The sun went down behind the mountain which shelters our home around three o'clock today, and the last of the light is fading now, at five. Tomorrow, thank goodness, the sun will rise again and stay with us a few minutes longer.
The recent cold spell has given me a great appreciation for the warming power of the sun, and I look forward to a new year.
Living the way we do, we are affected by seasonal changes more than your average Western consumer-being.
All the electricity we needed came from four solar panels during the summer. For months now we have had to supplement that by running the generator occasionally.
We are awaiting delivery of a micro-hydro system, which will allow us to harness the power of a small stream coming down from the mountain.
The combination of power from the sun in summer and power from the water in winter should work perfectly, and supply all our needs. Those needs are deliberately kept small - LED lights have proved excellent in their ability to light up our home during these long nights, using an amount of electricity that is just about negligible.
Computers account for most of our use of electricity. Apart from that, we need small amounts for rechargeable batteries for mp3 players, and the radio, and occasionally power tools.
This year, again, I have really noticed how much the shortening of the days affects what we can get done in one day.
In theory it is possible to simply do less outside, and more inside, where things can be kept going under artificial lights. We do tend to take things more easy, though, after a long and busy summer. Now that we have no students around, we enjoy a relaxed schedule - simply doing one thing after another, as it presents itself.
I have not written on this blog for many months. Partly, things got just crazy busy here in our first full summer of running the school.
Partly, also, a blog lends itself better to entries concerning conclusions one has come to and projects one has finished.
The work here on the land has been quite different from that.
After 'a days work' I could hardly ever draw a finish line or a conclusion. Mostly, several different projects get worked on in one day. I feel lucky when I have three or four hours of uninterrupted work.
Living on the land and off the land inevitably brings with it a list of chores.
According to the online dictionary:
chore (chôr, chr)
n.
1. A routine or minor duty or task.
2. chores Daily or routine domestic tasks, especially a farmer's routine morning and evening tasks, such as feeding livestock.
3. An unpleasant or burdensome task.
Yes, I thought there were some unpleasant connotations!
I really do like doing my chores. For me, the unpleasantness arises from the fact that they can take up too much time, and not allow enough progress with whatever project I am working on at the time.
When one is starting out in the homesteading business, all chores need to be first learned, organised, established, and periodically reviewed and re-organised.
Feeding the pigs and the chickens is easy now and takes little time. But in the beginning, it took days and days of work to build their shelters, establish fencing, organise feed stuffs. Some jobs, like building a convenient little shed to house the feeding stuff have yet to be completed.
Chores are something one needs to do, independent of whatever else is going on in one's life. Also, independent of weather conditions. In really wet weather chores tend to be done hastily and sometimes not completely.
I do enjoy a nice, dry sunny day, when I can carefully wash the chicken's drinking trough (which normally only gets re-filled), give them an extra bit of straw to pick through, and lean on the fence, watching them at it.
Training the ponies is a chore I only take up every other day or so. There simply isn't enough time for that, even now, in winter. Often the weather is too bad for any of us (ponies or humans) to get enthusiastic about training. So, progress is slow in that regard.
Today we took them both, Honey the mare, and Sophie the foal, out for a walk. They hadn't been on the road in a few days, and surprised us with enthusiastically trotting up the hill. I could hardly keep up with Sophie. We all got thoroughly warmed up!
Honey slipped on the ice a few times. But she was 'going like a train' - a beautiful sight to behold - I could just imagine her in harness, pulling a cart.
Hopefully, by next winter solstice, we will have that organised, and she can pull a cart, jingling bells, pulling us through a winter wonderland...
This is the first time I mention ponies on this blog, and this again makes it obvious that a lot has happened since I wrote here last.
I will catch up by writing about a few of these new, and old, projects in the coming weeks.
0 comments:
Post a Comment