Do you really want to work??

Last night during chore time it hit me. Maybe our guests really do want to work when they visit. Maybe they really would like to be more involved and get a better sense of what it would be like to live on a farm. Granted when you visit it would be an option, not at all mandatory. What do you think? Do you want to shovel manure? Do you want to push the sawdust cart up the hill to the upstairs of the barn and shovel shavings to throw under the cows? How about getting dirty? Do you want to grease the farm machinery? Clean the chicken coop? Carry the slop up to the pigs? How it generally works now is visitors come to stay in our guest house and they come out to the barn in the evenings at chore time and help a little bit. They do the fun stuff. They feed grain to the cows, pet the bunnies, etc. They aren't scraping the cow flops off the walkway or spending an hour shoveling soiled bedding out of goat pens.


Are we not offering enough of a glimpse into the real workings of how things get done?

We really don't want to scare people off. Our guest house is separate from the farm. It's neat and clean and easily will accommodate your whole family. When we first started this business, one of the things that I had written was you could go for hikes with the goats. Well, word got back to us that people had no interest in hiking with goats so they steered clear of us! We are looking for more visitors, not less! And please remember, once again, you can stay here in a nice quiet place out in the country and never ever have to step foot in the barn. It's your choice. Many of our guests stay here when there is a wedding or family event in the area. It's simply a great spot.

We are really interested in your input on this. Please feel free to leave your comments here or e-mail us direct.
Thanks a bunch!
The Ambrozaitis Family
Falkenbury Farm
http://www.falkenburyfarm.com/
jojoerobert@yahoo.com

Little guests help with chores

Friday night we had guests from New York that helped with chores. The littlest boy was the biggest helper! He filled water pail after water pail and carried them to the milking cows. The family enjoyed watching the cows come in and feeding them their grain for dinner. They helped feed the goats, pet the bunnies and get the eggs.

We have 4 batches of bunnies at the moment and 5 baby (kid) goats. We even had a calf born during the night when our guests from New York were here.

Tonight we are expecting visitors from MA. They are hoping to arrive on time to help w/ chores too!

Spring Planting

We had a busy weekend. We planted 5 out of the 6 new apple trees that we bought. Our youngest and I also planted 25 new strawberry plants. Those somehow took up more space than I anticipated. I bought some new asparagus roots too. Jake helped me start digging for that project. We'll put them over by the other asparagus we already have. The peas I planted are up and so are the radishes. The flower beds need constant attention. I don't know if they will ever be done. Good news on the raspberries. Finally, they have caught on. It looks like they all made it thru the winter and there are many new plants. Oh, and the lawn got mowed. Jake did that w/ his own tractor. The manure pile is mostly spread. Bob put it on our hay field. The grass was really growing well and now it looks kind of beat down since they had to drag the field after spreading because the spreader was not working right. Anyway, we avoided the rain (knock on wood) and had a very productive weekend.

The time change

Boy, this springing ahead isn't working for us in the morning. I wake up at about 5:30 a.m. and then can't fall back asleep. Then I do fall asleep, for way too long. The kids are having an even worse time of it. They are getting up way too late to get their chores done and get to school on time w/out missing the bus. We really need to get into the new spring routine. Going to bed earlier doesn't seem to be the answer since no one is tired at bedtime.
Don't suggest alarm clocks. We have our fill of those. We have those lovely animal sound ones along with the traditionals. It's like wild kingdom in here in the morning. We have roosters crowing, a few cows mooing and a quacking duck! And they just moo and crow and quack until they are horse. The kids sleep thru them!