April Showers Bring May Flowers

When April Showers Bring May Flowers…AND A WHOLE LOT MORE!

We have heard this saying for most of our lives…and while it is true and we do need all the rain (or God wouldn’t give it to us!) there is also the “dirty” side of it, especially, if you are trying to homestead or have a farm.

I love posting all the sweet pictures of my cows out in the meadow and the chickens running around in the back yard and it is real and there are many, many days of that beauty BUT there are many days of below freezing weather when Rosie must be milked if I want to go out in the cold and do it or not and the animals must be fed and eggs gathered so they don’t freeze and bust.

Then there are days of early spring and everything is coming alive in the ground again and birds are singing. Animals start losing their winter coats and start to get feisty. We are all enjoying the anticipation of warmer days and sunshine where we can hang clothes on the line and they will dry quickly is the sunshine and summer breeze BUT first we get through the mucky wet days of pop-up storms, rainy days and nights in some instances and this brings me to my point. EVERYTHING ON THE FARM IS NOT BUTTERCUPS AND ROSES! Social media helps us create this dream life and IT IS OUR DREAM LIFE but truth be told there is much more hard work and determination required to keep a homestead going than all the beauty that we show.

After days of hard blowing rains, the barns get wet, the cows coming in the barn are covered in mud and are wet and there is a LOT of cleaning to do BEFORE you ever start to milk and hay or shavings are put down before you milk so everything is as clean as possible.Then the girls don’t want to go out of the barn and they stand there and decide THIS is the perfect place to leave you a present to have to clean up instead of taking the normal 5 more steps out of the barn to do their business.

Buttercup is still growing her horns so she decided that today was the day to try and scratch her horns on my stomach as I was trying to get her out of the barn. She wasn’t aggressive, she just thinks that Moonie and I are cows too and part of the herd and she should be able to use us as scratchers. In the end, I fussed with them and now they are out in the green pasture eating away as all is well with the world.

Let’s not leave the beauty of the rain and the chickens out either. If you free range or keep them in a coop and run always, either way, when the rain comes so does the mud and chickens and turkeys walking around in all the glory. Then the girls go to lay their eggs and waller around in the nest like they are a pig and leave us these beauties… nice dirty eggs to wash and refrigerate because the bloom has been removed and they cannot stay out on the counter after washing.

On a side note, all this rain is wonderful for pigs, they love it and roll around and sleep in heavenly glory because they are pigs and love a mud hole.

This is our life, Moonie and I love it but the reality is that lots of days……its NOT picture perfect but we are ever so grateful for it so instead of getting upset and mad for all the rain and mud…..we have a cup of English breakfast tea with some of our honey and continue on with the day.

Blessings,

Marmie