One of the most frequent questions I get asked about farm life (other than the being single aspects) is what my daily farm life is like. Here’s a snippet from the past week:
Before my farm life, while living in the city, I fantasized about having a Disney-like farm. There was no mud, no dirty, miserable animals – no bad days at all.
Fast forward to last Monday when the ground was frozen solid after several very cold days. The water in the barn had burst the week prior and I have no intention of fixing it until the weather stays above freezing. This means I have to haul buckets of water from the house to the animals a couple times a day.
So, last Monday, it was freezing outside. I was bundled in far too much material for anyone to be happy. Winter clothes are bulky, heavy and tend to impede my movement. There’s still a lot of Guam, Philippines and Florida in this girl. So, I’m trying not to fall on the ice while carrying my full water buckets with a ton of big clothes on. I always think of that old Eddie Murphy movie – The Golden Child – the part where he’s going for the magic knife and can’t spill any water. I get so focused on not spilling any water that I wasn’t watching where I was walking and tripped over something hard.
I turned to look for the culprit and saw a large mound of frozen turkey crap. I had tripped on frozen feces. I was already annoyed and for some reason this really pissed me off so I reared back and kicked the frozen poop hard. Not only did the shit not budge, I stubbed my toe on it and it hurt. Dammit!!! This scenario was not part of my fantasy farm life.
Mornings like this can spiral quickly, so I picked up what was left of my dignity and water and carried on with my chores while I tried to adjust my attitude. The animals always, ALWAYS feed off my energy. When I’m pissy they make it worse by reacting in a variety of ways until we are all annoying the hell out of each other.
I tend to live for the Spring and Fall on the farm. It’s easier on all of us than winter and summer.
Anyway, as I made it to the barn and tried to open the door, it wouldn’t budge. I put the water buckets down and threw all my weight into the door. After repeatedly body slamming myself into the door it finally opened. Evidently the freezing rain had frozen the door and created a perfect seal of ice. So far turkey crap won round 1 and I defeated the ice barrier in round 2. I was less than 5 minutes into my day.
As I continued chores I carried my refilled water buckets and headed to the coop. This time the gate to the pen wouldn’t open. I tried desperately to open the gate, which usually swings open with barely a push. Again, I put all my weight into opening the gate. It literally didn’t budge. I hurt my shoulder trying to push it then realized the gate swings both ways, why not trying pulling it towards me? So I did, and it easily swung towards me. Sigh. I’m pretty sure there’s a Far Side comic featuring me somewhere.
So why was the gate so hard to open, you ask? Well, it was immediately apparent when I looked down that one of my turkey hens had decided to roost on the gate overnight. As she slept she relieved herself probably 30 times over the course of the night. This created a literal wall of turkey turds that had frozen solid. This time I knew better than to kick a mound of concrete poo.
If you’re keeping score with me vs turkey poo – that’s turkey crap 2 Jake 0. I had to admit defeat to excrement and salvage my morning. I’ve never been so happy to get inside to the fireplace and nurse my wounds.
Not every morning is tough, of course, but it’s not all the Disney I dreamed of…still worth it.
xo