Have you ever had to prep 8 sections of gardens, 8 sheep, 1 goose, and a ton of chickens so that they don’t die while you’re on vacation? I hadn’t until this week, and I don’t think I’ll leave ever again! We are headed on a 9 day road trip through Yellowstone on 7/5, and I swear I spent every waking minute of the last 9 days prepping in some way to go away. I didn’t even pack myself and my kids clothes until the night before we leave. Oops!
Daily farm tasks include ensuring the soil is not dry in the areas that should have been watered early, feeding sheep, collecting eggs, checking the water levels, and checking the chicken feeder level.
Monday
Today the timers for the gardens watering systems showed up. We’d been debating for a long time on if it was a good time to install drip irrigation, but unfortunately, when priced out, it was glaringly more expensive than we could afford to do this summer. Instead, I got 8 hoses and 8 sprinklers and got them onto 2 separate 4-zone timers. This was a multi-day process due to needing gooseneck nozzles, and hose savers, as well as needing to get 6 more hoses! For the last 2 years I’ve been dragging around the same 2 sprinklers and hoses around the gardens in order to get them watered. This has been a HUGE time saver for me.
I work all morning on Monday’s, and then my husband works all afternoon. I have our 3 year old, William, with me all afternoon, and he really wants to help with everything. Today he watched me pushing buttons on the timers, as well as letting him push some buttons. They’re bluetooth timers, so the buttons just open and close the valves manually. Excellent toddler play time. I spent some time deciding where I was putting the sprinklers, and dreading telling my husband that his hose for the greenhouse had to get moved to a spigot just a little out of his way, though let’s be real, it was WAY out of the way.
William and I spent the rest of the afternoon weeding in the pathways, which has been an awful job lately.
Tuesday
Shopping time! We went to 3 different hardware stores to get all the pieces that I needed for the timer system today, and then when I went to put everything together, one piece was broken after William threw it into the car and it rolled out. I was almost there!
Today we got a huge portion of the sheep shelters dug out. I deep bed in the winter, since there isn’t a ton of space inside the barn for them, and it works pretty well. It’s just a pain to dig out every summer. This took so many hours, and I could hardly move by the end of the day, but you can see the rubber mats in the sheep pen again!
Wednesday
CSA day! I packed 2 CSA boxes today. Included were beets, kohlrabi, kale, swiss chard, green onions, snow peas, cabbage, and 1 dozen eggs.
Today we went and bought feed from our local feed mill, XCEL, in Tacoma. I have often bought their feed and find that the birds enjoy it, and do really well on it. I have not purchased sheep feed from there before, so it will be an experiment. I bought 10 bags each of poultry feed and sheep feed, and unloaded it into the barn.
I then took pictures of all my ducks, and decided who I was going to sell, or possibly butcher, because a foster situation turned into a situation where they have been abandoned with me. I have always had 3-5 Muscovy ducks, but 14 has my feed bill much higher than I want it! I decided on a few to keep, and the rest will head to auction or to the freezer when I get back from vacation.
I also, FINALLY got the hoses and timers setup completed today. The schedule was still a little wonky, because I need each timer to run on opposite days, and it wasn’t easy to get it set at the same time, but tomorrow I should be able to finalize the schedule (this was wishful thinking. It would take 3 more days).
Thursday
On May 29th, I hatched out 16 coturnix quail. At 4.5 weeks old, they are already mostly feathered, and ready to move to their outside enclosure. I have always read that quail need less than 2′ of vertical space, or 6’+ of vertical space. I didn’t have time before my trip to build their aviary, so I took an old set of 4 rabbit cages and took the dividers out. I covered the floor with straw, and zip tied all but 1 door closed. the enclosure is inside my barn, so they they stay safe. I moved them outside, and boy is it nice to not have my house smell of poultry anymore! They may even start laying while I’m on vacation, as they will be 6.5 weeks old before I get back, and quail start to lay around 6-8 weeks.
Since I built the chicken run, I have been using baling twine to lock the gate into the yard. I ordered rabbit cage locks for the door on the new quail enclosure, and discovered that they work really well for the gate on the chicken run as well!
Thursday’s are water scrubbing day, so all the waters got scrubbed out and refilled.
Friday
I had to work today, but in the evening I wrote out all the instructions for the two people holding down the fort for me while I’m gone. We even got a backup caregiver just in case one of the other two can’t make it!
I’m not sure where else you have to write these instructions, but I definitely chuckled a bit.
Saturday
Basil day! I’ve been putting off planting our entire flat of basil, but I got it done today. It took a few hours, but I planted 130 or more basil plants into the ground. The varieties are Genovese, Purple Petra, Lettuce Leaf, Cardinal, and Tulsi (or Holy Basil).
I meant to also get the lettuce in, but it didn’t happen. Hopefully it’ll hold on until I get back! It’s still really small, so it should.
I cleaned up a bit outside, and cleaned up the new mess that the sheep had made with their round bale.
Sunday/Monday
I took the kids and my husband to the Olympia Farmers Market this morning, and we got quite a few cool things, and the kids got spoiled! I did a little market research, and got a better idea of how much I need to be charging for things.
Monday was a work day again, and we got ourselves stuck in the garden weeding. It’s starting to feel all too real that we’re leaving in 2 days, and I’m so incredibly stressed.
Tuesday- Buttoning it up
Today I got to teach everyone how to do the chores that I do, as well as get things cleaned up. I scrubbed all the waterers again so that it wasn’t as much of an emergency for my friend who is taking care of them while I’m gone.
I cleaned out the chicken coop, and the quail cage.
Since I am going to be gone on our normal CSA day this week, they came and picked up early. This week included Zucchini, Mushrooms, Garlic Scapes, Carrots, Green Onions, Beets, Turnips, Kale, Cabbage, Cilantro, Dill, Parsley, and Raspberries! It was a beautiful box.
We leave tomorrow, and I’ll be running around all morning until we leave.
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