I thought some of you would like to know what a fairly typical summer day on our farm is like. Summer brings longer hours of light and lots to do on these 5 acres. We've been here 4 years now and it seems like every year we get some stuff done and find more things we'd like to do. But slowly our place is shaping up. Bindy, our cow, is dry now (as in not milking, waiting for her calf) and is eating less then ever before. So this year we actually, so far, have an abundance of grass. She's still working on the yard and only went to the neighbors place 3 days several weeks ago when our grass wasn't quite big enough but his was perfect; his having had more sun. Anyway the reason I bring her up is because we are not choring her at all these last few days and that is something we'd normally be doing as well.
Papa gets up, eats and heads off to work. He has to be there at 8am so he normally gets up around 7. This morning he put together a marinade for a pork roast so he got up a bit early. He likes to cook and I encourage him :) I get up around 8am these days as there is no cow to milk. When I do have to milk I get up at 7. I head outside to feed the meat birds: they get 2 five gallon buckets of feed morning and evening and 1 every afternoon. Soon I'll have to make it 2 every afternoon. One of the mornings buckets is wet feed mixed with milk that we saved just for them. This morning they needed moving so I fed them outside the pen they were in, let them out and showed them the feed and then took down the electric netting and reset it up around them in the new area. The first few times we do this they are a bit confused but by about the 3rd time they have figured it right out and today not a single bird was left behind. I haul their 15 gallon waterer into the new pen and fill it with the garden hose. Chicks are done til afternoon. Then I grab another 5 gallon bucket of feed and wet it with water and transfer it in to 2 five gallon buckets for easier carrying. It's harder on you back to carry one full bucket then to carry 2 even buckets. I haul them about 250 feet to the pig pen. The piggies are sleepy but happy to see me. I fill their trough (it moves with them) and talk to them a bit. They pretty much ignore me and eat like they've never seen food before. Gluttons. After the pigs I head out a bit farther to see Forrest the black sheep and his little band of laying hens. I have about 18 layers but only about 7 are in. The rest are out enjoying their freedom until Papa and I have time to sneak out at night and clip their wings so that they can't get out anymore. Until we do this there is no point to trying to keep them in. Forrest and his gang need a new spot so I tie him to a willow and move the 2 chunks of shorter electric netting that make up their pen. I manage to keep all the hens in!! WOW. Maybe I will graduate to 'farmer' yet.. I've been a lousy apprentice for toooooo looonnngggg. I drag the nest boxes along the ground and into the new pen. Then I go get them some water and while I'm at it get the pigs some as well. Two buckets are easier to carry remember? Normally I head to my green house and give it a quick watering/look over but this morning I've been longer then normal, I rarely have to move 2 pens in one day, and so I head inside to see what time it is and if the kids are up.
Inside it's 9am and I'm amazed how much one person can get done in an hour!! I was sure it was closer to 10. Oh well. Lucky for me. I go and sit on our bed and read my devotions. I've pretty much finished the Bible in NKJV in the last 18 months so I've started reading it in The Message. I love it. It's so easy to understand. I started in Genesis and I'm finding that I have to make myself stop reading so that I can pray before the kids get up. I get right caught up in the stories of Abraham, Isaac and now Jacob. I finish my devo's and consider a shower. It's 9:20. The kids should be up any minute. I decide to shower at nap time as I'm going to weed later. I wander around for a bit waiting for the kids before I start making pancakes for breakfast. Papa has a Doctor appointment for his knee today and will be coming home at 10 to shower before heading back into town to see her. At 10 I am half finished frying pancakes and the kids are STILL NOT UP. So I go wake them up. L and R are still sleeping and neither want to get up. R needs a cuddle so I cuddle and flip pancakes and tell E to go to the bathroom. J is wide awake and talking. The kid could win a medal for 'never ending chatter box.' L gets up a few minutes later, he's still asleep but he's on his feet. In a very few minutes they are all playing on the floor while I finish breakfast and check my facebook and email.
