Have you ever thought raising livestock was fun and easy;
all we have to do it water and feed? That’s not the case. Our livestock are our
responsibility all throughout the day and night.
It doesn’t matter if were having a blizzard or it’s raining like cows
and pigs; we are still obligated to go out and check on all of our animals no
matter the weather condition. When we get a call from the Groton police department saying the cows have found a breach in the fence, we cannot wait for
someone else to go do it for us. We hang up the phone, get in the pickup, and
drive to Groton.
I am
the future herdswoman but I don’t have as much responsibility in agriculture
compared Jamie and Paula’s work because I’m still learning the ropes of the
farm. Jamie doesn’t just plant the seeds in dirt and wait for them to grow for
our consumers. She has figure to out which seed varieties that our customers
would like to have in the farmstead. She
also has to calculate how many people we need to be feed all while considering
possible growth.
After the seeds have been ordered
and delivered Jamie has to plant the seeds. Not all plants have to be planted
in the greenhouse but tomatoes are one type of vegetable that does. After one
month from when they were originally planted, she has to transplant them, into
the field. Keep in mind all of the plants have to be watered two or three times
a day depending on the sunlight. When they are ready to be planted in the
field, we get the “water wheel transplanter” filled up with tomatoes plants and
we start putting them in the ground. Two people are on the planter and two
behind filling the dirt in afterward. That’s not the end for tomatoes. After a
couple weeks of growing, we need to stake up the plants for support and
stabilize them. That’s just one sixth of what she does to keep this farm in
business.
My mom and our livestock caretaker, Rick, have to be up early in the morning to feed and water all of the livestock.
They have to feed all the animals in Littleton, the cows in Groton, and my
horses Ranger and Spanky. They have to water, feed and, hay twice a day. They
make about two to three trips a day to Groton. I know a lot about all of the
livestock but still have a ton to learn about them. During the winter it is a bit
harder to take care of the water because the hose needs to be dragged into a
warm building every day and we have to deal with frozen buckets and water
troughs.
I’ve been around animals for as
long as I can remember. I can remember my first calf that is still around today.
Many of you know him as Tony. He is my
Brown Swiss steer that I had to bottle fed since he was just a day old. Tony is
now five and a half years old and cool as ever. Every time I ask mom or Jamie
to have a spot built for him at the home farm they always say no because he
needs to stay with his herd. He was the
first calf that I have ever taken care of all by myself.
My horses Ranger and Spanky play a
big role in my daily chores and activities. I ride 6 days a week. I get home
from school at around 2:20 and my mother drives me directly to the horses for
me to do my everyday chores including mucking the stalls and filling water
buckets. Mom picks me up at 4 on her way
to Groton. We then go to Groton to put hay out for the cows and to make sure
that they have plenty of water.
Spanky is the newest addition to
the farm this year. He is the pony that Jamie rescued. He has turned out to be
a great pony and we are hoping to offer pony rides here at the farm in the
summer with the help of my best friend Maddie.
I hope that if my pony ride business works out as well as I believe that it will, my barn with be called the Little
Rascal Barn. I have not worked out the details with Jamie yet on how it is
going to work but this is how I would like to contribute to our farm.
I am very excited for the warm
weather to come and so are all the newborn animals.
-Jodee Labels: winter on the farm