kid chores, farm style

Several folks have been curious about what exactly the kids do for chores every morning, so since this morning was sunny and beautiful, I decided to follow the kids around with my camera as they did their chores.

The first thing that happens is that Zoo Boy lets the sheep out of the front yard, where they've been grazing since before breakfast.

J lets them back into their regular daytime pasture after they cross the horse pasture. (The horse is locked into her paddock while this is going on.)








Then they fetch the wheelbarrow, which I've already prepared with a bin full of hay and a manure scoop, and bring it up to the horse pasture.








They distribute the hay throughout the pasture so that Annie will get natural exercise as she wanders from pile to pile eating.








Annie patiently waits for her breakfast. (Um, yeah, not so much on the patience thing...unless you consider nervous whinnies and pawing at the gate patience...I don't.)








After the hay is distributed, the boys scour the pasture for horse manure, and they scoop it into the wheelbarrow when they find it. (Today there didn't happen to be any manure, so I didn't get to record that shot for posterity.) Then they take the wheelbarrow back to the barn and put the hay bin and manure fork back where they belong, while I let Annie up onto her pasture and lock her out of the barnyard. (Just to keep the kids safe. Not that she'd every purposely harm them, but she weights ten times as much as the two of them combined, so why take chances.)



Next they open up the chicken coop and let the chickens out.









They collect the eggs and open the top half of the front door to the coop as well (they let the chickens out the back door).

Then it's off to the duck pen to open it up for the day so the ducks can roam the side pastures.

Zoo Boy's favorite job, herding the ducks out of their pen to the pasture.

While they are busy with all this, I muck out the stalls and give Butterscotch his soaked hay (we soak it in water to remove as much of the sugar as possible) and refill the soaking bucket with hay. J taked that bucket up to the garage on his way across the street to do his job (taking care of the neighbor's chickens) while Zoo Boy brings the eggs they collected from our chickens inside. When J gets back from his job, we gather up our dogs and head out for our morning walk.

And that's a morning on our farm!