Farm Chores
I love to be outdoors, but many times I'm not sure what to do once I get outside.
"There is always something to do," James tells me often.
Now that we have chickens to care for and produce to grow, I finally feel like the kids and I have real farm chores. Rylee and Wyatt have been such good helpers with these things so far, Wyatt especially. For a kid who didn't want anything to do with the chickens when we were picking them out at their original farm, he has impressed us so much by the way he takes care of them. From checking to make sure they are all accounted for to understanding how they like their food to be in their feed trough, he is a good little chicken farmer.
On Memorial Day, Wyatt and I found a new chore. We walked the corn field and picked up rocks for 90 minutes. I like to walk around our property, but sometimes I wish it was more of a productive walk, rather than just for leisure. Let me tell you, digging rocks out of the dirt for an hour and a half was definitely a productive walk. It was maybe not the most aerobic work out, but I definitely got lots of squats in! A little sunshine on my skin while I worked didn't hurt either!
As proud of myself as I was for doing this random chore, I was even more proud of my little man!!! I asked the kids if they wanted to go pick up rocks out of the field with me and fully expected them both to say, "No, thank you." Instead, Wyatt leaped at the chance to hang out with me.
We carried our buckets out to the field and before I knew it, we were having a competition to see who could fill their buckets faster. Wyatt is always up for a little competition. As our buckets got heavier, we decided to leave them where they were and just carry the rocks to the buckets. This was a lot of extra walking and carrying, but I was partially out there for the work-out anyway, so I didn't mind. Surprisingly, Wyatt never complained a single time. He just kept picking up rocks. He would run back and forth to his bucket to drop his rocks in. He is a little worker bee, for sure.
We ended up with a lot more rocks than I would have imagined. Once James got back from running errands, he brought a small trailer out to the field and we loaded all the rocks onto it. We barely made a dent in the field, but I feel happy that we helped the farmer out. He rents our land and if we want him to continue to do so, we can help by keeping the rocks out of the field. I'm actually looking forward to doing this again another day. And..I now have a trailer full of rocks to unload sooner than later.
Sometime while we were out in the field, our live trap caught a ground hog. We had been trying to catch something for a week. We put some old fruits in it a few days ago, but this morning Wyatt put an apple inside of it. We decided to give Wyatt all the credit for catching the ground hog. It had dug a giant hole underneath a tree right outside of our chicken coop. We weren't for sure what was living in the hole, but we knew we didn't need any chicken predators living that close to the coop. We relocated our ground hog a few miles away.
Another chore the kids have recently done was pick up nails around the chicken building we worked on. James paid them a nickel for each nail they could find. This helps us out, so we don't run them over and get nails in our tires. They will do anything for money (especially Rylee), so this was a win for us all. Now that the bulk of the nails have been picked up, the payout amount per nail has been raised to a quarter!
I always love "chore days" on our property. There's just a nostalgic feeling about it. Usually Grandpa is mowing for us and James is working on some small project and the kids and I are helping in whatever way we can. I'm not cut out for the full time farm life, but dabbling in it a little bit is okay.
Life in the country is fun - Just ask the 6 year old about getting to drive my jeep....
"There is always something to do," James tells me often.
Now that we have chickens to care for and produce to grow, I finally feel like the kids and I have real farm chores. Rylee and Wyatt have been such good helpers with these things so far, Wyatt especially. For a kid who didn't want anything to do with the chickens when we were picking them out at their original farm, he has impressed us so much by the way he takes care of them. From checking to make sure they are all accounted for to understanding how they like their food to be in their feed trough, he is a good little chicken farmer.
On Memorial Day, Wyatt and I found a new chore. We walked the corn field and picked up rocks for 90 minutes. I like to walk around our property, but sometimes I wish it was more of a productive walk, rather than just for leisure. Let me tell you, digging rocks out of the dirt for an hour and a half was definitely a productive walk. It was maybe not the most aerobic work out, but I definitely got lots of squats in! A little sunshine on my skin while I worked didn't hurt either!
As proud of myself as I was for doing this random chore, I was even more proud of my little man!!! I asked the kids if they wanted to go pick up rocks out of the field with me and fully expected them both to say, "No, thank you." Instead, Wyatt leaped at the chance to hang out with me.
We carried our buckets out to the field and before I knew it, we were having a competition to see who could fill their buckets faster. Wyatt is always up for a little competition. As our buckets got heavier, we decided to leave them where they were and just carry the rocks to the buckets. This was a lot of extra walking and carrying, but I was partially out there for the work-out anyway, so I didn't mind. Surprisingly, Wyatt never complained a single time. He just kept picking up rocks. He would run back and forth to his bucket to drop his rocks in. He is a little worker bee, for sure.
We ended up with a lot more rocks than I would have imagined. Once James got back from running errands, he brought a small trailer out to the field and we loaded all the rocks onto it. We barely made a dent in the field, but I feel happy that we helped the farmer out. He rents our land and if we want him to continue to do so, we can help by keeping the rocks out of the field. I'm actually looking forward to doing this again another day. And..I now have a trailer full of rocks to unload sooner than later.
Sometime while we were out in the field, our live trap caught a ground hog. We had been trying to catch something for a week. We put some old fruits in it a few days ago, but this morning Wyatt put an apple inside of it. We decided to give Wyatt all the credit for catching the ground hog. It had dug a giant hole underneath a tree right outside of our chicken coop. We weren't for sure what was living in the hole, but we knew we didn't need any chicken predators living that close to the coop. We relocated our ground hog a few miles away.
Another chore the kids have recently done was pick up nails around the chicken building we worked on. James paid them a nickel for each nail they could find. This helps us out, so we don't run them over and get nails in our tires. They will do anything for money (especially Rylee), so this was a win for us all. Now that the bulk of the nails have been picked up, the payout amount per nail has been raised to a quarter!
I always love "chore days" on our property. There's just a nostalgic feeling about it. Usually Grandpa is mowing for us and James is working on some small project and the kids and I are helping in whatever way we can. I'm not cut out for the full time farm life, but dabbling in it a little bit is okay.
Life in the country is fun - Just ask the 6 year old about getting to drive my jeep....
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