Ever have a day....

when no matter what your plans were it just didn't work out? Well.... I've had one of those days for about a week, LOL!!!   I've been trying to get our spare room cleaned up all week and yep, you guessed it, I still haven't even cracked open the door.  It seems that by the time we do all of our regular chores, taking Cortney to and from work, twice a week, making a run to the city to stock up on preps before the next cold front moves in tomorrow and being just plain worn out I have yet to get to it*sigh* Well today...... after chores and getting bread started I'm tackling it head on! I know I won't get it completed today, but you need to start somewhere, right?  I'm ashamed to even take before photos, as it has been the catch all room for over two years and it's REALLY a mess!
             
           This is what I'd rather be doing( see below), relaxing and resting. Now don't get me wrong we did plenty of this over the holiday break and I guess it made me plum lazy or something, hee, heee  Kind of like when you get to much sleep, we call it a "sleep hang over", well..... I have a "take it easy hangover".*wink*

Part of this is due to our up and down weather this winter, for example we have a cold front that moves through for a few days and it's bitter cold with the windchills and then we have temps into the high 30's and even low 40's for a week, then another cold snap moves in. When it's nice outside, I long to be outside accomplishing something and yet there is little I can do outside at this point of winter. I've even toyed with getting something started in the greenhouse, but I know when the next cold front moves in that will put all the work to an end, so.... I hold off. This is hard and compounded by all the seed catalogs coming in the mail*wink* I'm eager to get some dirt under my nails!

The up and down weather has been harder than normal on Mike, especially since he's working out in the elements all day now. Although he says he's not getting cold with all his layers of clothing, he is exhausted when he gets home. I give praises to the Lord for our good health, even being out in the up and down weather, none of us have even had a sniffle. This is in part to the fact that we eat good foods( naturally grown and raised right here) and we do take supplements daily, Vitamin D3 being first and foremost( 5,000mg IU), as well as Fish oil, Ginseng( for immune function and stress relief), Bee pollen( it's termed as a super food), Vitamin B complex( for me) and Ginger( for Mike's digestion, he has a touchy stomach)

We're so blessed to have a well stocked pantry, especially with food prices skyrocketing. We went to the "city" yesterday to pick up supplies and really had to do some fancy figuring to get the items we were after, for the amount of $$ we had allotted. Funny thing is that the advertised price( with a coupon) was NOT a good deal, the better deals in all but one instance was to purchase store brand items. For example the toilet paper advertised with a $2 off coupon was still $2.50 higher( after the coupon) than the store brand TP at regular price and... with the store brand you got 10 more rolls. This was true of the paper towels, dish soap and forget the shampoo( there was no deal there at all !) Yet, Cortney and I both observed people's carts filled with the "On Sale, with coupons" items. It made me scratch my head and Cortney did as well. Can't people do simple math and figure out which is the best buy for their $$$ ?  Or have we become such a lazy society that we see a coupon and think, that's going to be the best deal without even comparison shopping.  Another observation we made was that people are still charging on their charge card*sigh*  What is going to happen when all of this credit bubble implodes?  The ramifications will be 200% worse than the housing bubble, which by the way will continue to implode as more and more people loose their jobs( due to lack of spending) and loosing their homes.  Sadly the majority of people are still living in La, La land.  Montana hasn't hit the bottom of the economic issues( actually the state is holding it's own right now), like CA and many other states but it is coming and it sure doesn't look good from our vantage point.

Feed costs are a growing concern for us, as we don't have enough land to be self reliant in that department. We can raise a portion of the hay we need but still have to purchase 3-5 ton each summer. The grain costs have risen 5-8% in the last two months and yet our sales of eggs has dropped off( partly due to slower production in winter). This is the reason we're downsizing our poultry flock, they are putting the pinch on our monthly budget and I'm tired of spending more on food for them than we spend on our own food. This is also another reason we are rethinking and adding to our dual purpose crops in the garden areas. The millet, extra pumpkins, turnips and extra beets have helped and all that is required is that we steam them down and cut into smaller pieces.

I advertised laying hens( not yet a year old and laying now) on Craigslist, in our area, and did not have one response. At first I thought it might be the price I was asking, then I did some research into replacement chicks for some of our old layer( soon to be soup hens) as well as meat type chicks and the average cost( including the s/h) was $3.50 to $4.25 each. I was only asking $10 each for ready laying hens( less than a year old) so in reality I'm loosing $$ at $10 each. So..... it was decided we'll keep these younger layers, butcher off all the older hens( 20+) and just purchase meat chicks this Spring.  We're also going to do rotations with our poultry pens, until we can afford the wire and posts to fence our entire property so they can free range without leaving our property and getting us into trouble with the neighbors( there is just something about a neighbor's garden that the chickens can NOT pass up). We'll divide their pen areas, plant with a grain cover crop and let grow, when it's establish we'll rotate and do the same of the bare pen. This should help with our feed costs as well as build better immune function for the birds and the egg yolks  will be orange :o)

Well, I'm off to get the bread made and rising then off to clean barns and back inside to.......... tackle the spare room mess, LOL!!!!!

Wish me luck!  May you all have a blessed weekend. :o)