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Monday, September 21, 2009

It is raining on the farm

Its raining. Rainy days around here are good for sleeping in. The girls and I took advantage of that. We had a very busy weekend with late nights on Fri, Sat and Sun, so it was good to get a good nights sleep and catch up on some much needed rest. JD worked all night on Sunday night, so the rain is allowing him a good days sleep now. It is a slow rain now, but early this morning it was full of thunder and lightening. Emily woke up to find Rebecca asleep on her bedroom floor. Apparently at some point during the storm Rebecca changed bedrooms, but doesn't seem to remember doing it.

The chickens are not so sure about the rain. They come out when it lets up, but run back to the coop or under an apple tree when the rain comes down heavier. The cows and horses are all gathered in the tree line, and the pigs have not ventured out of their hut. The cats are staying under the girls play shed, out of the rain. It doesn't seem to bother the beagle any, but the old black lab has taken to the barn. He has the same idea we had this morning--he is sleeping in the hay.

Rainy days are good for baking bread and making soap. I plan on doing both here in a bit. We are almost out of laundry soap, so I will make a batch. A batch normally will last me for a year, and I make it for under $5. This one didn't quite make it a year, but I also gave away 2 gallons of it. I do not add any dyes or perfumes to my soap as I try to keep it as natural as possible since we do have a family member with allergies. It is a 2 day process to make.

Rainy days are also good for catching up on the sock basket. (Actually it has grown to 3 sock baskets at the moment--isn't that terrible??) I have several library videos I want the girls to watch this evening, so we will sit around and watch them while we match socks and listen to the rain.

Originally I thought this afternoon we would have an electric free time, but it is too dark and overcast. We have fun doing an electric free days/nights during cool weather. No lights, TV, radio...is allowed. We light the oil and kerosene lamps and read, play board games or on one occasion coaxed my husband to play the piano for us. Sometimes we will even cook over the fireplace. It is also a good way to keep everyone in good practice for when the power goes out!

Last week the hay was cut again, raked and baled. It is all gathered to be loaded, but the rain stopped that.

1 comment:

~*~The Family~*~ said...

Electric free time - what a great idea. Our electric has gone up 33% in the last two years so that would be a good money saver for us. We thought we were being wasteful in our habits but when we got the bills out to compare, we saw that the price had just gone way up.