There are so many benefits...

to having sisters that are neater than you.  When my darling middle sis house/farm sat for me, she brought along her floor steamer.  I never knew such a thing existed!  She cleaned the kitchen, dining room, living room and hallway floors.  Twice.  She very sweetly suggested that they may need yet another go-around.  Ha.  Back in my other life, my floors were pretty much spotless.  Then I added dogs, cats and the farm.  I never looked back and my floors never were the same.  I will say, though, it is awfully nice to have someone come in and do the type of cleaning that I don't have time for.  Or, more honestly, that - should I have the time - falls to the bottom of my list of what I WANT to do.

When my sisters come to visit/stay, surfaces are cleaned and dusted.  Refrigerators are cleaned.  Stove tops are cleaned.  It's a wonderful thing.

Deciding to beat the crowds, I was at our local polling station (the old lumber yard, now the town municipal "complex" - although the only thing complex about it was how our dodgy town supervisor managed to force it through and shove it down our throats) by 6:30AM.  The matriarch of all things official in our town (the dowager duchess, complete with full make-up with a theatrical bent at 6AM), declared, when I walked in, "THAT IS SUE - SHE LIVES ON WATSON ROAD IN CHERRY PLAIN.  ZONE TWO!!!!"  In my ten years of living in my town, I have had to reintroduce myself every freaking year.  Apparently, I've made the grade.  I have arrived.  I also ran into two women who I don't often get to see, so we leaned against our cars in the parking lot and caught up.  Very reminiscent of the local farmers leaning on their pick-ups, but we were an assortment of Volvo, Ford sedan and small SUV.  And two of the women was in heels.  Guess which one wasn't.

Sauerkraut is made!  I forced myself to get it done Saturday night.  It's so easy to talk myself into putting things off, but I have finally learned that procrastination can circle round and bite you in the hiney.  So, toothpicks holding eyelids up, I pounded way past my bedtime.  This year I cut back on the amount of blueberries, as I didn't want to stain my very own kraut pounder blue.  I processed only one cabbage this year - it was a 12 pounder from my neighbor!  Woot!  I also got gifted with a bunch of chard, a bag of organic carrots and an acorn squash!  AND had a completely wonderful visit with my sister from a different mother, Melanie on Sunday!  She brought corn chowder, the vege and her knitting.  What a delightful way to end a weekend.  We knitted and talked and talked and knitted.  She finished a pair of socks in a colorway that I have always coveted (she dyes and sells her own yarn).  She then...GAVE THEM TO ME!  I doubt if that day could have gotten any better.  We are going to try it again this Sunday.

I allowed myself this pure enjoyment because I managed to some things crossed off my list.  I took a car load of trash and recycling to the transfer station.  I got Linden's hooves trimmed.  I raked the sheep yard, moved the divider fence and shoveled and moved a huge pile of llama/sheep beans.  I baked another loaf of Einkorn bread - safely cooled in the padlocked laundry room.  Then I swept the ceiling and walls of the chicken coop, shoveled out the front third and scraped surfaces.  Because of all kinds of planned and unplanned events, I am woefully behind in my winter preps.  The major one is cleaning out the coop.  But, since I am nothing if not flexible, I've downgraded it to shoveling out the area under the roosts and leaving the rest until spring.  The fall clean-up is mostly feathers, anyway, and those will break down and create more insulation for winter.  The ducks have now been banned from co-mingling with the hens because they are so messy and empty the chicken waterer all over the floor.  All that needs done now, besides some heavy lifting this weekend, is running the electricity out there and setting up the water heater.

Headway is being made.  Halleluiah.