Friday, February 5, 2010

What makes a good day?

I suppose each of us has our own little bag of goodies that contribute to a good day.  Yesterday was a good day for me.
  • The dry cows, heifers and Sam the bull got moved to the east pastures, which means they will get their own grassy hay and the five cows that are still milking will get the good (and more expensive) stuff.   We may be able to stretch out our remaining hay to last until the pastures green up again.
  • Cameron put up an electrical cord to the calf pen (had to be on posts so the cows could walk under it on way into the barn) so that we could hook up the heater for the calf water tank.  Now none of us has to break the ice out of the water tank for the calves and then haul buckets of hot water to their tank.
  • The chickens all survived another day and they laid four eggs.
  • Androo came over to plant onion seeds.  We plant by the biodynamic calendar, and yesterday was a root day.  Today, his regular day on the job, is a flower day (that means broccoli seeds will get planted today) so he made the extra trip over to take care of the onions.  We used a new type of tray for the onion seeds.  I've never had much luck germinating them, but this year, with the new trays and the new method, we should be growing our own.  We put the three seeding trays in a big metal watering tray, put four greenhouse plant heaters under the tray, then covered it with plastic wrap.  The big tray is in my atrium where I can keep an eye on it.  Every time I think of those little seeds in the potting soil, doing their thing, I smile.  They are the first seeds in this season, and it is a VERY GOOD THING INDEED!
  • I slept nearly eight hours last night, which doesn't happen often for me.  It's probably because every time I roused a bit, I thought about the onion seeds, smiled, and went back to sleep.
  • My wood fires were still hot this morning, in spite of that eight hours of sleep that did not include stumbling down to the family room to add a log or two.  I didn't even rouse long enough to add a small log to the soapstone stove in my bedroom.  That usually means two cold stoves, or at least not enough hot coals left to get the fires going again without kindling and running back and forth between the two until the flames are fanned and bright.  (That's my version of the Stairmaster.)
  • Tashi didn't bother the chickens.
If these things do not comprise a good day, I don't know what does.

I hope you have a good day today.  I'm looking forward to making it two in a row, but if not a good day, then I'll take an ordinary day.  Those work for me.

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