No ‘big’ things on the homestead, but there have been plenty of ‘little’ things to keep us busy as of late. January isn’t much a month for ‘doing,’ but it is a great month for dreaming, planning and organizing.

It might be the dead of winter, but kidding season has already started for those who breed their does early in the season. This would not be us; we have a solid 2 months before we have to even think about that, but it does mean that we’ve been watching for any prospective bucklings that might be born to someone else. Facebook is an amazing resource of farming groups, and we’ve already been in touch with a prospective goat herder that’s not (too) far away. No decisions have been made, but at least we’ve got the groundwork laid for us to be successful on goal # 1 so that we won’t have to worry about getting our goats pregnant, and then wondering if they actually ARE pregnant every year.

All that said, I think – THINK – that both Lily and Peony are pregnant. Short of paying big $$$ for an ultrasound, there’s no way to tell 100% whether or not a goat has conceived until she starts showing. Pepper didn’t even show that she was pregnant until the last few weeks last year; she kept us guessing until the end. Fortunately, both Lily and Peony appear not to be the types to keep us in the dark. I’m quite curious see how they wind up producing as milking does; Peony is so little it’s hard to imagine her milking out much, and Lily…. well, I just don’t know. We’ll have to see.

Meanwhile, nobody is producing anything – Pepper is down to only a half gallon of milk a day, and we’re getting 1 or maybe 2 eggs a day at best between 3 ducks and 8 chickens. It’s just so darn cold out that all their energy is going towards warmth rather than anything else. I’ve heard that oats are good for helping with winter production, but at the same time I don’t necessarily mind that our animals have their period of rest; animals do need it too.

The first half of this month was soggy and unpleasant, while just these last few days we’ve been hit by snow and single digit temperatures overnight. It’s somehow easy to forget that the sap run is only 3 or 4 weeks away. I actually have it pencilled into our calendar based on the timing from the last two years, but we’ll probably be caught by surprise anyway. Not that there’s much to prepare, but it seems like we’re always doing things like tapping trees at 10:30 at night. I really have to wonder what the neighbors think of us.

Until then, we’re stuck doing mainly ‘indoor’ activities. We’ve gotten school going again after taking a breather during the Christmas and New Year holidays. The boys finally seem to have taken off in school. Gabe can regularly be found with his nose in a book, and as we’re hitting the midway point in third grade he’s coming to multiplication. Right when we think that we’re way behind and not able to do this, we take a step back and realize that we might just be on track after all.

That’s about it!  January doesn’t lend itself to much. Evenings are spent with seed catalogs, yarn, school curriculum and maybe an episode of Great British Bake-Off. And for the moment, we’re enjoying doing just that. Once the sap run starts, well, it seems like a domino effect that sends us spiraling into we-have-too-many-things-going-on-at-once!