Gotta fix the fence.
Gotta build a gate.
Gotta clean the chicken coop.
Now don’t be late.
I got the blues.
I got the winter chore blues.
Perhaps I also need to get out more. I have just been reflecting today on how wintertime chores differ from the rest of the year. Mind you, there isn’t really less to do, but a lot of it can wait until a warm day, during which we will all work our respective fannies off.
The little goats have found yet another place to escape the fence. The last place was at least far from the road. This new place is much closer to the front of the property, and is therefore much more troubling to me.
We need to build a gate across the barn stall. This will need to be in place before the goats start kidding, which I really hope will be late February or early March. We are hoping to use pallets from Eric’s work, so materials are easy, but we just have to physically make time to do it.
On a similar note, we need to build a shelter and pen for the bucks, since they won’t be allowed to run with the ladies once it is close to kidding time.
My chicken coop needs cleaning, but it has been too wet the last two weeks to do it. Now it looks like I’ll need to do it the week after Christmas. The chickens also need us to take the time to build them a rodent-proof feeder in order to try to get rid of Mr. Big Fat Rat who is hanging out around our coop.
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| I was standing in the coop holding 3 eggs when I saw Mr. Big Fat Rat. One egg and a bunch of goo was all that was left a second later! |
I need to build more raised garden beds and think seriously about whether to expand my garden area. I need to get my garlic in the ground!
We could use a few fences to traverse the property and help us keep goats in or out of different sections as needed.
I think the problem with wintertime chores is that they all seem to be BIG chores. I don’t have my daily chores of goats to milk or cheese to make. There are no baby chicks that I need to check on multiple times a day. Only a few eggs and a little produce to gather. Veggies like the kale are happily sitting in the garden waiting on me to need them. Nothing bad will happen if I don’t pick it today. All the animals still need to be fed, of course, but even that doesn’t take but a few minutes.
All of these things lend a strange sense of busy-calm around here. I feel like there are just so many things to do, but then again, I don’t have to really do any of them just this minute. I have a feeling I will be singing a different tune in February when I still have a million things to get done and my kidding deadline is really looming!
Maybe I can use this time to try to actually catch up on laundry . . . Maybe not.
What about you? What kind of wintertime chores do you have to do?
For more stories involving goats, chickens and chores, be sure to check out our “Animals” tab at the top of the page!
I could not agree more! Except we have the complication of COLD weather here – it’s 9 degrees at the moment. I have a pig, goat and 14 chickens. I was dreaming about a gate to keep the big guys out while I replenished the straw in the goat shed (pigs don’t have fur, only hair and they can’t get too cold). And was thinking I needed to install better/more feeding containers for afternoon snacks so food’s not hitting the dirt – they’re still getting leftover pumpkins from the Thanksgiving display! And I hit my head on the heat lamp in the chicken coop EVERY morning when I clean the poop boards. That’s gotta be fixed. AND I shoveled snow in the barnyard at 7am today so nobody had to get their feet too cold.
Yeah, these kind of chores make me long for summertime!
Thanks for stopping by! Summer, where did you go??