There is such a huge difference between the amount of work that goes into renting a dwelling place and owning one. Somebody’s going to call me on this so I’ll put my disclaimer here. One might say that I wouldn’t know the difference since we don’t technically own our place. That’s right, we’re squatters. We live in our place, keep the cows and everything else there but we don’t own it or pay rent. Nice, huh? In some ways, yes. We have, however put countless dollars and man hours into fixing things up on the place all of which benefits us but also increases the value of the property. The time is fast approaching when we will purchase the land. As with any major sale of farm property, the current owner will need to offset the income he receives from the sale with another major purchase to avoid a huge capital gains tax payment. We’re just waiting for all the players to fall into place.
Okay, so that said I can continue as if we do own our farm since that’s how we treat the place. Anybody who owns their home will surly agree; there’s always something to do. There’s yardwork, home maintenance, new projects, always something. Now, add a few acres of farmstead, half a dozen out buildings and 70 or so acres of pasture…it’s really more that the average person with a 40 hour work week should be expected to maintain. Yet this is what we’ve subjected ourselves to, and we love it. We wouldn’t give up our farm life for anything, we need the animals in our lives. Since both Bill and I are blessed with excellent jobs, we can’t exactly give them up either. So we do both and it makes for some busy weekends.
During the week both Bill and I have just enough time to do our daily chores in addition to our other jobs. For Bill this means doing paperwork, making phone calls (yes, this is work), checking the cattle, filling mineral feeders, treating cows if necessary, fixing fences, waterers and anything else that is broken, maintaining vehicles and any other critical project that comes up. For myself, there’s the kids (the ones with two legs), for the most part they are my responsibility. Dress them, feed them bathe them and break up their fights. They’re old enough now that they can more or less play by themselves while I do my other chores. They love climbing on the old stalls in the barn, playing on their swings or in the sandbox and going on “nature walks” as long as they can pack snacks! While they explore I tend my animals; check the goats, feed the chickens, bunnies, ducks, and geese, clean and fill waterers, try to get ahead of the weeds in the garden and if I’m lucky, reap a small harvest from the garden to be used for our supper. As you can imagine, there’s not a lot of time during the week for those “extra” projects that occupy our plans to have a more efficient and beautiful operation. That’s what our weekends are for.
So this weekend, as always, I had lofty goals, the main goal being fixing up pens for the poultry and waterfowl. Most of the summer my birds have been free ranging. It sounds nice and certainly has its benefits, it you’re willing to put up with poo all over the place. Geese are the absolute worst. These are the most strict vegetarians of all my birds and they leave the biggest and most numerous piles- everywhere. Yea, we got tired of it so I had to fix up the pens.
My Ducks and geese got a new pen alongside my garden where they can keep the rabbits and weeds away and I can easily feed them greens from my harvest. They also have the important job of keeping the weeds down under the raspberry canes and around my apple trees. We discovered this technique a couple years ago when we kept chickens in the garden. They did such a wonderful job cleaning up under the raspberries that I decided I needed a permanent pen there. I’m not sure if the waterfowl will do as good as the chickens but I can always switch them out if need be. Here’s a schematic of the new garden layout:
There is welded wire fence around the entire garden with an additional fence separating the waterfowl pen from the rest of the garden. (Ashlee, this is my first step toward a complete “chicken moat.” See http://www.motherearthnews.com/Sustainable-Farming/1988-05-01/The-Chicken-Moat-Enclosure.aspx for details)
My project to keep the chickens in was a little less-involved. I just had to fix up the fort-knox-style coop I originally built. We had to take one end of it down to get the bulk tank out of the milkhouse this spring and I just never got around to fixing it up. I’ve temporarily fixed it by replacing the wire on one end with some extra welded wire from the garden project. I won’t consider it completely finished until I bury it in the gravel to prevent critters from digging underneath. I’m considering some other upgrades to this coop anyway so until I decide exactly what I want, this temporary fix will have to do. So, my hens are no longer free range meaning I have to actually feed them (instead of letting them steal food from the other critters) but they’ll be much safer and probably happier. And best of all, no more poo all over the yard!
Looking back at the list I made for myself on Friday afternoon, there are many things that I did not accomplish. I may try to work on those a bit this week otherwise they will have to wait until another weekend. With that, here are some parting thoughts as to why I love the farm life despite the never ending hard work.
The heavy, humid, late July evening air has a way of accentuating the scent of corn pollen as the tassels begin to open up to fertilize the ears below. Jack noticed this last night and commented “hey, it smells like corn out here”
As the corn tassels emerge, the field starts to look like it has a fuzzy covering on it, and it smells good!
Keeping up the goat fence seems to be a never-ending job. Since we turned the girls out to their pasture, we’ve known that there is a gap in the fence down by the hay shed. We wanted to let the cows have access to the goat pasture to help knock down the tall weeds and branches. The goats have now become aware of this opening and head straight for it when they get up to graze in the morning. It doesn’t take long before they’re grazing right along the road. In many places this would be a goat death-sentence but where we live, it’s not a big deal. There’s just not that much traffic on our road!
For the same reason I don’t worry too much about the kids playing by themselves around the farm. Granted there are plenty of dangers but having grown up with them, the kids are quite aware and keep close watch over each other. I also don’t worry too much about them wandering off…There aren’t many places to go!
Just where do you think you're going?
And finally, my once-beautiful garden, worthy of any corner lot in town has become a favorite snack for the baby goats when they sneak between the fence wires. As I was looking at this yesterday I had to laugh. If a dog or a calf or a child had done this I would have been furious. For some reason knowing it was the goat kids made it okay. They are such a joy that I’m willing to put up with THIS just to keep them around. I’m thinking that a major overhaul, and temporary fencing, may be in order this fall though!
Before- notice the lilacs just beginning to bloom?
On that note, I leave you with a verse our pastor referred to in church on Sunday. It comes from Matthew chapter 25. Here Matthew describes Jesus’ allegory of how the nations will be judged when He returns:
31 "When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory.
32 "All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.
33 "And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left…
41 "Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
Anybody who has ever raised goats knows why Jesus used goats to represent those nations who choose to go about their own path and refuse to follow the Lord. It makes me want to sing the song my sister-in-law,
Life out here is pastoral and peaceful, when we get to actually be out here to enjoy it. The work is hard but rarely stressful, (okay, trying to hold a baby goat while lining up a tattoo pliers on its frail little ear can get stressful, it doesn't last long though). And yes, it is much easier to do all this when the kids can "help." It gets them out of the house and away from the TV.
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