Weekly pic: the pocket farm journal

It is one dadgum small thing after another, I’m thinking as I walk out to turn on the water in the hoop-house. So, before proceeding further, I stop and pull out my stained and battered journal, sit down on a horse-mounting block, and write down all the little things I need to do this weekend (or at least very soon).

• Pick up trash dogs scattered around yard, farm, and drive.
• Move sheep panels we used to transfer pregnant ewes to barn; do before it starts to rain.
• Go to hoop-house and water veggies.
• Put trash cans away.
• Feed roosters.
• Butcher roosters.
• Bring hay to ewes in lambing pens.
• Bury stillborn lamb.
• Eartag untagged lambs.
• Order cabbage seed.
• Hang duck prosciutto under stairs to finish curing.
• Start calling quirky and foolish people “wackadoodle.”
• Work out on elliptical.
• Unload feed before rain. (Addendum: Unload feed during rain.)
• Continue cleaning barn.
• Smoke cured tasso ham.
• Roll up extension cord I keep tripping over in breezeway.
• Dig trench (not “very soon,“ but someday) for electric cable from main barn to equipment shed.
• Fix broken roost in chicken coop.
• Clean and sharpen favorite axe that was missing for months and just found buried in lumberyard muck.
• Pull up fall turnips and feed to sheep.
• Research property taxes owed on recent sale of back pasture.
• Go into Knoxville and move twin bed from storage for Aunt Jo.
• Cut down damn paulownia growing in pawpaw orchard.
• Load rotted firewood and move to gully.
• Cover spring garden spaces with tarps.
• Move last year’s mulch and till into ground in hoop-house for late winter plantings.
• Service farm tractor (including recharging battery) and start small tractor.
• Write blog post listing all the little things that are starting to pile up.

I’ll tackle that last one first (after unloading the feed). That done, maybe I’ll relax and read a book, take a nap, drink some coffee, then peer at the skies while contemplating the remaining hour of daylight and how to use the time most efficiently.