Off The Beaten Path

I like chickens. When I was very young, I formed the idea that a flock of chickens pecking about in the yard was about the homiest thing a person could have. One of my ambitions was to have my own flock one day. I achieved that goal in the summer of 2018. I designed and…

Hard stuff happens to everyone. No getting around it. To a greater or lesser degree, absolutely everyone will face challenges in their lifetime. How we respond to the hard things matters. Coping skills are as varied as the people employing them. Some are healthy and some are not, some are more effective than others. I…

It is a fact of homestead life that animals die. Sometimes the predators get them, sometimes they get sick or injured, sometimes we cull the flock. Either way, livestock must be renewed and refreshed periodically. This year, all my hens are mature and beyond-mature. The egg production is lower, we have had a few die…

I’m not particularly fond of winter in general. Round about the second snowstorm of the year, I’ve usually had my fill of it. By this time of year, I’m usually desperate for some sign of spring. This year, winter has been incredibly mild. We’ve had more rain than snow, only one weekend of deep freeze,…

520 am, child wakes me up to inform me that the nightlight is not nighlight-y enough to sleep by and I should provide a more satisfactory nightlight. So that the dreams can see better or something. I was super impressed. Due to the stuck-van situation, other arrangements had been made for husband to get to…

There are days, like today and yesterday and several more since we began this crazy journey — when things are just not going well, when major stuff breaks, when we can’t get stuff accomplished, when the weather sucks or something is working against us — when I wonder if we have made the worst mistake…

In this area, at least, there is almost always a storm on St. Patricks’ Day week. Well, today sure fits the bill. Last night, the wind rocked and rolled and howled and sleep was more or less not a thing up in the loft until basic exhaustion won in the wee hours of the morning.…

It is currently howling away outside. High wind, heavy snow, and just general yuckness. I dislike storms intensely — most especially windstorms. I always did, even when we lived in an actual house that had withstood weather events for 100+ years. Then we lived in a tent, where ‘ordinary’ stiff wind would make me fear…

I was in bed by 7:19 last night. And that is with the timechange, so in “real” time, it was 6:19. Headache. Sore throat. Crazy tired. The sore throat got steadily worse overnight, migrating into my right ear. Between that and the obsesive looping my brain was doing, trying to figure the stovepipe placement out,…

I like a tidy house, in general. Now, you mustn’t assume from that statement that I always (or even often) HAVE a tidy house. I don’t. I have three small childten, three cats and a giant goofernut of a dog. Cleaning the house in such a situation is rather like brushing ones teeth whilst eating…