Rudee's Question, Still Have Snow

The view before we drop into the valley.

The view from my porch.

You can see the snow is hanging on for another one.

Hangover from the porch.

Warning:  Beware of falling slabs of icy snow!

Rudee has asked, "How in the world do you juggle both a farm and your outside job?  I imagine it's quite hard to find balance."

Yes, it is Rudee, that is why I am unbalanced! 

I usually post about me but there is a team here and we all share the work.  One person could never do this.  We, sometimes, call in extras.

Fencing is a group project, as is harvesting the hay for the winter but many things can be tackled by one.  My sister, Marcy, has her retirement home here and she does all the plucking and perserving.  Marcy feeds her chickens, goat and cats.  So unless she needs assistance with a big job, like cleaning the chicken house, she pretty much takes care of all that.

My other sister, Beverly who has a house in town, is the floater.  She goes where she is needed.  Right now she is working on a back yard project for Marcy making raised beds and clearing brush.  Beverly's object is to get all of Marcy's gardening close to her house.  Earlier this year, Beverly was helping me organize my house.

Feeding of livestock goes to Hubby.  He uses the tractor so it is just a matter of transferring feed and taking it to the right spot.

Andrew does the dog feeding and I do the house work.  These are all just daily chores. 

Hubby and I each work a regular day and come home to chores.  Extra chores, like cleaning the springs, mowing the grass, tagging, giving shots, worming and general working of stock is all done on weekends.  I mustn't forget cutting firewood, fence posts, clearing dead timber, repairing washed roads, repairing fences...gosh, the list goes on.  All these are weekend jobs.

So I guess we balance this by not having a social life and not much down time.  We are hoping to finish cross fencing in the spring, then it will only be a matter of moving stock from one pasture to another with the help of the Border Collies.  All pastures have live water so that is nice and makes our job easier.

We also call in the troops, (children, etc) when we are doing a big project like tearing down Dad's old bull pen and replacing it with a round pen.  The spring cleaning(cleaning our water source and the branch below it) is also a troop activity along with  taking the composted manures from the lot, barn and chicken house to the garden.

I guess this is why farmers always had a big family, to help with all the chores.  The main way a farm works is when someone sees something that needs done, you do it.

There is a saying,  Farmers work from sun to sun, a woman's work is never done.

Things are far from perfect, Rudee, but we love our life.  There is always a pair of muddy boots by the door, something waiting to be done, but life is good At The Farm.

I hope I answered your question Rudee. Thanks for playing along.