Spring:
-Constantly care for livestock; milking dairy cows, tending to horses, feeding sheep and pigs, etc.
-Cover the strawberries in mid-March.
-Put manure on the garden and in the fields.
-Plow fields
-Turn cows out to pasture, early to mid-April
-Give the barn a good, thorough cleaning; scrape manure and put fresh bedding in stalls (this will help to eliminate flies and prevent animal diseases.)
-Sow oats and seed hay in April
-Plow the garden and work it up
Winter:
-Continue to care for livestock; milking dairy cows, tending to horses, feeding sheep and pigs, etc.
-Grind feed for the animals
-Scrape manure from barns
-If the ground is frozen and there is not too much snow, bring more firewood from the woods.
-Get farm machinery in, cleaned up and fixed up for the next planting season and store for the winter.
-Attend local weekly auctions or special auctions such as machinery and livestock auctions
-Put out bird feeders, keep them full and take record of the birds that you see
-Rest up and prepare for the spring
-Build new fences and repair the old ones; replace any necessary gates
-Go mushroom hunting in the woods
-Plant corn during the first half of May
-Cut hay, late May to late June
Summer:
- Continue to care for livestock; milking dairy cows, tending to horses, feeding sheep and pigs, etc.
-Cut barley in late June and thrash it
-Cultivate corn
-Clip pastures with a sickle-bar mower to keep the weeds from going to seed
Fall:
-Continue to care for livestock; milking dairy cows, tending to horses, feeding sheep and pigs, etc.
-Fill silos in September; cut corn with binder, tie in bundles, load on wagon and take to silo to be filled.
-Put corn in shocks in October (this corn will be for the corn crib)
-Plow and seed winter wheat in September
-Bring cows in from the summer pasture and put in the barn
-Cut, split and bring firewood in from woods (dead wood can be brought in now, fresh-cut wood needs to season for a year.
-Enjoy the fullness of an Indian Summer day.
-Cut wheat around the 4th of July
-Harvest oats in late July
-Go berry picking along fence rows, by roadsides and in the woods
-Take time to enjoy the evening "show," as the fireflies rise from the hay and oat fields and from the meadows.
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