Early Riser

Here I am sitting in front of the computer at 5:15. Hubby just left for work and I decided to stay up instead of going back to sleep. I'm going to try this for a while hoping that I get use to getting up early. Usually I go back to bed and toss and turn for a little bit before finally going to sleep around 6:30 and then getting up feeling groggy around 10. I don't like getting up that late, and I don't like feeling so groggy. So, I'm going to try staying awake.

The animals are confused in the change of the normal routine.  The cat usually comes and sleeps with me once Hubby is gone and Skeeter sleeps in her blanket by the bed. Now, the cat is sleeping on my shoulder/chest. I guess he figures that he's going to sleep on me no matter what. Skeeter stared at me for a little bit like she was thinking,"Aren't you coming to bed?" Then, she just went back to bed herself.

What makes getting up this early hard is that I actually have been up since 2am.  We started up the wood stove for the first time yesterday. It finally got cold enough that we needed it.  Everything was all nice and toasty in here. Around 2 am this morning, the stove started to smoke. The wind from storm Sandy was making it's appearance. It was blowing just right to cause back drafts to come down the chimney causing smoke to slowly puff out of the stove. Nothing major, just enough for me to smell it. Now this might sound funny, but I can't sleep if I smell something different in the house. If I have something in the crock pot to cook overnight, I can't sleep. I keep smelling the food. If the litter box needs changed, I can't sleep. I have to clean it out. If Hubby had too many beans..... Well, you get the idea. :) Anyway, the smoke from the stove woke me up at 2am this morning and I couldn't get back to sleep.

I could go back to sleep for a little while, but I need to get up around the time the sun comes up because I need to let the chickens out of their chicken house.(The new house isn't done yet.)  We have 8 young roosters in there getting ready for the butcher block and if the older rooster wakes up at the same time as the young ones do without them being able to get out, there could be some very disturbed chickens. I have been letting them come and go as they please and kept the door open all night long, but without us having a dog to guard them at night, something went in night before last and helped itself to a chicken dinner. One of our hens were eaten right in the chicken coop. So we aren't taking any chances on whatever it was coming back.

Well, I guess I'm going to have to get something done around the house so I'll get off of here for now.

So until next time,

Small Farm Girl, early riser