Papa gets home at 10:15 and the kids are all eating. He has a quick shower, gives me a kiss, tells the kids to be good and he's off again. He doesn't want to eat, he already had breakfast. After breakfast I supervise the days dressing and soon everyone is out of PJ's and dressed in shorts and T-shirts. They can all dress themselves except R who I still dress. E has recently learned how to put her shirt on and now can get completely dressed by herself!!! The boys have a fuss over a pair of pants and I intervene. Then I kick them all outside!! Right before we head out J goes to the bathroom and comes out with bad news. We have no water. I check the kitchen. Nope. OK. I know how to fix it but I first need to know why. The pressure tank will switch off if it gets too empty. Like say if the sprinkler and the hose are on at the same time. Papa needs to fix this. But he's not sure what else to try. But we should have been fine. The house doesn't effect this or hasn't. So I grab a sweater and some gloves and crawl 6 feet under the house!!! SHUDDER!! I fiddle with it and finally get it filling again and crawl out. By the time I get out I can hear water running. Wait that's not right. I rush over and see where it is. It's coming out of a unused irrigation pipe that's been rolled up so we can clean out the cow area. One of the fittings has popped off. So I go find a screwdriver and put it back on. Back under the trailer I go. SHUDDER!! I hate it under there. It's wet and spidery and NASTY. I get it going again. Wait several minutes to make sure and crawl back out. I get to the front yard and the sprinkler is NOT working. It should be. Back I go AGAIN. I re fix the pipe fitting and crawl BACK UNDER THE HOUSE AGAIN!!!! SHUDDER!! By now I'm a pro. I get it going. Wait in the damp, dark, NASTY, hole and climb out to wonderful sunshiny day!!! This time the pipe fitting stayed on and the sprinkler is going when I round the corner. That job done. And yes I did head inside to wash off the NASTY and make sure the water works!! Today is a outside day. We've had 2 inside days in a row and we're all glad to be going outside. On inside days we do things like laundry (this week I did about 9 loads, including all the bedding and our swimming stuff from the weekend), cleaning (this week it was sweeping cobwebs, wiping bugs off walls, vacuuming the whole house, putting away, bathrooms, and wiping down the house; doors, oven, dusting, chairs and table, etc), organizing kids clothes, (someone is always outgrowing something) making supper ( baked chicken and potatoes and chicken strogginoff this week) and sewing projects (I put this last because it is my LEAST favorite but I did get one done) With the rain this week I figured I'd better catch up on the house stuff. I have a feeling I'm not going to get to it for awhile. Last summer I never did seem to be able to keep it up and finally did a HUGE cleaning in the fall and reorangaized the whole house. With such a small space it 'needs doing' often. On inside days I also try and do a bit of 'school' which each of the kids. J is learning number recognition and adding and verses, L is learning to count to 20 (that's the tough one) and verses. E is learning to count to 10 (she always misses 4) and her name, my name, Papa's name etc and her verse and some colors. R is learning where her nose, toes, fingers etc are. It's fun and it's good for all of us. They also often have a time to do something fun alone. Like a puzzle or book or game. Normally this happens when I'm working with one and the others get to do a "school'.
The chicks are in the front yard so the kids can't play in the sandbox or on the trampoline. That's OK. The carport is empty and they play in there and on the drive way. I head over to weed the beans and corn. My beans are doing nicer then ever before and I'm really hoping to get a good crop this year. The corn is not doing so hot and I'm not sure why. Some of it didn't even come up. How disappointing. I weed the whole garden in about 1 hour and 20 minutes. Not too shabby. I have black fabric between my rows which really cuts down on the chickweed!! I pretty much just weed between plants. We stop for a quick freezie break. They all want white. R and I share a purple. R climbs the stairs by the porch and falls off. A first. She's fine just a little bump. Then she did it again. Time to go in! The kids clean up toys which are all over the driveway and I quickly finish the last row of beans. Toys cleaned up we all run down the driveway a few times to tire us out for naps. R enjoys walking half way down and then starts to whine. I run past her a few times, which makes her madder, and then we walk for a bit, run for a bit. R is totally bewildered. She's tired and needs some lunch. One last run down the driveway and I pick her up on the go and jog holding E's hand to the house. E loves to FLY with me as I jog. Her feet barely touch the ground. Some days we go for a bike ride/run but today it was too warm and we're too hungry!! It's about 72F in the shade. But that's pretty nice for us these days.
