New Job, New Routine

With the warmer weather, the kids have been spending every evening outside and when they have to go to school in the morning, Pepper is mopey all day until they got off the bus. The kids had been asking for weeks if they could sleep outside and wanted to sleep in the tent with Pepper every night this past weekend. My husband and I agreed but with stipulations. We made our son set up his cot-like tent that sleeps 2-3 kids and a dog, in the back of the newer horse trailer for added warmth in case temperatures dipped into the 30’s. Pepper was elated. She loved having her “kids” outside to sleep with her again.

The joke over the weekend was when my five-year old niece stayed overnight with us. She wanted to sleep outside with them, and when the kids showed her the tent set up in the trailer she said, “It’s kinda yucky in here.” My husband cleaned out the cow poop but didn’t scrub it, so there was a lingering manure scent yet and cow poop residue still on the sides of the trailer. It didn’t faze my kids, but I never considered what someone else might’ve thought.

We turned out the bulls last Friday on the 15th and I started my new job—hauling water to the heifers. My husband hauls water to the cows that are currently on nearby leased ground with the big water tanks (it doesn’t have a spring or well) and I use the smaller pickup and trailer setup to haul water to the heifers (theirs needs the waterline repaired).

The new routine is a nice change since I thrive on variety, and the kids are definitely excited to change gears for their summer routine and absorb as much outside time as possible. The snow is gone, the rains are coming, the weather’s warmer and we’re all ready for a new routine.