Farm Fresh Blog

Earlier this web I was cussing and discussing life with a farmer friend who shared with me that she had someone tell her they would love to live on a farm like hers, but they would need STAFF to help run it.

Staff?  That's a laugh! She can't even take a vacation because she can't find competent help to "staff" the farm for a week while she's gone.  I felt her pain. It reminded me to be ever-thankful for my Dear Friend and her Vet Husband who run a small farm down the road from us. 

We switch off taking care of each other's animals so we can each get out of town from time to time. They raise heritage turkeys. I tried that.  I sucked at it.  After months of caring for them, when the turkeys finally got up to eating size, coyotes got into the flight pen and killed most of my flock in one night. (13 turkeys and 5 chickens!) That was the end of my turkey raising, but Dear Friend managed to successfully raise her flock and butcher them herself. More power to her.  I'll stick with 4-legged animals for now. I live in fear that when I'm taking care of her turkeys, I'll bring my Bad-Turkey-Karma over and find that coyotes have massacred her entire flock on my shift.  Eeeek!!!

Anyway, the point is that those of us who raise livestock have a hard time finding good help.  You simply cannot do it by yourself, so sometimes you get a little creative when hiring "staff."

For instance:

I can neither afford Round-Up, nor do I wish to poison my fence lines.  So I got a Landscaping crew that cleared fence lines:

(These pioneers paved the way to GOATS on the farm.  They were both a blessing and a curse.)

Mowing in the summer is such a hassle, so I employed another type of Landscaping crew for the back yard where I didn't want ALL my landscaping eaten as goats tend to do. The stallion worked the high grass in the yard.  The geese worked the low stuff that the stallion wouldn't eat.  This system worked really well until the *#@! coytoes came in and ate my yard crew! (Well, they didn't eat the horse, but I'm sure it was discussed!)

  I was heartbroken.  I swore to Other Half that I would not get any more geese because I loved these little guys so much. I broke the cardinal rule: Never Fall In Love With Something On The Bottom Of The Food Chain!

Fencing by yourself can be a hassle too.  The Enforcer is most helpful with this. He will sit on the end of field fencing while you roll it out and tack up the other end.  He will also carry all manner of tools. The only tool he cannot easily carry is the t-post pounder. My big fear is that he'll break a tooth in his effort to carry the t-post pounder.  "A man has GOT to know his limitations!"

 (Update on his renal faillure:  He is still holding his own and refuses to "Go Gentle Into That Good Night."  He is a fighter. )

One day a few weeks ago I came home to find that the neighbor had mowed his grass.  It was all one length. It was beautiful.  My yard looked like white trash lived here.  Weeds, wildflowers, and clover competed with the Spring grass. I didn't have time to mow, but I had a solution. I already had a yard crew capable of giving me a lawn quality cut with little or no effort on my part.

So the moral of this story is: Good help IS hard to find, but a little creativity will save you a lot of work!