Hey there, I have a story that takes place on a farm and I was curious to know how long does usually take to finish chores? Also if chores are finished early would it be realistic to leave the farm in the care of a trusted neighbor and hang out with your family like in the story I'm writing?
Another question is are there ever any slow days/seasons that make it so you barely have to work so you don't have to work at all?
Oof these are great questions.
On the farm I work on, there are days, usually during the late fall, winter, and early spring, that there isn’t much to do. Once the root veggies are packed ayay and the fields are empty of crops but have our winter cover crops on them, it’s pretty dull until we start pruning the orchard. By then I’m usually out and about and doing my thing by about one or two pm. And if it’s very cold (anything below 32 degrees) we don’t go in at all. It’s just not safe, no matter how many layers you have or how good your winter coats are. During the summer, though, when I’m picking and washing and packing and making deliveries and handling social media/emails and getting ready to go to market and and and... I don’t usually get out until six or seven pm. And that’s coming in for seven in the morning.
And those are just the things that I do. My boss does even more, coming in around eight in the morning and not leaving until the sun goes down. And he’s doing the bookkeeping and the spraying, and he’s making the crop plan and getting on my ass about making sure everything’s planted on time, and we’re looking at the volume of sales we have and he’s doing the payroll and making the schedule. On a smaller farm than ours, certainly, there would be downtime. But if you have anything more than an acre or two, you’ve got your entire growing season where your family sees very little of you.
My husband and I see each other one day a week (my day off) during the growing season, and sometimes for dinner when our schedules match. Other than that, we communicate via text and on discord. Meanwhile, I see my boss between 12 and 14 hours a day, depending on how long the two of us work.
So, these are very good questions, and to get the best answer, you have to ask yourself: Is the farm in your story a large farm like wheat/corn/soybean farms in the American Midwest? Or is it smaller, like a one to two acre homestead? Keep in mind, the farm I work for is 30 acres and it keeps us plenty busy with a small staff of only about 4 people.
I hope that helped some! And feel free to message me or shoot me another ask if you have more questions. I’m always happy to help!
