Daily Chores

This week I had asked Laura if I could come up earlier in the day to do her chores with her. I am really wanting to experience what day to day life on a farm is like, and Laura did not disappoint. She does most everything by herself on a day to day basis, and is an extremely hard working woman, I am deeply admire her hard work and dedication to her farm and her love for her animals, all the while being able to be discerning enough to know and be able to handle the hardships of death, injury and trials that can be a daily occurance some weeks. The following pictures are the morning ritual that occurs twice a day (some chores are once, but most happen twice a day/365 days a year and as she said 99% of them are done by her).

Mixing all the food for the animals, she adds fermented alfalfa to help boost probiotics, as her farm is younger, the pastures are not yet fully established, and Laura is committed to raising healthy well fed animals

Bring the cows in to be milked, she tries to rotate her cows and when she breeds them, so that she usually has two only that are lactating at a time, about one month of the year she has 3-4 that need milking each day.

The area you see where the cows are coming through towards the barn, has suffered terribly from our very wet year we have had here this year. Laura has a plan and had gravel delivered last week, to help fill this area in and make it a lot easier for the cows to come in to milk each day, the mud is so bad in a couple other spots that one of the girls hurt herself, thankfully not too badly, so Laura is being very pro-active and protective of her livestock and making sure they have safe passage through the muddy spots.

This is beautiful Nala, she is the cows guardian, and is the sweetest, most beautiful and friendliest pup around. Laura bottle fed Nala and her sibilngs as puppies after their mother died after birthing her pups, 3 survived and live on the farm and they have been wonderfully raised to be content and dilligent guardian dogs

Miking time in the stalls, so much detail has gone into making sure the animals are comfortable, well fed and content while being milked

Beautiful milk

One of the many goat pens, Laura breeds quite a large number of goats each year for sale

These extremely entertaining Kunekune (meaning fat and round in Maori) pigs from New Zealand, are a much smaller pig only 24-30 inches and 40-220lbs at maturity are quite entertaining to watch as they dance their little circle around each other, devouring their food, all the while grunting and pushing each other for the last morsel of food offered up, that has now become mudpie after their agression has toppled their food bowl,

They are well suited to a smaller farm, being more domesticated and docile in nature. There are only 3 on the farm being raised for family and friends

Breaking ice on water troughs, requiring an ice pick each morning in the frigid temps on this cool but sunny morning

Egg layers

There are a mix of chickens for egg laying, one rooster ruling the roost, with a mix of ducks (some of the babies currently in the brooder will become egg layers, to replace some of these aging girls)

Pair of breeding lambs

I am super super excited about keeping my eye on this girl on the left, she is due sometime around March, lambs are one of the few livestock I would love to raise for meat, and her baby will be born sometime during my internship here, which is a blessing for sure

Future sit of 2nd pond for the ducks