It started out innocently enough. The community garden group decided to meet on Thursday morning because of a rainout on Tuesday. 4 people showed up to a beautiful sunny start. It went downhill from there. Within an hour the cloud cover moved in. Before lunchtime, the rain started. Drat. We skipped lunch, just snacking of fresh made cornbread and a cantaloupe melon.
On the way to my mother's I stopped to buy lunch from our local restaurant only to find that they were out of pork plate, hubby's only item on the menu he'll take for lunch. So I go for the backup....turkey avo sandwich at the local cafe. Out of avo. Oh well, I take the sandwich anyway.
Pulling into my mother's place, I spy water under her freezer. (In Hawaii, appliances are often outside the house.) Yup, freezer is off and defrosted. A quick look reveals that the motor is fried. After lunch my mission becomes cleaning out the freezer and salvaging what I can. Boy am I happy the freezer is outside because I can just turn the hose on and flush everything away!
My afternoon tasks are put on hold. Luckily there was very little of value in the freezer as far as human fare is involved. Most of the stuff was stored animal food surplus. The chickens are thrilled to have their buckets filled 100% with "the good stuff". The dogs get their bowls mounded with meat scrapes, like a Thanksgiving Day feast in June. The cats get fed piles of free choice fish scraps and actually act a bit jumpy, like there's a trick or something going on. They are suspicious of their good fortune. The piglets get introduced to assorted meats and fruits, but are too small to make much of a dent in the pile. besides, they are not use to this stuff and I don't want to make them sick. I cook up potfuls of stuff, hoping to keep it edible for another day or two. I hope to avoid having to waste it.
By evening I'm exhausted, having worked quickly to get everything taken care of by dinner time. Whew. Made it.
Reaching into my own refrig to pull out ingredients for dinner, I discover that the FULL gallon of milk has leaked it's entire contents onto the food below it, filling the bottom of the frig with milk. Egads, what next?!?!
Well I survived Thursday, but what will Friday 13th hold?
This day has been a good example about how homestead farms sometimes run. Whatever one had scheduled for the day totally went out the window. Homesteads can be like that. That's one of the reasons a homesteader has very little leisure time. One cannot call the landlord to fix the problems. Nor phone down to the building superintendent. Or even amass the employees to tackle the job. Nope, most people who homestead are on their own especially for the small, daily stuff. And when things go wrong, the homesteader has to figure out how to solve the problem on their own. Welcome to my world of homesteading!
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