I Had 3 Jobs Today. The Farm Had Other Plans

Home Farm
Home Farm
142 followers
Nov 9, 2026

You open with three tidy tasks on the list and early‑morning ambition, but the day immediately turns into a chicken shuffle: front‑yard hens flying a 52‑inch fence, crates full of layers and youngsters, and a plan to move chicks into the cabin coop while leaving a few “old lady hens” to teach them where to roost at night. Along the way you explain rough‑looking hens with bare backs as the rooster’s “favorites,” show how feeding on top of a half‑composted woodchip pile gets chickens aerating future garden soil, and note that integrating new birds mostly results in minor squabbles as they sort themselves out.

The real derailment hits at the cows: calves have learned the fence is off during milking, slip through to nurse everything out, and your plan for a mobile Premier 1 energizer comes too late, leaving you with no milk and a reminder that the cows are the centerpiece of the farm. You decide to start milking at first light, move paddocks differently, and at least salvage some milk from Vanilla while admitting that waiting until 7:40 on a bright May morning was a mistake.

Meanwhile, Rebecca is beautifying the cabin yard for farm‑experience guests—adding compost, trees, and a raised bed to make the Airbnb feel more like a working homestead—when the mini‑split AC starts screaming. On a Sunday with no HVAC techs available, you troubleshoot filters, a clogged humidifier drain, and possible frozen coils or low refrigerant, all under a 2.5‑hour deadline before guests arrive.

The chick move itself becomes a lesson in experimentation with Gideon: trying to drag a tractor full of jumpy birds, then switching to catching them into crates, and finally trusting that they’ll pile up somewhere and be hand‑carried to the coop that night. The next morning’s follow‑up shows the training working—the little chicks following hens out of the coop—and an early 7:00 a.m. “Rhodes farm safari” to get everyone to the cows, where you finally test the new energizer, retrain calves to the fence, and milk with a live wire protecting your share

If you like seeing the unpolished side of homesteading—too many poultry systems, fencing puzzles, Airbnb demands, and mechanical surprises all piled on one Sunday—this episode shows how you adapt in real time while still training animals (and kids) into better routines