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Wednesday, October 21, 2015

8 Summer Homestead Chores

This post is a bit late...as autumn is fully upon us. However I already had the pictures uploaded and ready to journal about, so here goes!

1. Poultry Chores

We bought a nice little flock of meat chicks this spring to feed and water for about 8 weeks until ready to butcher in early summer.Our son was in charge of this daily chore, plus moving the birds to fresh green pastures every couple of weeks when their pecking area became too trampled.





2. Taming Kitties

Our mama cat had 2 litters of  kitties this summer. The younger girls had so much fun playing with them inside and out, they barely knew they were preventing them from becoming wild cats. We like to keep a few around the sheds to keep our mice and garden-eating rabbit population down, but we also like for them to be kind enough not to scratch when children like to cuddle them.







3. Breeding & Hatching Chicks

Another of our son's projects is pairing off a male and female bantam bird to hatch out more babies. He got about a dozen little chicks to nurture to adulthood. Unfortunately 3 months later some wild animals wiped out his small flock, so we are currently bird-less.




4. Garden Chores

Water, pull weeds, pick vegetables. Repeat.
The garden is mostly my project, but occasionally I'll get some help from the rest of the family. The littles are the most cheerful helpers who like to discover the red cherry tomatoes and sweet orange peppers, munching half of their pickings.Along with babying the plants from strong winds and various bugs, comes the washing and preserving of a garden's harvest. You can see what has grown this year here, here, and here.





5. Wash the Vehicles

Who takes pictures of their kids washing the truck??? It was actually pretty fun. I'm usually too busy with my own stuff to take time to watch a son at work. I can just imagine his daddy doing the same, a few years back...




6. Pick Wild Fruit

We have a few mulberry trees sprinkled about our 20 acres that produce a nice amount of juicy dark purple berries for smoothies and jam. While they're in season, we make time every day to go a-pickin'. Sand plum thickets abound on our acreage as well, so we like to suck on those tart fruits fresh and frozen in winter as a summer remembrance treat. If we get enough, they are especially good seeded and dehydrated...similar to dried cranberries.







7. Laundry

Mostly this is eldest daughter's chore, but occasionally some others help. Our current routine is to get 1 load of laundry completed every day. We usually save the folding and putting away until early evening when Adventures In Odyssey is broadcast on the radio. 



8. Rest

Last, but not least...Sleep.
This isn't really a chore, though sometimes you would think it is the way the littles protest and commence to crying when a N-A-P is mentioned . Really, it is sweet reward for accomplishing all those chores!



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