January Chores

We've gotten into an easy routine with our winter chores. First, let the chickens out, fill their feeder and check their water. This morning I had to dust them before letting them out since we found mites on Zebra Head. He and his two favourite fat ladies sleep on the floor of the coop for some reason (there is plenty of roosting space!) so I think that might be why the three of them have a lot more mites than the others. I dusted as many as possible but we'll go more for control of the mites than eradication.

Dorothy is pissed off about being grabbed and dusted this morning.

Next, put the chicken feeder in the goat yard, give the goats some grain and lock them out of their barn/yard and onto the rest of the farm. That's the easiest way that we've figured out to keep the goats out of the chicken food. The chickens can easily get under the gate into the goat yard to eat. We dragged the summer sheep shelter into the middle of the farm so that the goats have shelter if they want it during the day. 

Then feed the horses and cows their 2 bales of hay and check their water. The goats and chickens like to help with this part.

After that, it's time for a quick egg hunt. The chickens each seem to have their favourite nesting spots, and most of them are deep in the hay....except for Squishy, who first goes up on a wooden shelf in the goat barn and knocks everything off of it in a frantic nesting attempt, and then runs to her good old toolbox (she has to fly over a 5' wall to get there) to lay an egg in a pile of screws and nails. She is a strange one.

Magpie's secret nest. This looks like a better spot than a toolbox.

Then the sheep get their hay and grain (which they remind you about wanting the entire time you're doing other chores). Thomas tries to push the girls out of the grain tray but Oprah has a technique of eating the grain while lying on her knees to keep him from pushing her away. Zeb needs his own dish because he's a gentleman.

That usually takes about half an hour, and after almost 10 months here doing the chores is still enjoyable. 

When I was done that this morning I went to cover the quarter of the orchard bed with plastic. Our landlord wasn't a big fan of us doing the lasagna method of preparing the beds because it uses newspaper as a ground cover, which I guess can be bad. I didn't read about it, I just took his word for it. So instead we're using cardboard on the soil with a layer of animal bedding on top, and then covered to help speed up the decomposition of the hay. I think we'll just use that quarter as a test patch and not bother with the cardboard on the rest of the bed. I'm curious to see how much it helps to cut back on weeds.

This is how the soil looks underneath the cardboard and hay. That's a lot of roots....and that means a lot of weeds...