Preparing for snow, bees cleaning house, dinner and savings

Snow is due this weekend (yet it was almost 70* today). Dude made sure the animals had straw to stay warm and hay (alfalfa) to eat.  It is dry, dry , dry here and I am hoping we get a generous amount of snow.

But has been warm enough for the bees to do some housecleaning.  Bring out your dead....yes, there is such a thing as Undertaker bees. It is kinda cool to watch. They actually carry out anyone who has died during the winter. 

I have been slowly working in more fruits and veggies into Dude's diet ... his perfect day would be an egg sandwich for breakfast,  ham and cheese sandwich for lunch and dinner....a pork chop and potato.

Well, one of the reasons to homestead were to each homegrown healthy and organic.

This morning I snuck this in and he said it was actually good (he hates cook spinach). The eggs and spinach are from our homestead.

Tonight was burger night. I make most of it early in the day because I work evenings. 

Salad

(This is how I store lettuce. Clean it and wrap in a damp paper towel and put in plastic container.)

and shocker... Dude asked for apple salad. 

Savings reminder (we have shown these before) ... we are following both of these money savings this year.  Pay yourself first. 

This one is from the blog - I love my disorganized life.

 This one I pay myself every payday. 

We are on week three. 

and this one I do every Monday. 

But's not all about us. We do a kindness of the day everyday on our facebook. 

To do list this weekend:

Clean the chicken coop.

Make wool roving so I can make wool dryer balls next week.

peace

Moving toward our goals

I have begun to move toward some of my goals. Dude has his own such as getting calves and setting up a model train but here are few of mine.  But, as every day begins we will begin the blog with our morning feed.

We had a few visitors looking for a handout. 

We keep all our feed in the shipping container. 

The geese were rather talkative and I thought they were hissing at me but later found the dog had come in with me and was eating goose poop. 

They were very disapproving... as they should be. 

Dude began putting the roof on the bird house.  This will be for starting out our chicks  - hens, turkeys and meat birds plus an area for milking the goats out of the cold.

As you can see it is very dry here and we are almost in drought. We get small  minute rains or snow but nothing that sticks around.  We are having an unusually warm winter. 

We are getting spinach with the warmth still. 

and cilantro. 

Everything else is waiting for spring. 

I set goals for myself at the first of the year, put them where I can see them daily(the refrigerator at home and my desk at work) and I am not wasting time to meet them. 

Here are how a few are coming along. 

1 - for learning to build something, I found an easy table for Dude to teach me to built.

2 The bird house is above and Dude is whittle away at that one getting the roof on. We raise all the chickens we eat throughout the year and hens to lay eggs along with a few turkeys.

3  Getting new Nubian goats for milking, is already in the works . We sold our other ones to pay medical bills and we are just waiting for the sale of the horses this weekend.  We can't spend money we don't have. 

4 Save $5000 this year.  I found this free printable tracking sheet here. It will require discipline and no more stops for caffeine on the way to work or going shopping at lunch. 

I am feeling inspired and hopeful for this new year.

peace