A list is like an onion.

I am going to get all Zen about lists.  Hold onto your hats.

I have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing anymore as a simple list.  You know the kind - you put down five items and then you neatly check them off as you progress through your day.  My lists are an enigma to me.  They start out straightforward enough - Call Mom; Feed chickens/Guineas; Dry Plums; Repair coop stoop with metal.  But what actually happens is this:  I call my mother; I go to feed the chickens and find two more holes so I curse all rodents, grab the rake (which is so conveniently stored in the barn - a quarter mile away), then rake a big pile of rocks around the foundation of the coop and stomp on them.  And go back into the house.  Where I find I have not fed either the chickens or Guineas.  So I go back out and feed them.   Hmmm.  Did you see that furtive little non-list item sneak in there? 

I come home from work, after stopping to pick up a tarp.  We have a nasty little storm predicted for the next day and the Guineas, God bless them, will not WILL NOT, roost inside the coop.  I have managed to put backing behind their outdoor roost (not on the list), but they are still exposed above.  So I put up the tarp (after luring them into the enclosure so they won't freak out outside) then I tie it down to within an inch of it's life.  It is now dark, and I cannot affix metal to the coop stoop - because I can't see it.  Another layer has crept in.

On the weekend's list was to cut boards and finish at least two sides of the run-in shed and paint them.  I know, I know, but a girl can dream.  I go out and measure the back, which is only missing one-and-a-half boards at the top, go cut them, struggle with the wet, raw board, get it clamped up and mostly screwed on and....hear a sound much like a steam engine.  It's Flora.  Her chin area, down to her neck is swollen solid and she is rattling away.  Tools down, ladder down, trot them inside and come back to check her out.  Place a call to my animal specialist - Kay - and we decide to dose her with penicillin.  It sounds like a fluid-build-up kind of thing and not (necessarily) a parasite problem.  We compare Use By dates, get the syringes counted out for a 9-day course, rassle the old girl, and it's too late to continue with the shed project.  Yet another layer.

I am not sure if being a homesteader means you are incredibly stubborn, in total denial, as flexible as a Slinky, or all of the above, but it does mean that your lists are like onions, with many, many layers, one interchangeable with the other.