My Morning Routine

I go out in the mornings and feed the horses and let the hens out of their coop.  I don't have to do it, but I am enjoying it.  It helps me to have a sense of how the animals are doing.  Usually Tim or Rachel do most of the animal care.

Here I am headed out from the house (which would be on the left) to the barn and pasture where the chicken coop is.  

Tim built both the barn (with help from my dad and the girls) and the chicken coop.  Here you can see the results of the windy day we had yesterday with the leaves sticking to the upper door of a stall and it looks like some hay is there too.

Sandy always greets me at her door, even if she is outside the barn as I walk up.  Here I have opened her upper door and she is making sure I notice she is here!

 I open the sliding door and head toward the hay.  To the left out of the shot is the riding mower.  The trash can with the white bucket on top is full of chicken feed.  To the right out of the photo is another big trash can with horse grain in it.

Sandy, moving around in her stall.

 I give Sandy her grain first.  I have to go out of the barn to the stall door again and open it and pour in their grain.  Sandy is top mare and if I put grain in Cheyenne's feed bucket first, Sandy will go into Chey's stall and chase her out and eat her grain!  So Sandy gets fed first.  

 Cheyenne makes her way into her stall after I pour the grain into Sandy's bucket.  Here she is pushing her bucket making noise.

 I talk to them the whole time I feed them.  They are used to me now, and don't mind me as long as I'm bringing them food!

After I give them grain I carry hay out to the pasture for them.  I've been putting it in a high spot, because we had rain several days this week and since the ground hasn't frozen yet, it's pretty mucky.  I do all of this without going into the pasture.

 After the horses have been fed I head through the gate to the chicken coop.

 It's on wheels so it can be moved.  The cold weather and snowy ground has the chickens hanging out up top in the coop.  The front door is this section with the sliding locks.

I unlock both locks and pull the door down and off the coop.

 Normally there are at least 7 of the 10 hens waiting to be let out.  They like to run to the barn, to eat any grain the horses or I may have dropped!
Today though, they were in no hurry to go anywhere.

Good morning girls!  This photo was taken through the door to the nesting boxes.  You can see their roosting posts.  These gals are headed to the ramp that will take them down to the bottom of the coop and out the front.

 I grabbed the only egg waiting for me and saw Tim heading my way.  He's just home from work.

Does he look tired?  He and I took a walk together around the property.  We like to have a look at how things are looking and talk about what we else we could do with the land.  Today we talked about getting a steer to raise for beef and whether it would be cost efficient or not.

These girls free range all day.  But they do have a waterer and feeder in their coop.  Tim took time to refill the feed and check out the waterer.

I looked up and saw Cheyenne rolling.  I didn't catch her quick enough.

I'm thankful to have this land to raise our family on and to use it to benefit us as a family.  We've been able to use it to host many gatherings, and Sunday activities.  It's work, but it's a blessing as well.

After this I head inside to make my breakfast, usually of fresh eggs.  Then the kids get up and eat and we start school.  Thanks for coming with me this morning!