Monday, March 11, 2013

A week to go

We're five working days shy of our spring break. I'm very glad of it, because I'm quite tired. This time of year is hard on us, mostly because the poor snow/slush/ice/ mud conditions make it hard to get around, and especially to get exercise, while the academic calendar is in the official silly season, where meetings and committees run into one another and overlap to the point where there's no prep time and no grading time and, well, just no time. Not only that, but the stress cuts into your sleep, and so I find myself plonking away on the computer at 3 am doing my correspondence, or catching up on my grading.

The weekend was a case in point. I got home Friday after just such a week, but Saturday was the college's Open House for new students and their parents, which also requires our attendance, so Friday wasn't a real Friday after all. Open House took up all my Saturday, and by the time I made it home around 3 pm, I was so tired from losing an hour or two's sleep each night the whole work week, I just collapsed and took a huge nap.

Sunday was a day off, thank heavens.

(I made sure of it by leaving a stack of papers to grade on my desk at work! That was my best decision of the week.)

Even so, there was still work to do. The pregnant ewes needed their tetanus vaccine boosters. They get this a few weeks before they give birth, so that if there's any bloody trauma during birth, they're protected. The dogs, idle most of the week, needed a good walk before the heat of the day made the snow melt. I also needed to change the sheep's water and scrub out the tubs. Aimee wanted me to set up the shelves for the plant starts. There was firewood to sort, a Land Rover turn signal indicator to repair, trucks and cars that needed oil checks, a house to sweep, the dog's porch to clean out, and somewhere in there I made a huge pot of lamb stew with carrots, tomatoes, and onions, enough for most of the work week.

After I got the first two thirds of my "honey-do" list done, I took a nap. I then did one or two other things and then took another nap.

By the time I came out from under the second nap, it was four pm, and there would be no possibility of watching the rugby game that I had recorded on the DVR, but at least I felt better. I got outside and piddled around unsuccessfully trying to make the Land Rover turn signal indicator work again, giving up around 5.20, and coming back inside for my first helping of lamb stew. I was in my bed by 8.45.

Aimee, for her part, had an easier time of it last week. She had a miserable stack of grading to do, but took a day off Friday, and was able to skip out on Open House. She did the shopping and laundry in one day Sunday, made herself some strange strawberry vinegar (!) ice cream concoction on her ice-cream maker, which she got for Christmas and loves, by the way, and was fairly early to her bed last night.

We'll have another bear of the week, but Friday will be a real Friday, and the following Monday will be a boon.


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Welcome to our Farm Blog.
The purpose of this blog is for Aimee and I to communicate with friends and family, with those of our students, and other folks in general who are interested in homesteading and farming activities.

The earliest posts, at the very end of the blog, tell the story of the Great Farm, our purchase of a fragment of that farm, the renovation of the homestead and its populating with people and animals. Go all the way to the last post in the archive and read backwards from there to get it in chronological order.

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