Prepping for the storm

Well, like many today, my thoughts are of the pending storm  This one could be a doozie for several reasons but having grown up in Florida and spent highschool in New England, a hurricane INSIDE a nor'easter does not sound like a whole lot of fun! I have experienced both and yikes!

And, of course, my thoughts are mostly about my animals right now  With the heavy rains we got this summer and the damage they caused just in illness from nothing drying out, lots of rain is not what I would like to see right now.  I have spent the past couple months spreading everyone out into bigger pens with more space.  Now I need to bring everyone back in and hope that the pens I spent so much time and energy on will hold....they are not exactly structures of great construction! Sadly construction projects of any kind are not my forte'!  Definitely an issue for a homesteader who has no partner helping her.

Anyway, so, I already had a long list of "to do" for the weekend since it is my first full weekend at home for awhile, it has gotten a bit longer and rearranged:

Clean the yard - I have been working slowly on this for several weeks...cleaning out the shed for the new chicken coop resulted in some homeless items that need to be secured elsewhere like bicycles and stuff. This was already on the list, now it is a necessity

Secure doors on coop and rabbitry - this was also a priority but is more so now.  Remember my lack of carpentry skills?  The doors are not exactly straight or super sturdy yet but I will be working to make them more so.

Extending Muscovy pen - they are getting big and have outgrown the temporary pen and need to expand.  This may be put off a bit though since I am not sure how well the pens already put up are going to hold and I will be moving the Muscovies to the chicken shed for the storm...probably seperating out the "meat birds" from those I am keeping too when I let them out again.

Garden: Well, I had ideas of planting one more crop of spinach and kale but I am not sure that will work well because they will probably be washed away.  I do still plan to get the straw bales around the winter greens and cabbage.  I will need to harvest everything else now though...all the herbs and such.

Freezer: I had already planned to try to consolidate everything into one freezer, now I am definitely going to spend some time doing that, in case we lose power I want everything jam packed in there so it will stay frozen longer. 

And speaking of electricity, babies with no heat lamp is going to be a problem....so I am praying we keep our power on! And the babies are coming back into my bathroom Sunday just in case.

Lots more on the list but these are the priority now... I figure I will spend the real rainy portions of the storm doing homework, I can read by candlelight if necessary.