There are days when trying to do this homesteading thing feels like trying to fly a kite during a tornado while wearing roller skates. There are days that I am at work when I realize I forgot to feed my sourdough starter for the second day in a row. There are nights when plants that need to be brought in get left in the backyard to succumb to the frost of the early spring mountain air. There are evenings that I get myself excited for dinner only for the chicken I’ve taken out for dinner to still be half frozen at 7 pm and we end up eating hot sausages and bread for dinner.

Then there are days like yesterday, that flow like a sailboat down a lazy river on an early summer morning.  If every day was like yesterday, I would literally be living the dream.  I got home from work, nursed my daughter and we hung out on the porch. We rocked back in forth on the rocking chair as the neighboring kids were playing basketball. My daughter would say “ball” every time she heard the ball bounce. I made chicken with peppers and garlic using my Dutch oven for the first time and it came out amazing! Literally the chicken was falling off the bone.

I also roasted brussels sprouts in the oven for the first time and it looked like the picture on the recipe card.

 My daughter discovered the step ladder and used it to pull all the plastic utensils out of the drawer while I used sourdough discard to create bread dough for bread the next day.  My husband, who usually gets home late from work, got home early. He was home minutes before the oven beeped letting us know the chicken was ready.  We not only got to eat dinner as a family, but my mom topped it off by volunteering to put the baby to bed for us.  My husband and I had the rare opportunity to snuggle on the couch and relax while watching tv.  Right before bed I cut off the grow lights in my laundry room and stretched and folded the dough thinking of the bread that is to be made the following evening. Days like last night make all the failure worth it, because when a day is a success, it is pretty darn perfect.