I had someone ask me recently, “I’d love to come spend the day with you and see what it’s like.” My first reply was a chuckle. While we do like routine and structure, we never have two days that are alike. We have a routine of what our day should look like but it all depends on the homestead every morning. Yesterday was a typical day on the homestead so I thought I would write it down for you. When I say “typical,” I mean in the sense that we had to adjust our day based on the atmosphere of the homestead in the morning. I’ll add some pictures along the way to keep your attention with my not-so-interesting writing. Maybe one day I’ll convince Adam to write a blog post!

We have a friend out of town and we are helping take care of her animals while she and her husband are away. (Let’s be clear: this is not an inconvenience. Our pigs are on their property and this is a way for us to bless them as they have blessed us). Graham and I headed to her house yesterday morning to go feed the animals. It was storming quite hard so we didn’t check on any of our animals before we left. Kathryn was in charge of delegating Graham’s chores between the other kids; they were expected to feed the animals and make breakfast while we were gone. It took a little longer than expected because I could barely see out of my windshield on the way there; the rain was coming down hard and the wind was blowing. We fed the animals and made a last minute decision to bring their Great Dane to our house for the day; nobody wants to be alone in a storm! We packed up her bed and treats and headed home, thankfully a little easier because the rain had let up a bit.
When we walked in the door, Kathryn informs me that she found LouAnn injured on the carport (she had moved LouAnn to the chicken coop to stay dry) and our Tom, Leroy, was roaming the yard, scared. By this time, the storm had started again and it was lightening. Our only option was to wait for the storm to subside so we came inside to eat breakfast. I had a little work to do on the computer and the kids started on their Wednesday chores. After an hour or so, the rain changed to a drizzle so the kids took a bucket of feed to lure Leroy back on pasture. They moved LouAnn to our large dog crate in the shed and gave her food and water and Kathryn put a heat lamp on her. We couldn’t tell yet how bad the damage was and she wouldn’t stand up.

The girls and I had a live pasta making class we wanted to attend from a homestead we follow. It started at 11 and their Spanish class started at 11:30. The boys cleaned the school room while the girls watched 30 minutes of the pasta class with me and I finished the class while they learned a song in Spanish class. While they finished their class, I prepared lunch and we all sat down at the table to start our school day and eat lunch. We read the Bible with a commentary and discussed the Ten Commandments and why they are still important for us today and we worked through our scripture recitation box. About this time, the glass repairman showed up out front. I was under the impression he would be arriving late afternoon and Obi was out in the yard. Graham ran out to put Obi in the backyard while Zeb opened the gate. (side note: we had a storm last weekend and a large tree limb fell on the windshield of the car Adam drives. It was shattered).

The repairman said it would take about an hour and a half so we headed back inside to start on our next reading in the living room: Letters from Egypt. A few pages in, a friend texted and reminded me that she and her kids were coming over to see the goats today. We set the book aside and went outside to clean up the yard after the storm. The rain had stopped and the sun was actually shining! Welcome to Florida (it rained later in the afternoon and it’s raining again today). We moved the goats to pasture and checked on LouAnn; she seemed to be doing better. Our friends came and we had fun walking them around Milligan Hill. They had a good time cuddling all of the baby animals. After they left, we came inside to make a smoothie and try to straighten up inside before Adam arrived home from work. Another friend came by to pick up the Great Dane and take her home and her kiddos wanted to see the property as well. Our kids had another Spanish class beginning at 4; we don’t always take 2 Spanish classes a day but the afternoon class was cooking and they were excited to do that. We got all of the ingredients out (energy balls!) and I set the class up for them. Adam arrived home a few minutes later so he and I walked outside to discuss both of our days; I checked on the animals and he worked in the garden.

Adam’s parents stopped by to bring their puppy to hang out with us for a few days while they go out of town. We were chatting with them and my Mom stopped by to pick up Madelynn for the evening (the grandparents take turns taking the kids overnight individually) and we all chatted and watched the dogs go crazy over seeing each other. Obi and Cheyenne are best friends and get so excited when they get to spend time together. The kids ran out excited to let everyone taste the energy balls they made (they were the size of my fist). The grandparents left and we were all outside now (minus MJ) helping Adam do afternoon chores. When we walked to the greenhouse, we found that so much rain had fallen that the cover was caving in and the water was so heavy it was close to ruining the frame. We all quickly ran around getting supplies (hoses, pumps etc) to pump out the water into a rain barrel. In the midst of this, it started to rain again so Kathryn and I quickly went to put the goats in the stable (they hate rain!).
Adam finished with the greenhouse so we put Reba on the milking stand to trim her hooves and give her a snack to support her milk production. I went in to start dinner and take a shower. After dinner was cleaned up, Kathryn and I had to prepare bread dough because Thursday is baking day. She helped mill the flour while I prepped the other ingredients. We sat down to watch a few videos from a local homestead who has a type of pig we are interested in breeding at Milligan Hill. Their videos are fun and informative and we had a good time learning together. By this time, we were all wiped out and we each headed off to bed to read a little before lights out.
Hopefully I didn’t bore you too much with what life looks like here on the homestead. We wake up in the morning knowing that we will need to be flexible with our plans for the day and adjust our schedules as necessary. It keeps us on our toes and we can’t complain about ever being bored!