The Rough part and the Reality Check

So, we have this cow and we have to milk her. We knew that part, just like we knew babies did not sleep through the night. It's not until you're living it that you actually understand all the facts you've gathered.

Really, every morning we have to get up at about the same time and go milk the cow. When we want to sleep in, we go do chores and then take a nap, but we've only done that once. We get up and it's dark, and before long it will be cold. And we go milk the cow. We get up and we're tired or sick or muddle headed, and we go milk the cow. It's just what we do.

And, did you know cows poop? I mean, of course we KNEW cows pooped, but it's no small thing getting the poop out of the barn when she spends the night in there. And in winter, we'll have to move the entire day's worth of poop for two cows. That's alot of poop.

The rough part right now is that it's time to harvest and store everything. It's very late and we have to get up in a few hours, but we're waiting for the tomatoes to finish their 45 minutes of boiling water bath. You see, two different people mentioned late blight to me today, so even though I checked the tomatoes yesterday and they looked fine, I took another peek today. Twelve plants we black with fruit that was splotched. So, even though we have this draggy cold, the children and I pulled all eighty plants out of the garden and we pulled all the tomatoes that looked salvageable. And tonight, while Jason was running back and forth getting hay from friend, I put 20 quarts of tomatoes into a pan, and threw away many many tomatoes that were not actually blight free. Tomorrow, I'll see about the potatoes.