As anyone who has a farm, ranch, or homestead knows, chorin' is a thing. You never get a day off. Even if it's miles below zero on the thermometer, if the temperature on your farm is close to the surface of the sun, if you've been bit by a spider and have an abdomen full of gauze and three infections (true story), you still have to do chores. Always.
Now, don't get me wrong, most days I love slapping on whatever seasonal clothing I need to in order to brave the elements and wandering around my little homestead feeding, watering, and caring for everything. However, I do tend to get a chuckle out of the romanticized notion that a lot of peeps have about country life. You don't always look like a gal from Mary Jane's farm when you're out feeding the chickens. Usually I look like a creature suffering homelessness who has a propensity for wildly colored pajama pants and is in need of a hairbrush. I'm sure my neighbors are constantly amused.
Anyway, back to chorin'. The one thing I can count on is that there is always going to be something slightly amiss when I wander around feeding all of the beasties. I keep far less animals on the farm than I used too. Gone is the herd of 25 meat and milk goats, 200 pastured meat birds, and 20 pastured pigs. These days I just have to tend to 3 horses, 3 bovines, 5 chickens, 2 dogs, and 9 cats. I mean, I can literally finish my winter chores in about 20 minutes, it's a less labor miracle!
The other day it was snowing rather vigorously as I stepped outside to feed the creatures. my first stop was to feed the house cats. Yep, I have two sets. Well, the four that I feed at the house on the carport stub wall are my elder cats. My two heathen dogs, Cora and Lani, blow out of the door to have a morning argument with Kahjit, Patches O'Houlihan, Licorice Mittens, and Clover. The dogs eat first, before everyone, so they probably are just gloating as they blitz around the carport and yard while I feed the house kitties. Braggarts.
Then I wander over tp the equipment shed to feed our two mares. Angel is a polish Arabian who came with our farm. I am pretty sure she is nearing 30, but honestly she is doing well for a senior mare. It's not like she is spoiled at all. Jemma, my daughter's paint mare is a sweetheart, and is always coming in for a closeup.
Once the two mares are happily snacking on alfalfa and grass hay, I move down the fence line with a big armload of more hay for my pony, Kula. My big palomino Quarterhorse always has a whinny for me, as he is my bestest bud. We both kinda don't like winter too much sometimes as we tend to have a lot of ice, and since I am too cheap to pay for boron shoes, we don't do much interacting beyond feeding time for a few months. Ugh.
As I was walking down the barn road with Kula's breakfast I noticed something that shouldn't have been a thing. Uno, my daughter's show steer was just standing in the barn yard instead of being snug and secure in his stall. Yep, Uno had done a runner. By runner I mean that he busted out of his pen and was visiting his brother and sister S&P and Chloe. Some people have to worry about their animals running away if they get out. I am not one of those people. The farthest my creatures would go is to my bedroom window to tell me to get my flintlocks out of bed and give them some comestibles. Spoiled things.
You see the show cattle are super spoiled. And addicts. Their crack is grain and they get heaps of it. It literally took me thirty seconds to get Uno back in his stall. I walked to the fifty gallon drum that holds his feed, got a scoop, and hollered, "Come and get it big U!"
After Uno was ensconced back in his realm, the kittens emerged. A couple of months ago I let it be known I was low on cats. I got five kittens given to me in one day. The black kitten, a magnificently fluffy and friendly creature was named 8ball by my hubs. She is always the first to greet you when you wander into the barn, and likes to ride around in my daughter's sweatshirt pocket when she does her chores.
We also have Trump, so named because the kitten's hair is literally the same color and texture of el Presidente's, Spartacus, Spitz, and Cannonball Cortez. Aren't names fun, lol! Each of the kittens has a distinct personality and make barn time chores all the more fun. I might even admit to sometimes dragging a piece of baling twine behind me while I fill Uno's water bucket so that I can catfish. Heh.
After barn chores were finished I stepped outside and enjoyed a moment in the quiet. The lack of sound when snow is falling is one of my favorite life moments. It's a noisy silence in a way, Almost like someone is sifting colloidal oatmeal over my patch of Earth to make it look all nice and clean for just a moment or two. Until Uno kicks the wall and leaves a smear of steer stuff or Lani blasts by me leaving a plethora of prints in her wake.
The last stop on my chore trail is the chickens. My hubs constructed the most excellent little hen house using materials we had laying around the farm. It also has an attachable big yard for when the weather is nicer. Most of the time my girls won't even come down their gang plank to the little yard under their house until spring. It's probably because some weirdo human supplies them with everything they could possible want, heated water, fresh greens, grit, shavings, lighting, food, etc...Spoiled beasties.
All five of my hens are Americaunas, so each day I get four to five turquoise eggs of tastiness. Speaking of eggs, I'm going to go cook me up a mess of them right now, because in a few hours I get to go through the routine d'chorin' all over again!
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were snapped on the authors's very well utilized and probably full of unexpressed sighs iPhone.
