Caring for Animals in Winter…
Is often extremely unpleasant in New England. Fact.
I’m choosing to begin this blog here, lest some poor unsuspecting soul stumbles upon this website, becomes so enchanted with the beauty and serenity that farm life can offer, sells all their possessions to move to the country and immediately orders a flock of chickens and a handful of sheep.
The melodic background music will start to skip come January and the needle will slide right off the old-fashioned record in February.
I’m sitting down to write this first post after morning chores. I had to pickaxe my way into Chicken Paradise. After 30 minutes of aggressive, exhausting, chipping, I finally got a door open wide enough to squeeze in and free the hungry, inpatient birds from the safety of their coop into their sheltered run where they could eat and drink. On the way out, I slipped on the frozen puddle around the entry threshold and badly bruised my hip. Then I painfully punched my way through a foot of frozen snow to avoid the treacherous, iced-over footpath to the sheep barn. The sheep came running to bump and jostle for the first nibbles as I refilled the hay racks. I had to move fast, despite my injury, to avoid accidentally being knocked down by their enthusiasm. I removed one glove so I could break apart the hay flakes and the skin across the back of my hand was flaming red and burning after just a minute of exposure.
Honestly, I wondered out loud while I worked in those uncomfortable conditions, why on earth am I doing all this?
As I sit with a hot cup of coffee back in the comfort of our house, I can tell you (and myself) why:
Taking care of creatures satisfies a deep innate desire to nurture.
Forcing myself to get outside and breath crisp, clean air and soak in bright natural light feels good on a cellular level.
Mandatory routines ground and focus my overly busy mind.
Being a producer of something/anything is empowering.
I can’t buy eggs, wool, or meat elsewhere that is grown exactly the way I prefer.
I like that my horizontally-inclined teenagers watch me toil by choice. They definitely don’t do as I say, but maybe one day they will do as I do.
Those are the reasons that come to mind in the ten minutes I allowed myself to ponder, but there are certainly more that will require deeper reflection. Maybe a future blog post.
I think people are more curious, however, about the animals’ thoughts on winter than mine.
The first snowfall each year gets this kind of reaction from the chickens:
