A Day in My Life by the Season ...

​Homesteading and living on a farm is a busy job.  Usually, you know which big tasks are coming up and you can anticipate them.  (Then there are the dozens of things you don't anticipate or can't schedule the keep you on your toes!)  What I am busy doing changes by the season.  Weather and seasons mean a lot more when you homestead or farm than knowing what outfit to wear or if you should bring a jacket or umbrella.  We also realize that the weather forecasters are often wrong, but for some reason it's hard to get over being disappointed each time they mislead us.  I find they are often in the ballpark with regards to rain versus sun ... usually.

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Late Winter

​Starting the year from mid-January through mid-March, we are still dealing with winter in full swing and the first part of mud season.  However, we have the regular "January thaw," which gives us the added joy of mud and snow.  Then, it gets cold again, keeps snowing and blowing.  At this time of year, I usually:

• ​Plow snow (hope to get a three-point snow blower for next winter);
• Feed all the animals hay and keep them stocked with fresh bedding;
• Move manure accumulating in pens to piles out of the way to compost later;
• Order seeds, bulbs, roots, and plants for spring (sometimes 2-3 years beforehand);
• Tend aging cheese;
• Make soap and things from wool;
• Prune, especially grapes (when I get them);
• Annual testing of dairy animals, prenatal vaccines, and shearing of sheep;
• Complete all the taxes for last year before babies start arriving.
• We don't drive anything heavy off the beaten path or risk getting stuck in the clay mud.
• The ground usually has a 4-6 inch layer of ice, so digging and driving posts is like working in rock (and it's often too gooey afterward to fill it back in right away).
• Elk are usually getting quite desperate and will heavily raid stored hay and grain or eat right out of animal feeders.

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Spring

​Spring seems to start mid-March and run up to June.  I'd say this is the busiest season, but that's just because it's the season I'm in now.  The bees are awake and starting to buzz around.  Blossoms emerge and I love little flowers on the orchard trees ... or at least the ones we had before and will have again for next year.  There's a lot of hope in the spring even though there's also a lot of mud and work with delayed results.  Days are also getting longer.

• ​Babies arrive (about 50 this year) - keep a close watch on mothers to make sure they are doing well before and when delivering.  Watch babies and moms (and weather) afterward to make sure they are doing well.  There are always things that come up.  Give babies newborn care (tag, selenium, castration).  Any sudden very cold storm can kill very young or frail kids or lambs, so weather is important.
• Start once a day milking then move into twice daily milking.
• Planting trees (250-ish), strawberries (3,560), and lavender (about 1,500) after making sure the ground is well tilled and compost well-incorporated.  This takes FOREVER.
• Turn out sheep and goat to pasture while working outside.
• Drive fence posts - spring is almost the only time when the ground isn't too hard or frozen.  It takes longer than it seems it should to make sure they are straight, straight, straight.  Sometimes I get a week in October to do this, too.
• Protect the new plantings from deer and elk (thank you dogs) and sheep and goats.
• Make soaps, cheeses, ice cream, and other dairy products.
• Farmers' markets start - attend and start selling.
• Sell weanling kids and lambs that we aren't raising for meat.
• Give penned areas a really good cleaning and form up new compost piles.
• Check  and tighten all fence lines - there is usually damage from winter or a random tire that flies out of someone's truck. 
• Pick up litter (mostly glass beer bottles and energy drink cans) that accumulated under the snow and made it into our pasture. 
• Kill noxious weeds and those crowding the fence.
• Check and treat bees for any infestations or illness.  Split hives, if scheduled.

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Summer

​​​​Summer means the ground is firmer and everything should be green and in full growth.  I think most people picture farms in summer or even fall.  I enjoy not having mud!  Summer runs June through August for us and nights are short ... we usually go to bed before it's dark, even when we "stay up."

• Milk twice a day.
• Attend farmers' markets.
• Harvest strawberries every few days.
• Run fence wire on newly installed fence posts.
• Keep animals watered and watch for heat-related stress.
• Irrigate plants and spray, as needed (more often for non-commercial natural sprays).
• Remove unripe fruit from immature plants and trees.
• Prune lavender.
• Breed cattle.
• Dig ditches, streams, and ponds; grading and shaping paddocks and around water.
• Purchase and store up hay for the following winter and spring.
• Construction of new buildings - especially the foundations and shell (hay & livestock barn, milking parlor & processing area, beehouse & root cellar, chicken coops).
• Haul in a lot more gravel for the driveways.
• Cut and store up firewood to season for the next year (lots of it, but not by mountain man standard).
• Harvest honey.

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Autumn

Fall colors are wonderful, but we're mostly evergreens on the mountains and around here.  I look forward to having a lot of my blueberries which turn red in the fall as all of the wild trees seem to turn yellow around here.  (I am selecting many plants with fall colors as one of my major considerations.)  We don't practice fall planting here.  Our fall is usually September through November, though we usually get a significant snowstorm in November.

• Milking twice a day.
• Attend farmers' markets, which come to an end in the fall.
• Finish berry harvest and winterize plants.
• Final honey harvest and winterize the bees.
• Prune trees.
• Fill compost rows for winter and cover with plastic.
• Fall immunizations and health care, including heifer brucellosis vaccines.
• Breed sheep and goats.
• There might be a week or so for driving a few more fence posts if we're lucky (or unlucky).
• Winterize and service equipment.
• Winterize bees.
• Switch to cheese-making from most of the milk from the dairy.

Early Winter

​Winter is beautiful and peaceful, and the pace certainly changes.  That said, I most dislike winter because there isn't pasture for the animals and the weather is less comfortable.  In the middle of winter, it seems like it starts getting dark at 3:30 in the afternoon. Still, we keep busy in December to mid-January with the end of our milking season and making pretty much all of our milk into aged cheeses (except for a few direct sales of fresh milk outside of the farmers' market).  Making cheese is fun.  There is still a lot of work ... not all indoors, either.

Umpa-Lumpahs

​A quick word about my children - they are wonderful to have around.  They probably think they're my slaves (AKA wanna-be-umpa-lumpahs), and I suppose they are.  I can send them to grain or milk if I have to take the other to an appointment or something.  Some things require four hands, such as driving fence posts (or at least it's WAY faster), and they are nice to have around.  Running a farm I don't think will be as difficult with just me and my husband, but staring a farm or homestead with able-bodied children who know how to work make it so much easier.  We just have to remember to give them some free time and make sure they don't hate farm life ... and bribe them with the best ice cream sandwiches and fun adventures around here!