Well, it has been a while. This is mostly because I DID have a whole entry written and then lost it just before publishing. Ugh!
Things have been busy. I've gone back to work and I've struggled to balance the roles of working woman, wife, and Mom. I'm getting better at it each passing day. It helps that Andrew is an amazing stay-at-home Daddy! But with all of the time that is eaten up by a job, we have realized that we sometimes need to ask for help to complete the jobs that need to get done before winter. I can't speak for Andrew, but asking for help has always been difficult for me. I think it is a struggle for two reasons: I have weirdly misplaced pride and I am a control freak.
Well, trying to become farmers out here is going to require assistance and I will have to get over my aversion to asking for it. And, if one is going to request a helping hand, why start small? We decided to host a good old fashioned barn raising. We've extended an invitation to many friends and family members to come spend a day with us, helping us renovate our wood shed into a barn (for goats in the spring) and helping to build a chicken coop (also for springtime use). With the promise of future shares of eggs, milk, and cheese, who could resist? Truthfully, I'm sure many could resist. But we're lucky that our friends and family are AWESOME and many of them have committed to being here to help. What's more, some friends and neighbors have also pitched in building materials. It still gives me a bit of an icky feeling to ask for help, but people seem to genuinely want to see our homesteading endeavours pay off and they also seem to want to be a part of that. Thank you, everyone!
In other Cayer family news, we had our first chicken slaughter experience. My mother's laying hens had stopped producing, so she asked us to slaughter them in exchange for the meat. An added bonus was obviously that it was a learning experience before we get our own chickens.
Boy... what a day that was. Thankfully, I had a conversation with an acquaintance that gave excellent advice on the process. (Thank you, J, if you see this.) That, combined with our own Googling and reading, made us feel more or less prepared for the task at hand. Of course, things are bound to go wrong. But it all worked out in the end. Andrew and my mother ended up doing the bulk of the labor because Charlie needed his Mommy a lot that day (teething is fun!), but we were glad to have the experience and to know that we are capable of repeating the process before we invest in chickens of our own. Andrew described it as "humbling." It was not easy to kill another living thing but I don't really think it should be.
It's still feeling like high summer here right now but I'm looking forward to some crisp autumn air. It's coming on time for harvesting, canning, baking, and the Common Ground Fair. But before summer departs, I promise I will share some summertime snapshots of us and our summer goings-on in the next post. I'm having trouble loading them now.
As always, thanks for caring enough to stay updated!
