Day 1: Intro to Jim, and daily chores.

Today started at 5:30 and amazingly enough it was not hard at all to get up, maybe because the first thing that I saw when I stumbled outside to have my morning urination was this...

By the way I should mention now that I'm allowed to wiz where ever I want whenever I want during the work day, how awesome is that? I have always wanted that kind of freedom.. :)

Today being the first day, I will attempt to include everything that happened in my daily schedule:

Morning chores are fun! They consist of feeding and watering the chicks, goats, cats, and the old dog cristo. Then Jim, the kids, and I got into the golf cart to feed the turkeys, 2 sows (Pricilla and Penelope), dozen piglets, and Boris the boar, as well as Asher and Shawnee the two great Pyrenees brothers that guard all the live stock. Then we went out to move the EggMobiles and feed and water the broiler chickens, laying hens, and thanksgiving turkey's. To do that Jim drove the Quad bike with a trailer and a water tank on back as modeled by my friend "mister goat",

while I followed in the golf cart with the feed. Because of the rain from yesterday and the fact that two of the roofs are broken a puddle of water formed on the tarp and needed to be shoved off. The method for doing this is to crawl on all fours into the chicken coop, with all the chickens and then when you are under the puddle stand up as fast as you can to launch the water off the sides of the tarp, and then all the hens run around and freak out, it was pretty funny. After moving the egg mobiles we dropped the kids at the house, they were tired, and proceeded to water Boris and the dogs, sows, piglets etc. Then we took our breakfast break, it was about 9:15 and we started work again at 10.

Before lunch chores consisted of harvesting produce out of the garden, it was haaard work! It consisted of crawling up and down several rows of tomatoes for 90 minutes on my hands and knees. As I neared the end of harvesting I realized I was on all fours with my nose in the dirt in the exact spot that I found and slayed the rattle snake the day before, its blood was still staining the dirt. Yikes! I would like to mention now that I typically don't like to kill snakes, but this was a rattler and it was in a common traffic area, I don't have enough skill to relocate it, aaaaannnd there is a 4 year old and 5 year old who love to run around bare foot all the time. All that being said, when Tina asked me to kill it, I didn't really think twice, but I did try to give it a quick send off. After harvesting I drove the golf cart out to the mobile chicken coops to collect eggs but was unsuccessful because there were about 5 hens crammed into the most popular laying box and I didn't know how to get them out, I'll have to ask Jim about that after lunch. Then after the failed egg collection, I went to check the irrigation burms (a burm is just a mound of dirt built to keep water from crossing it). The whole pasture area is rotationally flooded, which means that there is a level zone of land slightly lower than the zone to its left and slightly higher than the zone to its right, so if you were on the far side of the pasture looking back towards the barn you would see a slight terraced effect to the pasture. This is so that one zone at a time can be flooded all day which causes the water to seep deep down into the soil in just that one zone, which causes the roots of the grass to follow it deep into the earth, and deep roots are better for stopping erosion, accumulating nutrients, and tapping into deeper water, its quite a clever way of watering. All the water for irrigation comes from a deep well which is fed by a shallow aquifer. There is some debate about how sustainable shallow aquifers are, but when I asked Tina about it she said, "who really knows what goes on at 750 ft under ground." Fair enough.


After lunch chores was more harvesting, yay! My hands feel all stung from rooting through tons of tomato plants, squash, cucumber, okra etc. all the ones that have the little pokey things all over their stems. Lucky for me I'm in Arizona where there is plenty of Aloe Vera plants, maggie (the 5 year old) picked me some, I think its helping.


After the post-lunch harvest, I napped. ZZZzzzzzzz......


After the nap it was time for evening chores with Tina, pretty much the same as morning chores, plus or minus a few things. This time though, I brought my camera so you guys can start matching some names with faces.

 Drum roll please!! Ba-da- da- da....

Meet! Hershey! The billy goat! He will try and mount you through the fence!

This is Dixie and Missy both milking goats, and 4 young goats that always hang around with them! They get to roam around freely to forage during the day.

and here we have arnold and a few of his lady friends, He will chase you if he thinks you are making a pass at one of his women, which apparently in his beady little eyes, I am always making passes!

Here is the beautiful and illustrious, Penelope, and Priscilla! They like there tummy's rubbed while they eat! (about 250 lbs each)

This is Asher, brother of Shawnee, he is a great Pyrenees, a natural guard dog! what a sweet face!

 This is Asher's flock of piglets he guards! He is always with them!

Here is Shawnee, Asher's little brother, and he is guarding Boris, the boar!

Solo shot of Boris, with a storm rolling in behind him (its the rainy season right now)! Today when I bent over to pour the feed in to his trough, he charged between my legs from behind to get to it and almost knocked me over! He is about 350 to 400 pounds, that's a big boy!

 '
Piglets with Asher in the back feeding! And more storm clouds. That barn in the distance is where I stay!

I lovvve this mare, I need to learn her name, but these two horses don't actually belong to Jim and Tina, they are just keeping them for a friend. But I was excited to meet them today!

 That's the end of the more personable animals here! Some that I didn't photograph are all the baby chicks and the laying hens, as well as the thanksgiving turkey's and of course the half dozen barn cats that can't be touched..


I just really like this bumper sticker:

We ended the day with a hot dog roast over an open mesquite wood fire! It was delicious! I had 4.

My day ended with a nice rinse off with the hose and some dawn dish soap in the outdoor chicken butcher area (don't worry its not gunna be used for a while).