Life on a homestead ebbs and flows with the seasons. There are busy times – canning season – and slower times – deep Winter. Our day – to – day lives don’t change much, though. There are always chores to do and we keep a loose schedule to get everything accomplished.
Mornings:
Wood burners. After getting dressed, we fill our two indoor wood burners. Sometimes Bob will need to restart one, if it burned out during the night. He has dry, cured, split wood stored on each of the porches, so it’s just a matter of bringing it in and filling the burner.
Late Fall through Mid-Spring, the wood burners are rolling. Bob cuts, splits, stacks and dries many cords during the Summer to keep us cozy through the cold, damp months.
Milking. We get this done before anything else but the wood burners. We are only milking one cow now. (Our daughter shares the job with us so we aren’t drowning in fresh milk. Despite what Paula Dean says, you can only use so much butter and ice cream.) We milk once a day, 3 days a week, saving about 3 gallons per milking. After we are done in the barn, the fresh milk is brought to the house, strained and cooled quickly. If I am making some fresh cheese or yogurt I will set that gallon aside until after breakfast.
No matter what else is going on, milking MUST be done every day. We bought our cow from a small dairy farmer who selects breeds which tolerate once a day milking without mastitis or drying up milk supply. We get an average of 3 gallons a day. We share milking chores with our daughter.
Cleaning and disinfecting the equipment is done after straining. Everything is rinsed with cold water, scrubbed with hot soapy water and left to dry on straining racks. The straining cloth is double rinsed and then washed thoroughly before being hung outside to dry. We are done with the milking and clean-up in 45 – 60 minutes. Making yogurt or cheese takes another hour or so if I pasteurize and cool the milk beforehand. Today I made a batch of fresh mozzarella to use in our supper tonight.
Outside chores. Animals are given grain and hay, water troughs filled, eggs collected. As Spring comes along, we will be checking for lambs and calves. If there are babies, we will be outside much longer. New lambs need checked over, tagged, umbilical cords dipped in iodine solution and then isolated in pens with their mamas. If the weather is cold/wet, we will hang heat lamps up, too.
This cutie is from 2021 lambing season. We purposefully breed so our sheep lamb in mid-Spring. We have fewer cold or abandoned lambs. Cheviots are great moms and have few birthing problems.
Bob will see if he needs to move large round bales into the fields and/or move the portable chicken house later in the day. If the ground is muddy, he might decide to do this early in the morning while the ground is still frozen.
He also moves the cattle from one pasture to another. Morning is a good time to do this. He can watch them throughout the day and see if they are pushing the fence in the new area.
Moving the chicken pen to fresh pasture, checking on new calves and cows, or opening up another pasture are done during morning chores. The sheep are ready for fresh grass and will wait by the gates.
The animals are counted and checked to make sure they are healthy and moving around well. Sometimes one of the cows or sheep will get caught up in some fence or wire and need rescued.
Breakfast. We eat a small breakfast, usually cereal or toast. When the chickens are laying heavily, we will have eggs and toast. Fresh milk and tea are the beverages of choice around here. This is when we get online to check the news, weather, social media. We also spend time doing research to solve problems we have on our farm. University and extension websites are helpful, but we also use YouTube and other alternative sites.
Inside chores. Dishes, laundry, cleaning. I also get supper started now – take meat out of the big freezers or start a meal in the crock pot. I plan meals a month at a time and all I need to do is check the day’s meal plan and get it started.
Bob will start on his chores for the day at this point. He may bring firewood in, work on a project, move hay bales, prep gardens, snow plow, run errands – whatever was on his to-do list.
I will start canning in late summer so I work on that in the morning when the kitchen is cool. Spring is spent outside in the gardens or on outside projects and clean-up. Farms are messy places and there is always stuff to clean up, weeds to pull, buildings to repair.
I can in the Winter, too, putting up meat, soups, making jellies from frozen berries. I use my freezers for quick storage and pull the food out later to use in canning recipes. We order 10# bags of beef cubes when we have a steer butchered. I thaw them when I have slow days, canning them so they are shelf stable.
