds.  (I had over 100 pumpkins this year.  So excited after no surviving pumpkins last year.  Curse those squash bugs!  Organic gardening is tough!)  Any ideas what I can make with Turkish Gourds?

Order cover crop seeds.  I should be planting them today but alas I still have 6 beds yet to uproot plants and work the soil.  I kept waiting for the artichokes to make artichokes but I guess it's not going to happen.  I started them from seed and they have huge lovely gray foilage but nothing edible that I can see yet.

Plant Strawberries!!  I had one of my favorite local nursery's, Moffett Nursery, order me some strawberries I can plant this fall.  One even has a berry already on it!  Unfortunately my lovely hens dug up all of my strawberry plants so this time they will be tucked into a bed in The Big Garden which will hopefully have a fence around it next spring.  I also picked up a few checkered tulip bulbs from Moffetts which I will plant today.  Can't wait to see those in the spring!

Straw.  I am expecting lambs any day and have had their area all comfy and warm for awhile now.  This time I am working on the goats' pen.  I am down to 2 square bales of straw and will try to fashion a cozy spot for the girls with straw from a big round bale.  The girls will be bred in the next few weeks so I want them to be extra comfy this winter.  I know when I was pregnant I liked to lay around and nap so why wouldn't they?  Can't wait to see those babies next April with their floppy ears!  And oh the things I want to make with all that milk!

I do have lots of indoor chores like dusting and sweeping but that I'm saving for tomorrow when I'll have two more helpers at home to help mama.  :  ) 

Happy Fall!!!!!