Simplify!

They'll eat just about anything including my laces.

Finally a follow up note to my previous post the good, bad, & the ugly.

My rant about being overwhelmed with all the work of the farm, especially the animals. This summer I came to the realization that raising animals is a lot of work and can be rather costly to feed and maintain. Most days we literally worked from dusk till dawn and beyond. I often found myself dreaming of the cool winter nights kicking back shortly after dinner..... Not......there was always SO much to do! We just had too much and we were not optimally set up.

While reading through my comments on the above post mentioned there was one that really caught my eye. It was from Trapper Creek. It was then I had an ah ha moment.

She wrote, "A big thing for us here is minimizing the daily chores and making some weekly, like having a big enough feeder and water setup that the pigs only need to be serviced once a week. Same with our laying flock. Things like that made a huge difference in my attitude :)"

That is the key! Get optimally set up! Make life easier! So that is the plan. We are downsizing on animals for the winter. We sold the goats, 1 flock of laying hens, and the meat rabbits will soon meet their maker. One last batch of broilers before winter. Thankfully they are only a short term commitment, 6-8 weeks, I can handle that. My plan for next summer is 2 pigs (1 for ourselves and one for a friend, same with the cows), 2 cows, layers, broilers, and a few ducks for the pond. That's it!

It is thorough our journey that we have come to realize our purpose here on the farm....raising animals for food not hobby.

Farm Lesson of the Summer "Work smarter Not harder!"