A typical morning...
The Rooster crows at 2am. A neighbor's cock-a-doodles back. I wake up.
By four am I'm usually finished solving the world's problems and back to sleep. Five am has the girls waking for school and clanging around in the kitchen preparing tea for breakfast.
By 6:00 am I'm out of bed still wearing yesterday's clothes. I kiss Éowyn who sleeps between Johnny and me, then I slip on my boots, fumble for my glasses, and head out the door.
Usually Makena is already outside waiting for me to make the feed for the horses. I mix their feed, greet them, then dump it in their troughs as they whinnie in excitement. The donkeys are usually close by pushing and shoving me hoping for a crumb to fall.
Next I prepare the food for the cow. I pour it in her trough, then I find her some where in the pasture and tempt her into walking up to the stable with a handful of feed. Once she's in, I go back to the house, wash my hands, heat some water, grab the milk pail, and head back out to milk Sagana with children at my heels excited to help in the milking.
We get three cups from her udders at the moment because she is so emaciated. She is a rescue cow given to us just this week. That is a different tale.
After Sagana is milked, I let all animals out to pasture. I return to the house, boil the milk, some water, and grab a herb of choice from the garden to make myself some herbal tea. I usually eat a grapefruit, or two eggs, or mashed banana with egg made into pancakes. At some point I brush my hair and teeth! If Éowyn is awake, I make my bed and greet Johnny.
After the milk cools, I take the cream off the top and make a tiny amount of butter. Since we do not have a fridge, I made today's three cups of milk into yogurt.
I make sure all of my remaining kids who are home have eaten, and we start school. We read our history lessons, do some sciences, then they do Math in workbooks, English, spelling, and music practice. While they do the practicals, I halter the horses, bring them in for a grooming to make sure all hooves are clean, and they are bushed and combed. Then back out to pasture they go.
I return to the house to help the children with their school work, then I start planning either lunch or a bath... Both involve fire.
If Johnny is bathing, he makes a fire and heats enough water for us both.
If I'm making bread, I make a fire in our mud oven (Johnny usually helps with this, too. He likes making fire.) It takes three hours to heat up. While he makes fire, I make doughs.
Lately, I've been trying to eat less wheat so we have things like celery with natural peanut butter, tomato salad, corn on the cob, eggs, apples, and cheese for lunch.
And that's my morning! If you made it this far and are curious about the rest of my day, perhaps that can be an article for tomorrow.
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