When we get inside the kids all run to wash 'with soap' and I wash my garden hands and R's playing hands in the kitchen sink. Her hands are so tiny compared to mine and so clean!! Lunch is peanut butter and jam for the boys, jam for the girls (E is allergic) and peanut butter and honey for me. L is my helper and brings the others their lunches as I do them up. He also gets to pray for the meal. What a good kid!! J eats his 2 sided bun, and another and the last bit of mine. He is growing like crazy. He says he's still hungry but I make him finish his water and then he is done. After washing up again the kids wait while I clean up R and then they make me a deal. If they all have a good sleep they can watch a movie. Bribery I know. But they haven't been sleeping well and then they get cranky. Besides nap time = Momma time. And I need it. 2 hours of peace!!! LOL. No more like 2 hours of WORK.
I sit and relax in front of the computer for a bit but the connection isn't connecting so I give up and head back outside. I normally wait 15 to 30 minutes inside to make sure they don't just get up and play but actually lay still and sleep. Today I don't think they'll need it. It's very quiet so I go out early.
I grab my keys and walk to check the mail. Papa has a birthday coming up and there is 2 cards for him. Several bills and a notice about the new Chinese food place in town. And a surprise a picture of Kirsten our niece who is 6 months old. She's beaming into the camera. What a little sweetheart. I head to the 'barn' and grab my machete and some gloves. I'm hacking down the little poplars in the areas the chicks have already been in. It's hard work and last time I blistered my pinkie finger on the end of the handle. This time the gloves help a lot and no blisters. I hack down about half of the area that needs it still. You need a good hard swing and then sometimes the trees fall and sometimes they don't. I hack and hack at them. I also go over the last piece I did and get the few I missed. This is hard work. I finish my row and go and weed the flower bed. I have 2 flower beds. Surprised?? Flowers don't like me. They just die on me. These 2 beds were here when we got here. The front one is the one I tackle. Bindy has munched around it but I go and clean up the rest of the dandelions and the few thistle. The beds about 15 feet by 5 feet and it takes a while. I make great big mounds of spent dandelions and grass. I don't mind dandelions in my beds but when they are finished they make it look shabby so I pull them out. I like the look of the tall flowering grasses so I leave them as well. The sprinkler is up, I set it up this morning, on the last area the chicks had and I dodge it and weed the whole bed. I only got wet 4 times and it felt good! The chicks stand as close to me as they can get and beg.. They don't want weeds I'm finding. They want more grain and they have to wait. We are almost out of feed and Papa is going to get another load tonight. They don't give up and beg the whole time. Bindy grazes behind them then lays down in the shade to chew her cud. I'd love to join her with a good book!! I also weed around the horseradish and cumphrey. Both are doing fairly well. I bring the weeds in the wheelbarrow (the BIG ONE) to the pigs. They are less interested then I thought and react badly when I throw the weeds in. Then they wait to see if the weeds will jump up and get them. When the weeds are obviously dead they come take a look but don't even eat any. Maybe later. Papa gave them a new 2 wire pen last night and are they very happy. On the way back to the house I stop at the other flower patch and pull 2 thistles and a handful of poplar mini trees. This bed has never been a favorite of mine but the chickens sure like it. I think I'll take it totally out. It's not even got pretty flowers. I'm done outside and head in for a DRINK!!
Inside I grab a glass and head to the computer.. and here I've sat telling you about my day. About 20 minutes into it the kids got up and are playing in the living room behind me. I did promise them a movie but they don't mind waiting for a little while. But I think I'm going to put in their movie. That is one bad thing about not having a TV I can't write while the kids are watching movies. Today I don't mind. Papa should be home in 45 minutes (about 6:30) and I never did get my shower!! Thank goodness Papa's making supper... though I have a funny feeling that "the apprentice" might get a lesson in BBQing pork roast as Papa also has to go get feed tonight. I don't mind I LOVE pork roast!!! As I finish this the kids are talking about the movie they want to watch and cleaning up toys. It's amazing how many toys 4 kids and get out in a short amount of time. They want to watch 'Prince of Egypt', a new favorite, and are very excited. Evenings around here can be very exciting but I'll have to tell you about it another time!! Have a wonderful day and God Bless.
