Thursday, June 15, 2017

Chores!

On the farm we do chores.  Chores are us.  Chores are a good thing, in my opinion.  Chores keep us busy.  Chores keep our animals alive.  There is no time to feel sorry for yourself because there is always somebody that needs tending to.  If I think too much about all the chores I do I think, wow, why did I ever take all this on?  Chores keep me from missing my kids who are spread out all over the country.  Chores keep from dwelling too much on the past and things I cannot change.  Chores are living in the moment.  Chores keep me young.  Without chores I would be fat as a cow as everything I love to do are sedentary activities, like knitting, sewing, spinning and reading.  Chores keep me moving.   Chores take me about an hour in the morning and two hours at night, minimum.  Here's a brief look at my chores:

1.  Chickens.  I fill up a bucket of 18% egg layer feed from my local feed mill and pour it into the flat black pan in the chicken room.  I check the nest boxes for eggs and put them in the bucket.  If the weather is good I feed them in the outside pen adjacent to the chicken house.  This is a small deterent to the rat issue as the beasties have to come out into the open.  I fill up the big giant white water bucket on the milk room landing and carry it to the big chicken water pan in the outside pen.  Chickens love water and need a lot of it.


Time Goes By

We've survived another winter on the farm.  The grass is growing and so is my flock.  Some updates in no particular order:

I'm up 14 lambs - two white ewes born in December and 14 mostly black lambs born in the first two weeks of February.  14 out of 16 survived and are thriving.  Luke came to visit and helped me with tagging and shots.  They are wonderful lambs, with some Wensleydale and some Bluefaced Leicester characteristics.  I'm happy with the crossbred wool for the most part.  I sold five raw fleeces at the recent CNY Fiber Artists Festival and earned more money per pound than I ever have before - very encouraging.