Monday Morning Chores

I am always the first up in our house and as the current farm animals are mine, the responsibility of them and of the pups falls on me each morning.  It is definitely winter, gray overcast sky, snow flurries, and windy, bone chilling windy.

First up, the pups are turned out to romp and do what pups do after being indoors all night.  The coffee pot is set up and turned on so that there will be hot coffee when I return to the house.  Barn boots and barn jacket are layered on, the bucket for the chicken’s water is filled with tepid water, the feed scooped and since my hands are full of wet buckets and feed scoops, no gloves are added.  It is cold enough that the water is dumped each night to prevent their dish from freezing, sometimes it has a skim of ice by coop up time.  I have foolishly been dumping it near where it sits which is right off the front corner of the coop and several times there have been slips and near falls on the mud or ice that has formed there.  The chickens get their water, their feed bin is filled and a partial scoop of feed and scratch it tossed out into the pen as they are single file exiting their snug coop.  The reward for my now freezing fingers is checking the nesting box and finding 2 to 4 still warm eggs to hold in my cold hands as I walk back to the house.  The girls are always thanked for their gifts.

Once layers are removed and pups are brought back inside, I am rewarded with a cup of hot coffee and the preparation of fresh scrambled eggs for pups and me.

Life is good on our mountain farm.