Sometimes I sit and marvel at how much our lives have changed since moving to Tennessee two years ago. When we lived in Florida, my daily routine usually entailed some housework, laundry and maybe a little gardening. Of course, I always made time for sewing.
But now that we live on a farm, those daily chores have altered quite a bit. For instance, as soon as I wake up, I need to don "work clothes" so I can go out and take care of the cats and alpaca. They're pretty hungry in the morning and are always watching and waiting for me to walk out of the house. As soon as they spot me coming toward the barn, the whole gang of girl alpacas stroll outside of their stall to make sure I'm coming to feed them before the boys.
Every morning, the alpaca get some specialized pellet feed, which they greedily gobble up as fast I can put it into their feeders. Then I need to heft half a bale of hay onto my shoulder and divide the hay up into their two hay bins. As soon as they realize all the grain feed is gone, they mosey over to the hay bins and start happily munching on the fresh hay.
They're all saying, "Yum, Yum, Yum, Yum!" I wish you could listen to their little sounds.....sometimes humming, sometimes arguing with their neighbor over the best bite of hay. Once I'm done feeding the girls, I go over and do the same routine with the boys. I have 2 boys that almost tackle me when I walk into their stall with the bucket of pellets. It makes me laugh as they jostle each other, vying to be the first one to get their share of the pellets.
Joel makes sure there are at least 4 bales of hay stacked inside the barn next to the alpaca stalls so I have easy access to the hay twice a day. Yup, they get fed early in the morning, and then in late afternoon I top off their hay ration so they don't run out until I get up and do the whole routine all over again in the morning. After a bit of trial and error I finally figured out the easiest way for me to cut thru the 2 cords holding each bale tightly together was to use my tree loppers. Those suckers do the job nicely.
We have the hay stored in the low shed portion of the barn where the double doors are. At least this keeps the hay dry and makes it easy to pull the Polaris up inside the barn and load the hay bales into the back of the Polaris. Sure beats carrying the hay all the way around the barn in our arms.
Our alpaca eat Bermuda hay and we drive an hour away to a huge farm to pick it up. I wish we could get it locally, but it doesn't grow up here on the Plateau, so, we drive down into the valley where it's warmer and buy it from a reputable farmer that doesn't use pesticides, etc. on his fields. Who knew there was so much to learn about H. A. Y. !
The hay needs to be stacked on wood pallets for air circulation under the bales. See what I mean? Who knew??? We definitely need to make a hay run soon as this stack will only last us just over another month. As soon as our pastures produce fresh grass, we can cut way back on the hay consumption since the alpaca will get most of their feed from the pasture grasses we grow here.
It warmed up today and the temps were in the high 30's. We sure have had a wet, rainy, foggy winter this year. Our farm is still like a sponge when you walk around. Hence, the boots on Joel! There are actually places on the farm where you sink into the ground because the land is so saturated with water. I hope all this rain helps our orchard......the trees certainly won't be dry this Spring.
Our barn cats weave their way around my legs, willing me to feed them first. And I do. Feed them first. Because they are so cute. And because they will trip me if I
don't feed them first. But did I mention how cute they are? Yea. Well, here is fluffy Chloe, looking off toward the bluff, wondering where have her siblings disappeared to?
OH. There's Domino in her favorite corner just outside the pasture. She is our adventurous cat and spends her days wandering the huge boulders of the bluff. I have no idea what she does down there all day, but it is her domain now.
"Hey, Domino! Wait for me! I'm coming......." Chloe loves to play with her siblings.
Doesn't it look as though Belle Meade is saying, "This stuff is really delicious, isn't it Mimosa?" (Mimosa is the fawn colored alpaca.....who doesn't care who is chatting with her, she just wants her pellets!)
And that, folks, is a quick glimpse at some of my farm chores. Oh, yeah, I
still need to do the house cleaning and laundry, too. Darn. Guess I'll never get out of doing those chores. It's hard for me to believe how much I enjoy being around these animals since I didn't grow up with any pets of my own. Now I can't imagine our life without the alpaca, the cats, the chickens and yes, our dogs, too.
Yup, I don't mind my new chores one little bit,
Debbie
