My Daily Labors

My day begins around 5:30 when I dress in quaint, old fashioned garments and slowly walk to the barn to milk the cows. I skim the cream immediately and grind some wheat to mix with the freshly rolled oats to make a homemade, farm fresh breakfast. I gently awaken the children and we sit down and lovingly gaze at each other over our morning's repast.

Ha Ha Ha, not really. :-) What actually happened is this:
Asa is a complete crab, I don't know if he's teething or what but he's up every hour and a half all through the night. I feed him at 5 and fall back asleep. The boys come in from milking at 7 and I wake up then. Mr. G takes crab-o and I must have fallen asleep again because when I next look at the clock it says 8:00. But not to be misleading, I'm *not* a morning person anyway, I never have been.
The children eat baked oatmeal with apples and cinnamon, I, however, eat peanut butter/chocolate cookies and drink a Mountain Dew. Seriously. Your whole image of me is blown now isn't it? :-)
9:00- I start a load of laundry and run a bath for Elisabethe and Abigail. Since we don't have central heat that means that the bathrooms are unheated. I never wash the girls' hair in the evening because it's just too cold in their bedrooms. In Summer though I like to wash their hair right before bed because they stay cooler that way.
10:00-12:00- we start school and I don't do much else during this time but help, explain, check answers, listen to their reading, prod the unmotivated etc
Lunch- Mr. G makes burgers and fries and while he's cooking and Asa is napping I fiddle with the undershirt pattern that I drafted.
1:30- the mail comes and in it is the undershirt that Mrs. B made for Asa! I try it on him but he will *not* act cute so I can take his picture. :-/
The original undershirt from the Wisconsin Historical Society is pictured below. It's knitted wool with straps.

I tried the undershirt on Abigail and it fits her, so this seems to be a garment that he can wear for several Winters! Woo Hoo!

2:00- I cut out an undershirt for Asa. The original (pictured below) has no side seams, just that one seam in the left front from where they used remnants pieced together to make the undershirt. It is finely woven cotton, I'm using handkerchief weight linen and it's bulkier.

I'm happy with the finished product all-in-all, but maybe I'll do some in batiste and see if that lays nicer. Also, I shirred the neckline up too much in the pictures, it looks better when left looser.

4:00- I check e-mail and hold the baby while Katie starts supper. I read several stories to the little girls.

4:30- Mr. G messes with the fire and then leaves for work.

5:00- Supper and then the boys head out to do the chores that require daylight. Locking in the chickens, hauling water to all of the animals, feeding the pigs and bringing in wood. I take Asa in for his bath.

6:00- Asa is out of the tub and I hand him off to the younger girls while I make tomorrow's breakfast, breakfast pizza. The boys finish milking, come in and strain the milk and set it away to cool. BTW, you can't skim the cream immediately, it has to rise first. :-)

7:00- I lay down on the couch with Asa and nurse him to sleep, he wakes up around 7:45 and Katie takes him,but before I can get up Elisabethe and Abigail come and climb in the covers so we snuggle for a while.
8:00- I read several chapters of our current read-aloud, By The Shores Of Silver Lake.
8:30- children head off to bed and I rock Asa to sleep and try to catch up in Les Miserables. Mr. G, Aleks and I were all going to read it together,but Aleks liked it so well that he flew through it and is finished already. I read about 100 pages tonight.
10:00- Mr. G gets home, Asa wakes up and starts crying. He settles down around 11:15. I climb into bed, very, very tired and immediately fall sound asleep.

This concludes my very exciting day, now what did you do?