Homesteading moves to a feast-or-famine rhythm.

And while I hardly consider myself a homesteader anymore (having bailed on both raising meat birds and keeping a garden last summer), we do still grow a bit of our own food. Today, in fact, is that difficult but important farm day when we'll give thanks to a few lambs and restock our empty freezers for the coming season.

It's never easy, but I'm always grateful. 

It's this rhythm where we swing back and forth between no lamb meat (or chickens, or ducks) and a freezer full of meat; no green beans and more than we can bear to eat. And I love that rhythm. It reminds me that everything has a time, and fresh strawberries belong to June; while fresh tomatoes are for August and September.

 

And every year in late February, just like magic the egg production switch is flipped down in the hen house and we go from not quite enough eggs to get us by to drowning in them.

The ducks are laying again, as are the quail (though half-heartedly on both counts), but the chickens are in high gear and each morning Lupine brings in another egg basket-full with a quizzical "what are we going to do with these?" expression on her face.

Obviously we have too many chickens. (At least in February.)

So this morning the steamer basket it full for the second time and we'll have a half-gallon jar of sesame-tamari eggs on hand for growing teenagers (and other hungry people) to snack on. And every perfect, fresh egg we find this week will be tucked away for the upcoming retreat and we'll bring a few dozen in to work to share with our team.

After that I think it's time for Lupine to restart her egg business. 

Because March surely means even more eggs than February.