Homesteading/ having a garden and/or animals is hard work.   I have known this fact for a long time. I was raised with animals and growing things.  It takes lots of effort and constant work. The part that I have yet to see on You Tube or any reality tv show is the the fact that you can’t just take a vacation or break. It takes planning and effort.

Paul, the kids’ dog was able to go and stay at Fort Wilderness during out recent trip. However it still required effort and planning.  Most mornings I was the one that let him out of the camper and made sure he had food and used the bathroom before we left for the day. Lily ended up back early on several days just to give him a break.

The chickens required lots of extra planning and preparation.  We ended up purchasing a new feeder several weeks prior to going. The new feeder was not cheap $50 and probably a whole afternoon (several hours) reading, looking, considering all options and trying to make sure the chickens would not run out of feed while we were gone. . This feeder worked out well for several reasons. First it does not sit on the ground and it requires the chickens to stick their heads inside to eat. This SIGNIFICANTLY reduces the amount of waste and extends the time we can be away.  We also noticed a leak with our waterer that required a quick repair as well. I also purchased a mineral block for the chicken just to supplement the feeder in case it failed.   The hardest part with the chicken was making sure they were safe. I was outside 3-5 times a week for a month before we left trying to make sure all the chicken went up in the coop before the automatic door closed.  Unfortunately for me this did not seem to matter as I realized that at least half missed the door on one night. Luckily they all survived and the next night and for the remainder of our trip they have all made it up in the coop. Just prior to leaving the four new chickens started to lay.  We came home to almost 60 eggs!

Just because our vacation is over the work did not end. Yesterday, Saturday, Zach with a little help from Matt did a good chicken coop clean out. He moved at least 11 five gallon buckets of “chicken dirty” from the run into our garden beds. The hope is this will add some much needed nutrients to each of the beds.  We are also going to add the remains of burning and our new fire pit.