Here is the link to my blog post about off-season canning.
https://lionblog3.wixsite.com/website/post/gardening-starts-now-sourdough-bread-canning
Afternoon:
Lunch. I plan extra servings (leftovers) when cooking most of our supper meals so we have a hot lunch in the Fall and Winter. During Spring/Summer, we have sandwiches and salads.
Naps. A dirty little secret of homesteading is the after-lunch nap. Taking a short rest gives me energy for the rest of the day. Usually 30 – 45 minutes is enough to reboot and keep things rolling.
Outside chores. Back outside for more work. I will help split firewood by running the log splitter and stacking wood on the porches. Bob does all the heavy lifting. In warmer months, there is mowing to do, gardening, food processing, etc.
Today, Bob and a grandson are building fence around a new pasture. They are working as weather permits to give us another 5 acres of grazing.
Afternoons are spent doing chores and projects. Bob repaired one of our portable chicken pens before using it to raise meat chickens. Firewood and gardens are an on-going (never ending?) chore. Don't tell Bob you are bored....he will have you weeding in the garden.
Inside chores. In warm weather, I would rather be outside so I’ll do laundry after lunch. That’s an autopilot kind of chore for me. Throw it in and come back later. I have outside clothes lines and love to hang my laundry out. In the Winter I will work on projects or catch up on reading. We also keep the wood burners going all day. I might start a few loaves of bread for dinner.
Security. We vary the time of day but we take a ride around the property at least 4 times a week. We make sure gates are locked, buildings are secured, and no one is trespassing. Trail cams are checked, reviewing the pictures. Sometimes we just sit and look at the creek. If the weather is warm, we take the fishing poles with us and wet the lines in our back lake. Our daughter and her husband also take security rides with their family.
Checking trail cams is one of our hobbies.
Mr. Fox visits nearly every night through the Winter, looking for rabbits and small rodents.
Free time. I’ll spend time with my daughter (they live next door), wade in the creek with grandkids, take a hike, float on the lake, and take a ride in the side-by-side. Our son and other daughters visit to enjoy the farm, too. If it’s cold outside we read or watch a movie.
Yellow Creek runs through our homestead for nearly a mile.
We swim, fish, cool off, and play there each summer.
Evening:
Outside chores. The animals need evening checks, making sure they are OK and they have hay/water. Mama sheep and lambs get extra attention when it’s lambing season, turning heat lamps on, making sure lambs are up and bouncing around and the mamas are being attentive.
Social. We belong to a few clubs and groups which meet in the evenings, including being a member of our county Farm Bureau board. We plan shopping trips around these meetings and pick-up supplies at the farm store or groceries. We attend ball games, watch granddaughters cheer, visit our kids and their families or have friends over. During the summer and on weekends the grandkids are often here overnight.
We organize and plan an annual homesteading day in Bergholz, OH. The 2022 date is Saturday, May 21st. It runs all day with exhibitors, agricultural producers, ag products, educators and speakers. If you are interested look on Facebook for The Homestead Rendezvous. More information will be posted there. It's free to attend.
We may just take another ride around the farm and enjoy this beautiful homestead. We have deer, coyote, bear, beaver, muskrat, bald eagles, fox, and many hawks. There are 14 lakes and ponds as well as a large creek running through – there is always something magnificent to see.
One of the many lakes and ponds on our homestead. This is a favorite fishing spot.
When we were both working full-time, we did chores and projects in a rush. It seemed that we just touched the surface – did enough to get by – of work on the farm.
Now that we are retired, the ebb and flow of the seasons determine our days. Winter is quiet, a season of planning. Spring is the season of preparing for our work the rest of the year. Summer burns hot, always busy with projects, gardening, food preservation, and people. Fall settles in on a farm as we get ready to hunker down and firewood is stacked, pantry and cold storage are filled, scarves and hats are washed and mended.
Then it begins again.
Stay warm,
Polly
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