My Daily Schedule

Here's just a look into my day.........

4:30: The alarm clock rings....I either jolt wide awake, turn off the alarm and jump out of bed or slowly roll over and hit the snooze button. Depends on how tired I am or how late I went to bed the night before.
4:39: Alarm clock rings again....I climb out of bed, stumble into the bathroom to get dressed with my eyes closed and slowly trudge up the stairs.
4:44: I start piecing together my milking machines and getting everything ready to go outside.
4:50: Head outside with the first load of wash bucket, extra carrying bucket and goat inflations. Come back inside and carry out both surge milk buckets. One is for the goats and the other is for the cow.
4:58: Set up milkers out in the barn, poor grain, call the cow in. Get the milker all set up on her.
5:02: Start milking the goats...Missy and Gypsy up first!
5:09: While continuing to milk the goats, I hear the cow milker "squealing" so I run to save pour Vi. I take off the milker, and send her on her way.
5:50: Goats are all finished, start taking all the inflations off the goat milker, poor some of the milk into the extra carrying bucket and take first load of inflations, extra carrying bucket and washing bucket in.
5:56: Come back for second load. Grit teeth and reach down for the full, HEAVY buckets of milk and in my head, imagine "Grant Taylor" in Facing the Giants yelling at me to "don't stop, only___ more steps! You can do it! Give it your best! Don't quit!" and finally make it to the door.
5:59: Strain any milk needed for milk orders and pour everything else into pasteurizing pails for kids. Start pasteurizing.
6:15: I do whatever needs to be done with cow milk. This is either used for calves, or strained and saved for human consumption. :)
6:25: Check emails, blog, etc. My lap top is in my milk room so I can be doing this and watching my milk all at once.
7:00: Take the last bucket of milk off the stove from pasteurizing. Set aside to cool.
7:03: Either write a blog post, email a friend, or do something of the sort. Sometimes I'll start some school work.
7:30: I start scrounging around in the kitchen, can't find anything so I ask mom what's for breakfast. Mom says "I do milk equipment in the morning so I'm not on breakfast duty anymore....ask Abigail" so I ask Abigail. She says "granola or eggs". So then I'm about on my own again and I have to come up with something. :)
8:00: Start heating up milk/electrolytes for calves, pouring milk for kids and making sure it's all the right temperature.
8:14: Make the first load out with the lambar bucket and one extra bucket of milk for kids. Feed the "middle" pen first then the youngest pen.
8:27: Head in for the last bucket of milk and 5 calf bottles. Feed the oldest kids and all 4 calves.
9:15: If it's nice out, I put the kids out. If it's chilly (like yesterday/today) they stay in.
9:34: Head inside and go get ready for the day (daily hynene stuff)
9:50: Start practicing piano.
10:45: Do as much school as I possibly can fit in.
12:00: I make lunch on Mondays and Thursdays. Abigail and Mom fill in the other days. If it's one of their days.....I keep going on schoolwork!
12:30: LUNCH!!!! YEAH!
1:00: I head back to school work.
2:30: I start heating up kid milk and Ellie's milk. She is now getting 3 gallons a day!
3:00: All the milk is heated up so I head out to the barn with my first load.
3:15: All the middle and youngest kids are fed....I head in for my second load and back out again to feed the older ones!
3:25: Because I don't feed all the calves it takes much less time then in the morning. They only get fed 2x a day. I head back in and finish up any school work or do outside stuff (whatever that may consist of)
4:30: Time for evening chores! I start putting milk buckets together repeat what I do in the morning.
5:45: I've made it back into the house and I'm working on milk stuff inside. I start scrounging around the house for something to eat.
6:30: All the milk stuff is taken care of. I've raided the cookie jar and my own personal cookie stash and am still hungry so I start bugging people about dinner.
7:00: Supper is finally ready so we all sit down!
7:45: I am finally satisfied (for now) with my stomach not growling at me and I start getting drowsy. I manage to help clean up after supper though.
8:15: I tell everyone I'm tired of feeding kids 3 times a day, they tell me to stop and I promptly head into the milk room to get their 3rd and final feeding of the day. The milk is usually still warm from chore time so I just pour it into buckets and head on out. Usually someone helps me with this feeding so it doesn't take as long but I do have feed all the calves.
9:00: I come inside to drop off my buckets and head on out to the barn to make sure everyone is going to make it throught the night without kidding. :)
9:07: I slowly trudge through the night air, back into the house. It's getting chilly out and feels good to step into the warm house!
9:15: Head downstairs to brush teeth and get PJs on. Chat/joke around with Abigail.
9:30: Crawl into bed. Ahhhhhhh
9:31: Fast asleep.
9:32-4:30: SLEEP.....HARD.
Note: times are VERY subject to change. :)

God bless!
~Bethany~