Mornin' Chorin'
It Gets You Moooving!
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!"
Pieces of cake.
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!
Hi generikat,
Visit curiesteem.com or join the Curie Discord community to learn more.
A well deserved vote. Congrats, @generikat!
Thank you both so, so much!!
I am amused just imagining this, as it sound so similar to me in the yard around the house (except for the wildly colored pajama pants part; mine are boring black sweats).
I would love to observe these 20 minutes of your day first-hand, but thank you for this next best thing, lots of photos of the daily tour!
I'm stopping in to try and catch up on my reading post-holidays, and hope to take these in reverse order, a bit at a time, now having saluted you.
Wishing you, Sweet Kat, and all your loved 'uns a very Happy New Year, my dear! <3
And we must talk about infections... INFECTIONS! Haven't I told you what to do about those? I want to provide you with the means to deal... PLEASE let's talk?
😄😇😉
![@creatr](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmWvzuqZ51DoiSjXXf8bukb7JeeVV1eAJJhGBkDiYc8ajj/creatr_ap.gif)
LOL! I don't have infections anymore, I have been good to go for the last couple years because I am taking better care of myself, but don't worry, I am going to have a chat with you about the "means to deal" at some point.:)
Also, how would you feel about rocking a fabulous pair of paisley pj's, guaranteed to make you have a bounce in your step and put a smile on at least one of your neighbor's faces (or a look of horror, ha ha ha!)?
I so hope you had a lovely New Year's Eve and day and every subsequent day since my super excellent friend.:)
Paisley makes me dizzy and nauseated... and would probably nauseate my neighbors too, especially if I were "rockin'" them... LOL!
Yes, the look of horror... that would be the one! :D
New year off to a good start, thanks... You?
I'm enjoying building magic machines...
Hugs! :D
Just look so much snow makes me feel very cold ... not for me. I don't know how you could take these pictures with your phone because I would have my hands in gloves. Great publication and this life diary. Regards @generikat
Oh do I ever hear you about the cold, as soon as my youngest is grown I am heading to the warm lands for the winter time. Honestly though, it's not so bad most of the time, especially when I am snuggled on the couch in a bunch of fleecy clothes, next to a toasty fire, and sipping a cup of cocoa:) Thank you so much for your kind words!
If I was one of your chickens, I wouldn't go anywhere 'out' either. Just sit in the coop and watch Foghorn Leghorn re-runs all day long.
Amazing how many chores you have, and how fast you are at them. Then again, you DO have a bit of practice. I have to admit though, looking at your pics, I sure don't miss the snow much. I'd hang in the barn with the four legger, while you did all the work. Nap time in hay sounds absolutely delightful. (Yes, I know that isn't part of it, like I said, you'd be working, I'd be perusing the rafters with that everpleasant sweet smell all around. I used to muck out a woman's goat barn for a living. Even the south end residue smells pretty great. Love all the organicality of the farmyard smells.)
I don't remember a post about a spider bite. Did I miss that one, or did you not write about it? Brown recluse? Didn't know they were in Idiho. Whatever it was, sounds pretty nasty. Well, hope this finds you well and happy and not too busy beyond light speed. I haven't been on here much, just getting back to it. I sure do miss the land of Steem. Cheerios, my friend, FlatPanMan
Ahh, my favorite domestic abode cookware guy of excellence, it's so lovely to hear from you! It almost makes me want to say, "Now looka, I say looka here." LOL Foghorn Leghorn, dd you pluck my funny strings. ha ha ha!
It would be great to have you around while chores are conducted, I am quite sure that your observational skills and hay holding down ability would come in right handy.
The spider bite extravaganza happened the year before Steemit existed, I should write about the tale, it was quite an epic, although I would not want to repeat it, and yes, we do have Brown Recluse arachnids here. Yeeouch!
I hope you had a most excellent New Year's and stuff, well, actually I hope you are having a most excellent time all of the time. In the name of the ancient 90's bard Vanilla Ice, "Word to ya Momma" and peace out!
K
Let’s be real, sometimes we wear things just to get the neighbors talking in our minds and allow ourselves to laugh out loud. 😄
Missed you friend! Hope you all had a great holiday season!
My long lost friend! It is so good to hear from you!
You pretty much put into words how I conduct most of my life, LOL!
My holidays were fabulous and exhausting, I hope yours were downright smashing!!!
Downsizing can be a good thing! I can't imagine keeping up with all those critters you used to have. When we had chickens, they never wanted to go out into the snow, either, even when my hubby shoveled a nice area for them to walk around in. By the way, I've taken to wearing black or gray pj bottoms so passersby can't tell I'm still wearing pjs when I take the dog out to potty.
I like that you have decided to adorn yourself with camo jammies in a way, very ingenious!
The amount of animals that we used to have was a bit insane, especially considering we had young children too, I would like to think that perhaps I grew a bit more smart over the years, but to tell the truth it's probably just laziness...heh...
Some of us have a tendency to bite off more than we can chew, until we get a few things figured out about life. Heh heh. (notice the "we")