Another year gone by

So, it's been just over a year since we started this blog and we're again preparing for winter. We didn't get a real hatch of chicks this year, so there has been no chicken sacrifice. I consider this a huge fail. We've been at this for over a decade, but we keep wavering in how much we bother doing.

I have realized that the husband isn't as into this as I had hoped...although he keeps saying he is. With me working nights and my health getting worse from it, more fell to him and often nothing got done. So I do realize that I'll be taking on most of this as time goes by and that there is a lot of catching up to do.

This year I put a lot of focus in the horse life here. Saorsa got far more regular training, and then this fall has been about getting ready to bring home his new horse, Misty. There is still work to be done in the barn, but the girls aren't much interested in the barn anyway. They're still after the grass in the lower pasture. So the first task was getting them integrated with no one getting killed. That went very well, after some trials and tribulations.

While there are aspects of having another horse that make for more work (manure management, food), they are herd animals and some issues that Saorsa has had already seem to be adjusting a bit with a new herdmate (although herd politics and hormone issues will be an on going balance). Hopefully we'll make even more progress with Saorsa's training from now on (although there will likely be a break in the degree of training over the winter, training is always happening). I am hoping that with another horse for her, I can both have more quality horse time and have more energy for other things around here.

We also lost some of our local meat sources, as the economy has been so devastating to the farmers here. So we might have to be a little less local to get sustainably and humanely raised meat for this winter...and I'm freaking a bit that we don't have it yet! There are a couple of options, we might not be buying as large a supply this year. We still have some left. It's not like we're going to starve...well, probably. The whole idea of this is that you just don't know.

Another project that still needs doing is to rehouse the chickens for the winter and in a system that will work for the rest of the year. Hopefully we'll get that underway this week and done quickly.

So, this is Hallowe'en, but not Samhuinn for us yet. We're looking to the full moon, but we'll see if we're ready then.