A day off?

Today I had the day off of work.  While most of the country does not take Columbus day off, other than the already vacationing federal government, the company I work for calls it a holiday.  A day off.  And the grandkids were in school.  How should I fill my time? 

First thought was sleep in.  I did.  Until 6:00.  That's an hour and fifteen minutes later than normal on a Monday. I couldn't really sleep later than that because the grandkids get up at 6:00.  I figured they'd like to have me sitting in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee while they go about their morning.  I was right.  At 7:45 they were gone.  I had already watered the trees and animals.  I brought in the eggs, and fed the chickens, chukars, and sheep.  Time to go back to bed?  The thought crossed my mind until I remembered my list of things I needed to do.

First I put the left over chicken into a pot, filled it with water, garlic, onion, sage, savory, cumin, salt, pepper, celery seed, and baby carrots.  Put on the lid and put it into the Sun-Oven.  I directed the box toward the afternoon sun, since I didn't know when I was going to get home.  I knew it would heat up to about 200 with a little sun hitting it in the morning and to somewhere around 300 after lunch.  It's not really efficient if you don't turn it to face the sun, but since I was just simmering the soup it worked out just fine. 

Then I drove 40 miles to the seed store.  I didn't want to buy wheat, oats, and barley seed from the feed store.  I wanted good planting seed, and I don't know the variety of seed that is in the feed sacks.  I don't know of any seed stores that are much closer and this place sold me some great seed when I wanted seed corn a few years ago.  I need to keep an eye on the weather because I want to plant the seed the day before it rains, maybe two days at most.  Since it will be broadcast spread rather than drilled in I don't want the birds to eat it all.  If it is spread then the rain falls it will be pushed into the soil by the rain.  That would work out perfectly.  Or, if I knew someone with a driller...but I don't, or at least I don't know anyone who would plant the 1 1/2 acres for free.  (1 1/2 acres will produce over 1500 pounds of grain plus hay and straw.)

After coming back into town I went out to lunch with a friend.  I haven't done that in about five months: not since we went to five days per week instead of four.  After that I headed to Lowe's.  I had a couple of things I wanted to pick up - just a quick 10 minute stop.  Unfortunately I got lost in Lowe's.  Not really, but 1 1/2 hours later I was on my way home.  How did that happen?

I got home, took the laundry off the line, unloaded the seed, watered the berries, played with the sheep, dogs, and cats.  I wiped down the jars of applesauce and apple slices that I canned yesterday and put them into the home-store.  Then I noticed the clock.  How can it be 5:00 already?  I haven't done anything!  I was going to work on the trailer, sort through some things in the garage, put some stuff onto Craigslist, clean the barn and coop, and the list went on.  The kids are almost home.

I fried up some pan bread since I didn't make rolls to go with the soup.  Dinner was great. 

Tomorrow after work I'll try to get one thing on the list completed.   Who knows, by the end of the week I may get everything accomplished that I was planning on doing today. 
 In three weeks our whole office learns who keeps their jobs, who loses their jobs, and who gets transferred to Southern California.  I am pretty sure that my job will stay local and there won't be any changes for me.  But the thought of losing my job brings a smile to my face.  That would be ok and I wish that they would lay me off.  Not what I had really planned, but it sure would give me time to get more of my chores done! 

Oklahoma friend is now making cheese and soap and is hoping those endeavors supplement their income.  They are also getting paid to tame down other people's cows and goats to be hand milked.  That's an interesting way to make extra money.