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A Day in the Life on the Farm
There’s something poetic about life in the country, isn’t there? Your every day is different than most people, I guess. It seems simple and sweet and romantic. The truth is, it’s a lot of hard work! It’s a lot of responding to life as it comes. You’re aware of so many things in just a very different way than most people are. Living in the country isn’t for everyone, but I am not everyone…
Today started the regular way… I get up early. I get up before my husband to make his coffee, breakfast and lunch before he goes to work. I’ve been setting the coffee pot at night lately so all I have to do is plug it in in the morning. This gives me a few extra minutes to start laundry before we sit down to a cup of coffee together at the dining room table. This is my favorite time of day because it’s quiet and, usually, no one else is up. My mind isn’t quite so full of the day and its distractions just yet, either. Joe cruises thru the internet reading the “newspaper” and lets me know that, yes, the world is still on fire. It seems much less intimidating out here on the Farm, though, I admit.
When my husband leaves for work, he is listening to a sermon on the radio during his thirty-minute commute. I tune in with him and often send him a text comment about it later. My tidying done around the house, I’m ready for my own Bible time and catching up with friends and family on social media.
This morning I am interrupting the regular routine to make a couple of loaves of homemade chocolate zucchini bread with the raw cream I left in a jar on the windowsill in the kitchen last night to sour. It’s a special day. One of my very best friends is having a birthday. I’m going to try to see her later today. She’s been very busy lately so I will be lucky to find her home.
My oldest son, Mitch, is off to work and comes in to tell me goodbye before he heads out the door to a busy day managing the store he works at. Pretty soon Boaz will be awake, and he’ll crawl up on my bed to be near me for a bit before he goes to the kitchen to sample the extra loaf of zucchini bread cooling on the counter. The house slowly comes to life as the dog goes outside, my daughter, Janie, grabs her morning cup of coffee, and my teenage son, Max, heads out to do farm chores. During our homeschool year you are much more apt to find us sitting around the breakfast table together, but we are currently off for a bit of a break this summer. I’m so lucky to still be in the season where all of my kids are still at home! We have always been a very tight-knit family and they will be out the door before I even know what hit me, I’m afraid.
We are planning a great Father’s Day celebration for the weekend! Mitch has ordered the gifts and Janie is planning the dessert. Max and I will work on breakfast and the boys will take their dad fishing and exploring on the mountain for the day. Today, when I’m in town, stopping at the store for rhubarb is on my list since I haven’t been able to get some locally this year and I don’t have it planted in my garden just yet.
Mid-morning while chatting with my brother on the phone, I notice the cows are out. One of our steers thinks he’s a bull and he can sure tell when the heifers (who are not in his pasture) are in heat! He is not opposed to going under, over or thru a fence line to get where he would like to go! So, Max and I head out to repair fencing and convince the wayward animals to go back where they belong. Because he didn’t want to go alone, the other steer happily followed him thru the obstacle course to get out of the pasture as well. Back in and the hot wire on, we hoped for the best.
It’s almost time for my daughter to go to work and the birthday gift I ordered for my friend arrived just a few minutes before we would head out the door! I picked up the chocolate zucchini bread and gift and we were on our way. I made a quick stop at the store for a bouquet of flowers to complete my gift giving and the rhubarb for Father’s Day dessert.
As luck would have it, my friend was home and we even got to spend time wandering thru her garden and chatting about future plans and the shocking amount of rain we seem to be having this year. She showed me how to build a trellis for my peas and beans with PVC pipe!
Since today was supposed to be the nicest weather day this week, I knew I needed to get back to the Farm and get some outside work done, but first I dropped my friend’s daughter off at the stables where she works and boards her horse.
Back at home I started weeding in the garden and mowing and trimming the lawn. We are re-landscaping everything and keeping up on that with all of this rain has been an impossible task! The new grass and weeds are in a competition to see which will grow the fastest and the weeds, I’m afraid, are winning out!
Later that afternoon I got a text from my chicken supplier down in town asking if I could take a hen off her hands. It appears the rooster that I gave her doesn’t like this particular hen at all and has chased her off their property more than once, so we made plans to pick her up after supper.
Tonight, the weather is supposed to be in the 30s, so I am putting the potted tomatoes and herbs in the greenhouse just to be sure they don’t get too cold. No sense in losing them now when we’re getting close to time to plant the starts in the garden.
Tonight, was a quick supper of hamburgers with beef grown here on the Farm. We all sat around the table and visited since everyone was home tonight then Max and I took off into town to pick up the poor, picked-on hen. She was easy to catch, and we loaded her into the crate and headed back home. It was late enough in the day now that the other hens were back at the hen house so we could close them in for the night.
The end of the day here on the Farm is usually punctuated with a pretty glorious sunset. For me, it’s another reminder of how God has so blessed us as a family and has so blessed our little valley up here on the mountain.
