How Do You Define a "Productive" Day?

Gone are the snowy days where it got dark at 5 pm and you could curl up with a good book once the boys went to bed.  I am always so eager for the warm weather to arrive, but every year I forget how much more work there is around the farm during the spring and summer.  With so much to do, I find that it is difficult to feel like I am making progress.  I can do twenty chores a day and still have twenty more on my to do list that need doing.

One trick I use to feel more accomplished at the end of a day is to, first thing in the morning, tackle a chore that always seems to be relegated to the back burner.  It is so easy to fill your whole day with the tasks of the daily reproduction of life: baking bread, making beds, doing laundry, tidying the house, child rearing, making dinner, vacuuming, watering the garden.  Somehow all these staple chores always end up getting done, sometimes at the expense of one off tasks further down on the to do list.  

As such, I find that if I begin with a "non-staple" chore, for example, painting the bird houses, mucking the barn, completing a hive inspection, mowing the lawn, organizing the kids' toys, making jelly, etc. then I end up accomplishing this special task in addition to all of the staple tasks.  This does not reduce my to do list in any significant way but, for me, accomplishing one of these special tasks makes me feel like I have had an especially productive day.

Today's special, non-staple task was weeding the vegetable gardens.  With all the rain in the forecast I wanted to be sure Mother Nature was watering vegetables and not weeds.  The gardens look so good when they are weeded.

Ian's special task was mowing the lawn.  Likewise, lawns look so good when they are mowed.  Tomorrow, Ian will drive around and pick up all the grass clippings so that I can use them to block more weeds from growing in the vegetable gardens that I just weeded.  Interesting chore symmetry today.

I also did lots of staple chores today while Ian was working.

Culturing Yogurt

Laundry

Bread Baking

Child Rearing

Our afternoon walk

Seamus, Dandelion Royalty

Making Dinner

Homemade wild turkey pot pie (from the freezer) and fresh salad (from the garden)
with a simple salad dressing of brown sugar and white vinegar as per GG.

And all the other stuff I did not take pictures of: taking Seamus to library reading group, shopping for Liam and Ian's upcoming Beavers Camping Trip, bed making, honey clarifying, kitchen cleaning, house and yard tidying, animal care....Geesh!  It has been a long - but, by my own definition, productive - day.