Urgh

I am apparently sick as a dog and taking a day off. Thank goodness for FMLA sick days that don't count against you other than no pay. I was fine yesterday, got moved around to my old section (boobs) from my new one (tenders) and woke up sick today. Not sick sick where I'm stuck in bed all day, but the kind that would make me dangerous at work, even though my job doesn't require use of knives and scissors. I'd be dangerous to myself because I have to go up and down stairs, and whatever's got me has me doing the dizzy thing. I'm tripping over my own feet, feeling lightheaded here and there, and feeling pretty chilly even though the house is warm at 70F. Hubby says, yeah we could use the money, but you're no good to anybody like this. Hands me my time badge for my employee number, and my phone and sits there and makes sure I call in right NOW. I hate taking time off for anything, but ye gods and little fishies, when you are not in shape to go down the stairs out of your house, going up and down stairs at work several times a day is defnitely not a bright idea. So today, as I feel up to it, I'll be working on small things around here that need doing, but mostly sitting and doing a whole lot of diddly squat. It's my ideal life, more or less, but not like this, haha.

Now, we have done a lot of talking lately, and if we can't get the size acreage we'd like, which is highly likely, then our livestock will end up being just chickens and rabbits. The rabbits will be some version of Angora, so they are meat and fiber and babies to sell, but rabbits produce quite a bit of meat in very short order, and generally take less care than other meat animals, so they would be a good choice for us. Add in that as we age, rabbits would still be fairly easy to care for, compared to larger hoofstock, and I am sold. I can always buy or barter for cheese and milk and meat and fiber from other hoofstock we'd considered (pigs, sheep, goats and cattle), and it would make things a bit easier financially as well to get started.

This is an optimal choice for us, and primarily for me, as it's highly likely I'll be the one running the farmstead anyhow. It's fairly easy for a single person to handle a large garden, the house, a small yard, chickens and rabbits and assorted things with that, with hubby doing the off-farm job thing. It's a lot more complicated when you add in larger hoofstock, because to do much with them takes time and more than two hands and a 5'4" tall woman with itty-bitty hands to deal with them. (I kid y'all not, my hands are teeny. 3" across the palms, when the average is 4", and from wrist to the tip of my "social finger" is only 6". TINY HANDS.)

When you add in NOT having to get up in the middle of the night to help with calving, lambing, kidding and farrowing, or stock deciding that what's on the other side of the fence is worth crashing through to get to whatever, higher costs of feed, and etc., etc., you start balancing time and effort on that vs. time and effort on other things you enjoy doing (like me with my needlework and writing.) If I want to get into soap-making big time, I can do melt and pour glycerin soaps and sell them, or buy goat's mlik and make milk soaps that way, or whatever. You just have to do things on a scale that's compatible with what you really can handle, not necessarily what you think you can handle.

On that homefront, things are working out a little at a time, and I'm happy to see things improving. It's little steps, one inch at a time, but it goes along and keeps on trucking. For the moment however, it's time to see hubby off to work (since he doesn't have to wait for me to finish stuff up so I can get ready to go - I do a LOT of stuff pre-work) and head my dizzy behind back to bed to see about getting past this before I hunt down books. The upside to the day is that after we got home last night, I finally got my wireless mouse working again. I tried several pairs of batteries, switching out one at a time, until I got a pair that worked. I also moved the USB connector to a different port, and that helped it to connect. So I am happy on that end!

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