Shawn heads into town early every morning, so he's not there to help with morning chores. Those chores are usually done by Jeanette with some helpt from Elena.
Evening chores, on the other hand, are nearly a full family affair.
Elena sets up the stalls for the horses we bring in while Shawn bucks the evening's hay into our two wheelbarrows (most everyone gets grass hay except the dairy goats and the two 'housed'
horses) and Jeanette, after washing and sterilizing the milk pail, takes Aylah's Bootifuls on an egg hunt.
Once the eggs are gathered - and to their credit, they've only busted one and that they tried to put back together a la 'all the kings horses and all the kings men' - the girls help throw the hay to the critters while Elena and I bring in the horses. Elena and I finish up checking water levels and haying and check on the rabbits while Jeanette milks and the girls help her and coo over the goats.
It doesn't take long to do chores at night - maybe 30 minutes. Those times are precious, however... watching the entire family workng and laughing together.
And so we were off to another town and another show.
But Winter in Southeastern Colorado is unpredictable and barely fifty miles from home with anothr 50 miles to go to get to the show we encontered near-whiteout conditions and decided to turn around.
Now, instead of working a show, I'm working the web, Jeanette's weaving, Aylah working her computer, Elena's baking bread and the wee ones are sleeping soundly but it's too early for them to have dreams of sugar plums.
Happy First-Day-of-Snow-in-Southeastern-Colorado-Day to you!
Laffing Horse Farm
Ok, I'm really gonna give this a try. If I figure it out for myself, then I'll know how to do it and can do it again.
It's fall here on the Laffing Horse Farm. The trees are turning yellow. The weeds are getting crispy. We'll pull the sections of weeds that never got mowed this summer and pile them up for a great big Halloween bonfire.
The dairy goats should all be bred, though we have to wait a few more weeks to see if anybody cycles again. Arthur is very proud of himself!
The sheep are still waiting, we don't breed anything that needs to be sheared until mid-November. That way we can wait until March to shear. It is best to shear the ewes before they lamb, but it is still pretty cold here in Feb. and even March. In the next couple of weeks we'll be shearing tags and bellys, getting the woolies ready to breed.
The angora goats are on the same schedule as the sheep, but they get sheared completely before breeding. They have to be sheared every 6 months, so it's October and March for them. They spend the winter in our warmest barn, but by the time it gets really cold, they have nice new fleeces well grown out.
If this works, I'll write more tomorrow, and learn about putting pics on the blog too!
