Most days here are busy. We keep a farm journal on an Excel Spreadsheet file on the laptop. It helps us keep track of what we did when, what worked, what didn't, and if we wake up the next day and wonder, "What the heck did I do yesterday, anyway, I have no recollection!", it's written down. It doesn't include most of the basic regular chores that we do. For regular chores, Jeanne takes care of the regular goat chores, feeding, watering, cleaning and rebedding the barn, milking them, taking them on daily 1 hr long browse walks, processing and storing milk, morning dishes and evening meal cooking, and midday bird chores (more feed, water and collects eggs). Linc cooks breakfast and makes salads for lunch, does garden/hoophouse harvesting and veggie processing, lets the birds out in the AM and feeds them, closes them up at night, and does the evening dishes. Here's a somewhat typical summer farm day Journal entry (July 3rd).
Chores; J walked goats, cleaned, EM'd and rebedded barn, mid day chores, cleaned duckling tray, feeder, waterer and tub, trimmed hooves on Sage, Jasmine, Amanita and Jewelweed with L's help and some help from Amber, took a bath, ran town errands, made smoothies and goat breakfast, boiled, peeled and pickled a dozen chicken eggs, did some "clean up" from New Moon; one turkey hen & dark guinea spent night out, looks like they may have been at east side bottom of paddock 2, L restapled shade cloth tunnels in broody (first hen was getting in and pecking eggs of 2nd turkey hen), we've got a broody chicken hen in main coop, one duckling died (female brown), L having trouble getting Cu sulfate through fertigator, running tests on that, L emailed Elise Casselberry (Delta County Master Plan Coordinator), and left voicemail for her re: restrictions to additional residential units on one parcel), L transplanted winter squash & zuke SB into garden, watered them, transplanted a few tomatoes into hoophouse west, weeded all of hoophouse west, replanted beans in 3 beds in garden (chewed on by insects or something), Luke Reshke caled - about 3/4 CFS left of natural, I asked for just 45 gpm of Overland for now. L helped w/goat hooves, then watered tree seedlings west of garden & thonwheels, spread dandelion seeds (gathered yesterday in mtns) on far west exp. plot, started watering that, took a bath, transplanted an Elderberry from GH into garden NW crnr, and a Carpathian Walnut from GH to tree strip west of Paddock 4, then transplanted 2 conetainer apples (grown from seed) into spot just west of cabin, then fixed 2 flats and changed tires on J's mtn bike, finished filling both upper cisterns (all cisterns now full) and put away pump/filter, fertigating pastures, moved gun sprinklers.
Gotta love those slow, lazy summer days! 😊
What's strange is, it's fun. And, we both got to take hot baths in our solar heated tub that sits out in the trees overlooking the valley.
The goats eat a lot of the pasture grasses and forbs, but it was a good year and we still managed to cut and bale 75 bales of surplus. Unfortunately, the hay from our pastures doesn't have enough legumes in it yet for the goats for winter feeding, so the hay we bale is used for garden mulch and barn bedding, and we purchase our winter alfalfa hay. Either way, there's something nice feeling about a barn full of hay. It's good to be thinking ahead to winter and starting to store up.
To get in shape for a planned 5 day backpacking trip, we went for a day hike on the Anthracite Creek Trail. With all of the recent snowmelt, the wildflowers were stunning Jeanne posing by a Monument Plant, or Green Gentian, which flowers only once in its 20 to 80 year lifespan.
Colorado Columbine, Lupine, Yellow Sweet Clover perhaps?, and Jeanne's purple pack.
Lupine, a beaver pond, and peaks along the ridge north of Mount Owen.
Then we left for a planned leisurely five day backpack around a peak named Storm Ridge, off of the Kebler Pass Road. Unfortunately, even though it was on our packing list, and we both talked about needing to stop by a store on the way to the trailhead for a bottle of bug dope, we completely forgot about it until we arrived at the trailhead. With all of the meltwater from last winter's record snowfall, the mosquito population was tremendous. Here's Jeanne at our first night's campsite. No, it's not cold, in fact she's sweating like crazy, but it's preferable to being eaten alive. Still, she's obviously happy to be out there.
To be able to hike, we had to strip down to shorts, sandals and t-shirts to avoid overheating, so we used a typical White Mountains of New Hampshire bug control strategy - evergreen frond swatters!
Swatters could be temporarily stowed away in the open areas where the wind put the skeeters at a disadvantage.
We ended up doing the loop in only 3 days, partially because it was hard to take it slow with all those mosquitoes. We spent the last 2 days in Crested Butte, sightseeing and hiking to a small alpine lake (Green Lake) from town on the last day. Still, the scenery on the backpacking trip was outstanding.
Elk Peak across a swampy meadow along the Castle Pass Trail.
More moose!
Jeanne, not one to blue blaze (short cut or bypass a section of official hiking trail), attempting to negotiate a snow tunnel.
Back home, the full moon rising over the summit of Mount Lamborn.
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