Most Days

All my days start the same way, get up, cup of coffee and then dressed and out the door to do morning chores. Chores are feeding the animals, mostly sheep, two goats and five horses. While I am feeding those animals who will stay in pens all day hay, I am also filling water troughs with fresh water. In total the daily chores take about two hours. In the heat of summer, I will go out in the middle of the day to refill water troughs. Animals drink more water during the heat of summer than they do in winter.

After morning chores are done I will start my other work. Other work is divided into two categories for me – house work and outside jobs. I am the cleaning person, the cook, bookkeeper and anything else that needs to be done. Outside jobs are usually associated with the animals, checking fences, repairing buildings or building fences and sheds, deworming, marking and weighing lambs. Outside jobs vary a lot, whatever needs done I need to work and get it done.

This year, I have decided to sell two horses. The horses need to be worked and ridden, as it has been years since they were ridden. This week I started the groundwork to be able to get in the saddle and ride. The groundwork is to remind them they were once trained to ride, and that is what we are going to do again. I wait until the horses have eaten there breakfast before starting to work with them.

One task is laundry I will start a load of laundry to wash in the morning, and dry the laundry in the evening hours. I wash in the morning when the temperature outside is not too hot, in order to save on electric energy. I dry in the evenings as the temperatures are dropping outside. In the winter, this helps to put heat in the house before we go to bed. Drying in the evenings, also helps to save on electricity.

There are many things during the day I do at certain times, in order to save on electricity. During the summer, we mostly cook outside on the grill, keeping the heat of cooking out of the house. In the winter, I will bake our bread instead of buying it, along with our meals. I have mastered using the BBQ grill for cooking casseroles, but not quit for baking bread. I am still working on that.

Most of my days are the same routine, morning chores, some cleaning of the house, working outside and when I take a break from outside to cool off, I work on an inside project.

My husband leaves for work at 5 am, and he returns about 4 pm. When he gets home we feed the dogs and do the evening chores of putting out hay and filling water troughs. It is in the evening I water my garden and different outside plants. Then I fix dinner, we eat, chill out watching a television show, and off to bed he goes at 8 pm. I stay up later, wash the dishes and work on the blogs and my novel. I will also work on projects provided I have enough light for what I am doing. Then off to bed I go.

Last year I removed a huge wooden deck, saving the lumber. We had a cement pad poured in the place of the deck. This year I have been working on constructing steps, so we can use the back door.

Most of my days are the same routine. There are times I have to doctor a sheep. And lambing times are always busy with little lambs being born. Most of the time I watch, not having to do anything to assist, just enjoying the process of a new life coming into the world. Am I in a rut? Perhaps, I am always busy working on something, and the projects are changing and different.

Some might consider my life boring as I am usually alone majority of the time working at home. I do not have weekend parties or visits from family often. There are not big goings on at the farm or in my life. Yet, I am happy in my place in life and what I do.

amtolle