Just An Ordinary Day...on the Farm

I thought I would write about a normal day on the farm here for me at this moment in time. I like the routine of the day, and we are busy enough here that there is no time to be bored and the days have flown by. I have been on the farm for just over three weeks. 

7am - I am usually awake by this time as the roosters have been crowing and my daughter gets up earlier than I do to let the purple coop out to free range. The school bus Rita flock is let out much later. We need them to finish laying their eggs before they can be let out into their pen. They tend to escape the pen and go lay in the woods, goat shed, thicket, purple coop, wherever. 

I usually get dressed as it is warmer to be dressed in an RV in the mornings. I check my blood sugar and then I make myself a cappuccino (Tim Hortons) and roll up. I will check in on Facebook, CBC news and possibly with a friend or two on messenger or sms texting. I don’t need to collect eggs until about 9am, so I have time to putter. Often I will take this time to tidy up the RV, do some dishes, or I will go out and hang with the purple coop flock, or go say hello to the goats. 

9am - I grab my egg collecting basket and go out for my rounds. I stop first next to me to check on the newly arrived Large Dewlap Toulouse geese. It is a matched mating pair (I have been witness to the mating...it is quite a process for such large geese!) and their names are Boris and Beatrix, after Boris Karloff and Beatrix Potter. I watch them for a few minutes and then carry on down the hill, greeting the purple coop flock who come running to greet me, hoping I am carrying treats. I am not. No treats before eggs! I check the nesting boxes in the purple coop, usually on a couple this early as they are later in the day layers for some reason. There is always a Mama Rita egg (the one who hatched out some chicks before Christmas) and possibly one other egg. Then I head into the tent. They have a large outfitters tent that stores household items, hay for the goats, tools, clothing, etc. The chickens have been slipping under the flap to lay in the hay nests they have built in there. Better than laying in the woods, so we are okay with this. They lay in a nest behind the hay bales and another nest made in a pet carry cage that had hay in it. Sometimes 5-6 different hens lay in the cage nest. 

From here I head up the hill to the goat pen, check in with them, sometimes bring them treats. They love sunflower seeds (shell on) and they are good for their furry hair coat. After this I head across to the school bus to let the Ritas and two roosters out. They come flying down the ramp, the roosters as randy as anything start jumping on the hens all over the place, wing dancing for them as they go. Some are okay with it, some are not into their shit and run off. I then close them into their pen and head to the front of the bus where the nest boxes are and collect about 30 eggs from them on the first run. Then I head back to the RV to wash the eggs and prepare them for the farm stand. I have my breakfast then. 

10am - this is when I do a second egg run to add any stragglers to the eggs for the farmstand. I usually only get another half dozen. Then I head to the farmstand with the eggs, and on the way back, stop in to check on the little chicks who are in the brooder box. They will be three weeks old on Sunday and are growing like weeds! I have had several of them up - so cute and feathering out now. After the chicks I head back to my RV for a break and think about lunch. I often eat lunch earlier as I am up so very early. 

Noon - eat lunch, which is usually a salad. I then take my organic compost stuff down to the compost heap where the chickens love to root and peck through. They swarm me and Soleil races over to claim credit for feeding his hens, often taking up pieces and dropping them in front of girls, clucking and telling them what he found them. I do another round with the goats, check on the Seramas(miniature chickens) in their coop, check on the Ritas and that both roosters are still in their pen. Then head back to my RV or if Amber is home, we work on a project or chore. She has been getting the gardens ready for the season, has planted garlic, potatoes, onions, and several herbs so far. We have also been fixing up animal enclosures, tidying up the storage tent, painting things to make the place look better, and so on. Yesterday’s activity was building a door for the goose house, picking up the geese, and settling them into their new home. Sometimes I just read to the chickens. It was Stephen King this week. 

Our chores or projects often take us through the afternoon, with a check on the animals at some point, including the chicks.  

6pm - we start thinking about supper, usually either I cook or my daughter and her partner cook. Some times we spend separately as they want to cook other things that I don’t eat. Sometimes it is just for some alone time. We spend a lot of the day together when my daughter is home, so we need breaks of our own to do stuff as well. 

7pm - usually suppertime. 

8pm - usually bedtime for the animals. I don’t do much of the early morning chores or the going to bed ones. Amber gets the animals up in the morning and Jason puts them to bed. Now that we have chicks though, I often go put the chicks to bed as it is a bit of a hike, not a hard one to do. 

After putting the animals to bed, we usually retreat to our own homes to rest and relax for the rest of the evening. Neither of us stay up late often so are in bed usually by 10pm. If I am lucky, I may get to sneak in some rock painting. I haven’t been particularly motivated to paint though with no opportunity to hide them with the pandemic on. 

So there you have it. A day in the life of a part-time visiting farmer.