Morning Guys, so I am going to do a day in the life of farmgal, It will be broke down into at least two parts, maybe three?.. I will do my best to follow out the list I had prepared last night while doing extra’s as they pop up, I wrote the to do list without this post in mind, so if I can follow it fairly closely then it will be a “typical” day as close as I can get it, instead of a boy lets make this day really interesting just cuz I’m blogging..

Alarm went off at 5am..

• Hounds outside, Purrpots feed, Water Dish redone
• Bathroom use for the human(of course we come after the critters 😛
• Pop outside to throw hay (this is because the big old horse figured out that she could break into the second bale of hay in our old way, so now one round bale in the feeder, and then we have the second set outside the fence and we fork it into the feeder, and we are in the fork over stage)
• Pop down to check on lambs by lamplight
• Back to the house, and its breakfast, get ready for work time for Dh
• Moved the laptop from the downstairs to main floor
• Put away the clean, now dry dishes
• Headed outside take cow hide head into the house, put in sink and trim, wash and do first picking on the flesh side. Leave soaking in cool water
• Head back outside to get the 40 pd bag of plain salt, haul into the house
• Head back outside to get a five gallon bucket
• Clean, scrub and bleach out the bucket, then rince well, mix up the salt/alum mixture, and transfer the hide into the water/mixture, put it away where it will sit in a cupboard on the floor for two days before I change out the water, and soak it again.
• Clean out and bleach out the sink, fill the sink with hot water and was the hound dishes and allow to start air drying.
• Get my Barley soaking 5 gallon bucket, measure out the barley and fill the bucket with cool water and set aside to soak for 24 hours till ready to be moved over to the trays to start sprouting.
• Put water on for coffee
• Start a load with the farm winter jacket(it really stinks)
• Stop and have a coffee, Sliced Apple and a orange, (add the orange peels into the quart jar filled with white vinager to make a citrus vinager cleaner.
• Work on this blog post.. (this is either going to be a very interesting one or the most boring ever LOL)
• answer blog comments
• Fill two five gallon buckets 1/3rd full with beet pulp, fill the rest of the way with water to soak.
• Research unprocessed soy bean and its effects on pigs.
• Popped outside to look at the new feed I got, its a ground mix of corn, wheat soybean and 2nd cut hay, its perfect as is for cows, sheep and goats, but while it has been feed to pigs by others, its not recommended for pigs or horses due to the unprocessed soybean in it..
• Offered some to girl and she attacked it, the sheep are in love but the horses really want it as well, in fact I had a losing battle on my hands trying to keep the horses from sneaking nibbles, so I will have to lock up the horses when feeding it and or I will need to lock up the cow/sheep to feed it, either way, that is a bit of a pain in getting that worked out.. on the postive side, that’s awesome that Girl likes it so much as its perfect to support her in this stage of her pregancy.
• Mixed it with the layer feed for the birds and they are crazy for it as well, so now to see if anyone in fact has issues with th soy in such a low percent or not..
• Back outside, hauled and filled the main hay feeder, feed the birds, collected eggs, fresh warm water for the birds, rabbits, and pasture critters.
• Walked down and got the mail.. A seed catalog and a invite to this years eco farm day 2013, which is all about water management, You need to pick three for the day, as well as the key note speaker, which is a auther Maude Barlow, I have a couple of her books including the global water crisis and the coming battle for the right to water.. for her alone I would attend, wonder if she will do a book signing? But for the other three, I am interested in Peraculture and the fight for water, Soil geology, drought, drainage, and water retention, and then either Intensive rotational grazing or Pushing the envelope with cover crops. I never do the evening gala/supper, really sixty dollars for grass-fed meat with local veggies, I can do that at home! and nothing on the sunday appeals to me either. Its possable that Dh might want to come to hear the keynote speaker.
• Hauled down warm water and two buckets of warm breakfast for pigs(well sledded really, so you can take all four, made note that the wind is blowing in the path)
• Got to barn to see that I have a new lamb, still a bit wet, but strong and active and momma still having afterbirth, and still in labour from the looks of it with lamb #2.
• Move momma and lamb into the jug, spread a layer of clean straw overtop of the bed pack that is already there..
• Back in house, started a bucket of warm molassies water, prepped the baby Selemium shot, the dip for navel and will prep and sled down hay and a bowl of the grain mix for momma, hang out for a bit, take a photo or two, and basicly get a feel for how its going, ideally watch the first baby nurse, milk the mom to check for plugs if I don’t see tail wags from the wee one. Sex the baby..
• Back to the barn, momma had passed the afterbirth, looks good, baby is another little girl, nursing and tail wagging has been seen, momma active, bright and interested in her food, still expecting a second baby, shot and dip done, water, feed and hay deployed.
• Back to house, coat in dryer, household load next, changed table cloth, went with a pretty green one today.
• Ready for coffee and something warm to eat, reheating up a dish from the other night with chicken and veggies, going to cut up the chicken breast, and the bigger veggie peice and make it into a hot soup.