On Thursday I was trying to finish the bills when my helper friend called at 7AM and said he couldn’t come as he had a plumber coming. I already had the carcasses thawing for chicken bone stock. We’d just have to do it on Friday when he came.
So I finished the bills, cleaned up the kitchen, and started the laundry.
While that ran I spent a couple hours filling in my 2026 planner and making sure I had all the rides to things set up.
I finished that and kept the laundry going and lay down on the couch to read. My sister had given me 6 Rita Mae Brown books for Christmas and I’ve been working my way through them. I had 2 more to read.
I fell asleep on the couch and didn’t wake up until mid afternoon. I read some more, made supper, pulled shades at 4:30PM, and got the stoves going. I was in bed by 8PM.
I’m still coughing some and the knee persists in swelling periodically, making walking hard. So I’m not moving as much as I would like to.
I got the laundry washed and dried but not folded or put away.
I didn’t wake up until 6:30AM on Friday morning and I had to get a shower, get a shopping list made for the stock making, and get the milk order done before my helper friend arrived at 8AM.
I sent him off on errands and got the kitchen cleaned up, collected the ingredients I had, and started prepping vegs.
When he got back, he sat and chopped vegs while I weighed and distributed each type to the appropriate roaster. The new roaster is a good deal larger than the remaining old one. I had thawed out the biggest block of carcasses at 11.38 lbs for this round. I still have one block left of 9.98 lbs.
We got the stock started by 11:30AM and he brought some of the sand around to the garden shed, and got the window candle tote into the attic. I fed the birds while I was out there sanding walkways.
Then I sat down and read, keeping an eye on the liquid level in the roasters. I had filled the Berkey to have enough water to add. In the evening, it said it had run out, but when I checked, the reservior was still a third full. The filters needed replaced. Sigh… I wasn’t doing it that late, so I got what I could out and hoped it would be enough for the night.
I was in bed by 8:30PM and had a bad night, spending most of it on the couch. I got up at 6AM on Saturday morning, cleaned the kitchen, and my son helped me take the Berkey apart, clean it and replaced all 4 filters. It has 2 lower white filters in the storage tank.
Once the water had filtered down I filled the roasters back up.
It was really foggy outside but the fog had frozen to the trees and other surfaces. So I went out to get photos as it was really pretty. On the way back in I noticed on both sides of the front steps there are daffodils up! I never remembered having those up so early. Maybe snowdrops, but never daffodils.
These photos don’t show how pretty it was, but oh, well…
The bone stock finished about 2PM and I turned off the roasters and opened the windows on the porch to let it cool down. I spent the rest of the day reading.
It’s not supposed to get below mid 30’sF during the night, so I know the chicken fat won’t be hard. I’ll skim off what I can and package the stock for the freezer by noon. It’s to hit mid 40’s and be sunny on Sunday so I can’t leave it out there later than that.
I should get the clothes folded and put away, clean up the kitchen, and figure out what I will bring for lunch on Monday. I have an event at the Senior center after exercise class.
I have to feed the birds and I’ll probably read some too.