This week, with phone camera at the ready (mostly – if I remembered), I restated and restarted my aim to document the Homestead humdrum everyday. We all know I’m one for getting caught up in the action to the detriment of documenting, but I tried to keep my eye on the prize and have managed to compile a pretty fair representation of our week-that-was.
As I went about the evening hay feed-out, necessary because there’s been so little rain of late, I wondered just what the sky was saying about the following day in a month that has been acting totally out of character weather-wise.
Our summer seems to have been going on forever.
It turned out the sky was saying, “It’s going to be weirdly humid and sticky-warm tomorrow – and stop going on about how May is not meant to be like this; you’ll be moaning about the cold before you know it.” It would have been a good day to spend a bit of time in the vegetable garden and finally get the garlic in, but Farm Girl’s homeschool group were meeting at the climbing wall in town which meant lots of clipping and climbing and chattering-from-a-height for them,
and the same for their bevy of hangers-on, minus the clipping and climbing and at ground level. Some of that chatter may have been about the lack of parking around this fantastic facility, which continued as we all started the longest trek to locate our vehicles, perspiration gently beading our brows, in the 26 degree C heat.
“This is not what May is meant to be like,” we all agreed.
Seems that May decided it’d had enough of our whining, read it’s job description, and delivered a Wednesday exactly as it is meant to be: wet and cold and not really a great day for planting the garlic. I did it anyway (just stopping myself from moaning about the crappy May weather) and, as I what-passes-for-a-sprint-nowed back to the warmth of the house, paused to capture a couple of Homesteaders who were loudly loving this turn of meteorological events.
And once she’d got the bit between her teeth, there was no stopping that feisty fifth month.
Which is why we spent Friday, today, and a bit of tomorrow as well because I’m not walking one more Saturday step on…
making sure the Homestead interior remains balmy this winter.
Bring it on, May!
Union Homestead 
You write about your week in a most amusing way.
Glad you enjoyed it, Susan. It was a pretty run of the mill week but I think Im getting a better understanding of my phone camera 😁
At a meet the teacher night at the high school one year, the history teacher told a bewildered group of parents that grade 9 Canadian history was really boring as it was focussed on 19th century Canada, during which time, nothing interesting happened; settlers were too busy clearing their land, building their farms and keeping their families fed to get up to anything noteworthy. Isn’t that life?
The local climbing gym (an extension of our local high school) featured heavily in our lives for a few years as our eldest was obsessed with it – eventually becoming a climbing coach for children. I know that NZ has some spectacular gyms – we went to one in Auckland, and we saw another in Christchurch. It’s a fascinating sport.
I’m resolved to the fact that the stuff that keeps me busy, happy, and sane is of very little interest in the grand scheme of things. Even worse, I’ve recently started counting my steps and while my everyday week life looks passably active my weekends are terrible – an afternoon stacking firewood came in at just over 1500 steps – so I cant even feature as someone living a healthy lifestyle 🤣 Lucky I dont look for validation off the Homestead😁 Farm Girl has a good head for heights and scurries around the place happily…it all made me feel very pedestrian – but not so much that I would be prompted to step into one of the harnesses and give it a go. I am happy keeping my feet, busy or not, on the ground.
100% with you re: keeping feet on terra firma. That step counting…my husband’s gadget doesn’t recognize stairs or cycling…how could firewood chopping not count, right? How could chopping wood not count? Every arm swing is one pace, right?
At the very least!
Get one of those fancy watches that counts your steps. Our choir conductor did miles just by conducting a rehearsal, From 26 degrees to zero is a big jump. No wonder your were tempted to moan a bit. Good log pile.
The Resident Engineer has one of those fancy watches…they are very clever! Maybe Ill put one on my birthday list…at least it will count the less mobile activities (an recent afternoon spent painting with all the stretching, bending and ladder negitiating barely registered as movement – I may as well have sat eating chocolates in front of the TV) and if all else fails, I can put on a CD and wave my arms around (rhythmically of course😁)
It sounds like a good idea.
Your photos are full of interesting things! That cloudy evening sky, Farm Girl up on high, sparkling frost and what a lovely piggy face! That log pile should keep you warm for a while. You haven’t got one of those step-counter devices that nags at you if you don’t move for more than a few minutes, have you? I don’t think I could put up with one of those 😀
Thanks for your kind words, Clare. No, I am very low tech in my step counting…my phone does it for me and its rather haphazard. It can be a bit hit and miss and, youre right, naggy but Im desperately trying to preserve the hint of agility and fitness I still have😁
I do completely understand 😀
I am very impressed by the frost on the fence post and railing. Our season of frosts started in earnest this week. The upside of a frosty morning is the possibility of a glorious, sunny day.
I agree with you – frosty mornings always feel like clean starts to me. A good freeze and then brilliant sunshine, even if you have to be behind glass to fully appreciate it 😁