In Between Chores

(post by Jason) I’ve come to the conclusion that our lives here are Paradigm Farms are quite predictable at certain times of the day, and unpredictable at other times. Each morning begins with several hours of horse chores. We feed everyone and check them all over carefully, medicate as necessary or prescribed, and curry or brush out tails while we wait for the slowpokes in every pasture to finish eating. In the summertime morning chores start very early, during the cool of the morning at or just before daylight. Afternoon chores are mostly a repeat of what happens in the morning. When afternoon chores are complete and we get to the house we begin communicating with clients and prospective clients via emails and by telephone. We also have to take time a few times a week to download pictures and write something that folks hopefully find interesting here on this blog.

If there is unpredictability associated with what we do it almost always happens during the hand full of hours between finishing morning chores and beginning afternoon chores. We might be up to just about anything and the only thing predictable is that it’s rare that you’ll find us sitting around twiddling our thumbs wondering what to do. We’ve almost always got more tasks than time on our plates.

Of course the first order of the day is caring for horses. That comes first before anything else gets accomplished. We have our share of days when nothing else got accomplished…every minute between morning and afternoon chores was spent dealing with one equine related problem or another. Regularly scheduled farrier visits, routine vet and dentist visits, along with many unscheduled vet visits would also fall into this category.

Farm maintenance is the other big time sink and it may literally involve anything. I usually find this part of my day to be quite interesting, and also frustrating. Today I sawed up several fallen tree limbs, serviced the saw and one of our portable generators, unloaded a semi-trailer of hay, ordered parts for various pieces of broken machinery, picked up parts for more of the same, checked the voltage on our miles of hot wire, dealt with a contractor working on the farm right now, serviced one of the several bush hogs we own, dealt with a feed sales rep and briefly helped Melissa sort through and deal with horse blankets. Sometimes maintaining all our equipment, fences and buildings seems like a full time job ! One thing is for sure it makes the days go by in a hurry. It’ll be fall before we know it. Meanwhile, I hope everyone enjoys the long days of summer.

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Gibson and Donneur grooming