A Day On The Farm: Winter

Welcome back to the farm, come on in and have a seat. Get a cup of coffee and stay a while. I would like to invite you to a typical day on the farm.

Each day on the farm can look a little different depending on what life throws at you, and it is no different on the farm. My husband and I both work off the farm Monday - Friday and we have 3 very active kids and we still have to factor in practices, games, and after school activities just like most other families. There are, however, a few chores that must get accomplished every single day no matter what else is going on or how cold and wet the weather may be. Everyday animals must get fed and watered, visual check and count of everyone, and collect the eggs.

Weekend routines: I hear a lot of people say they are weekend farmers and I guess I get the concept, because most of the bulk work is accomplished during the weekends, but believe me there is plenty of work to be done everyday. Weekends are reserved for the "projects" and the more labor intensive work. I like to plan out our month in advance with 3 large projects for the month, giving us an extra weekend for wiggle room to complete any of the projects we didn't finish on schedule or for the kid's events. Typically our weekends consist of: stall, coop and shelter clean outs, cleaning and scrubbing the water buckets, restocking the hay at off site pastures, brushing/grooming the horses, training/exercising the horses, scheduled events, games or parties; the big weekend project.

For this month our projects consist of expanding the garden, garden amendments, and more seed starts.

A typical weekday may look like this:

Morning: Wake, shower, coffee (with our homemade creamer might I add), leave for work before daylight, then everyone else wake, breakfast, leave for work and school, visual check and count the animals (usually means chasing the 1 dog that jumps the fence.) One of our winter task is removing blankets from the horses in the morning, because it is too warm during the day.

Afternoon: Coordinating the various pick ups, drop-offs, practices and household errands.

Evening: The evenings are filled with dinner prep, feeding/watering the animals, and collecting the eggs. Weather and light permitting, we also like to take a walk around the pasture line checking the fences having goats will make you do that (little escape artist).

We also have to put the blankets back on the horses as needed and checking the stall bedding. We also try to work in a few rides to exercise the horses during the week as our busy schedule permits.

Running a farm business means that you wear a lot of hats. The evenings after dinner is also reserved for website updates, social media, blogging, accounting, record keeping... you get the drift.

Our daily and weekly routines also change based on seasons, things can get pretty hectic around here. We definitely could not accomplish all these task without the help of our kids. They are a HUGE help- they never hesitate to help out when asked (Hey, they are teenagers after all). One thing is for sure it is never a dull moment around the house, but I don't regret it for a moment. When you are doing what you love it never seems like work, it is a labor of love.