Preparing Against the Cold

Ugh.. it's January.. and it's going to get cold. And being as we're on a farm type place we had to get ready for it. Today was very pretty. Elijah was in a mood, Rob was in a mood, I was in a mood, Ging was in a mood.. But we got a lot done. Set out hay for the horses. And my oh my, it was absolutely glorious. Skies as blue as only an Arkansas sky can be in the middle of a dry winter. The wind was blowing hard, the horses were crazy, crazy. But they were happy, and now they're fed and checked on. Everyone is fine. It's a relief to only have the 8 we have now. I can't believe that at one point we had 28 horses and a burro. Now we have 7.5 horses (Petey is a mini) and 2 burros and the three cows in the back pasture. We have the 6 goats, 2 calves, 3 real pigs, 2 piglets, 2 pot belly pigs, and emu up here.. along with the chickens, geese, ducks. It's still an enormous amount of animals, but it's a workable number. I do need to get some more animals for the homestead, but I don't want to think about it right now.

Well the hubs done good today. He conquered the lard. He rendered down all of the pig fat from the last pig we had processed. Albeit it was a smelly process. And one that I had to leave the kitchen for about mid-way through, but I am now the proud owner of a coffee can, 2 quarts, a butter dish, and a pint of lard. I will be soaping with it. Our neighbor had a cow processed and brought us the beef fat today. Tomorrow Rob is going to be rendering that down for me. Now do you see why I love him and I'm so spoiled :) He would've done it tonight, but my stupid head was splitting. Same neighbor also gave us some steak.. nice neighbor. We have been blessed, very blessed today. I really can't wait to try to make some soap with beef tallow, I've heard that makes some really nice soap. I'm getting antsy to want to make some soaps again.

Well I forgot what my 'to-do' list was for today.. but I don't think I accomplished it. I know that we stayed fairly busy and we got stuff done. I was able to help Rob a bit, which was nice. We've gotten most of the stuff done to be ready for the cold snap. I checked on the ladies, no one looks like they're about to pop right away. No one is bagged up or acting weird, so I think we're okay.. I pray. I would like for them to wait a week or so now, but goats will be goats. We have everything to put the light up in the milking shed and Rob said he might do that tomorrow if he feels up to it. He's still not feeling really great and I'm not going to push him. We'll see what happens. All I know is that I'm tired now and since I didn't sleep that well last night, I'm going to give it a good shot tonight :), Good night and God Bless!!