{"id":378,"date":"2013-09-07T18:48:36","date_gmt":"2013-09-07T23:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/?p=378"},"modified":"2013-09-07T18:48:37","modified_gmt":"2013-09-07T23:48:37","slug":"chore-train","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/2013\/09\/07\/chore-train\/","title":{"rendered":"The Little Chore Train That Could"},"content":{"rendered":"

August was miserably hot, as it usually is here in Texas, but the chickens still had to have their wading pools and drinking buckets refilled with fresh water every day.\u00a0 Of course we hadn’t\u00a0thought about what would happen with\u00a0me having carpal tunnel surgery and not being able to use my hand for a while.\u00a0 Hubby was good and did chicken chores for a few days, but after that I was on my own and still couldn’t use my hand.\u00a0 Leave it to my imaginative hubby to come up with something to help make one-handed\u00a0chicken chores easier – The Chore Train.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Chore Train<\/p><\/div>\n

Instead of having to fill\u00a0numerous milk jugs and buckets\u00a0with water (like I had been doing for what seems like forever),<\/em>\u00a0tote them outside to a utility cart, and then pull the cart by hand around the pasture, the Chore Train\u00a0saves time and lets me haul heavy supply laden\u00a0carts around the pasture more easily.<\/p>\n

The train starts with our garden tractor\/mower.\u00a0 A water tank mounted on a cart comes next, with a utility cart making up the caboose.<\/p>\n

The water cart isn’t just any old water reservoir.\u00a0 A battery-powered bilge pump is attached to the water tank, allowing the water to run much faster through the hose and out to the chickens than simple gravity feed does.\u00a0 I just hook the pump clamps to the battery terminals, and I’m in business.\u00a0 A solar panel helps to recharge the battery.<\/p>\n

The utility cart lets me haul frozen water bottles, feed, treats, and other supplies at the same time as the water.\u00a0 Not having to make multiple trips to and from the house is a time saver and saves wear and tear on me, trying to haul heavy stuff around by hand.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/a>
The Water Cart <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Solar <\/a>
Solar panel in the utility cart. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Water <\/a>
Water tank, battery, hose assembly <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

(click the photos to see them closeup if you need a better look at how the pump assembly is put together so you can make your own)<\/em><\/p>\n

Moral of the story:\u00a0 Necessity is often the mother of invention.\u00a0 Work smarter not harder.\u00a0 If you’re still hand-carrying supplies to do your chicken chores with, consider making your own chore train to help decrease your workload a little.\u00a0 A chore train like this is easy to put together and you can customize it to suit your needs.<\/p>\n

I’ve been told that I have too much fun with my little train.\u00a0 Have to admit, it IS kinda fun to drive around with it – kinda like riding those little kiddie trains that they have at carnivals and zoos.\u00a0 I love my chore train, but I sure wish the hubby would have thought of this sooner!\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

August was miserably hot, as it usually is here in Texas, but the chickens still had to have their wading pools and drinking buckets refilled with fresh water every day.\u00a0 Of course we hadn’t\u00a0thought about what would happen with\u00a0me having carpal tunnel surgery and not being able to use my<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[179,128,36,177,5],"class_list":["post-378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-farmlife","tag-chickens","tag-chores","tag-diy","tag-farmlife","tag-homestead"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Choretrain2013C.jpg?fit=1024%2C695&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2wWew-66","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":387,"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions\/387"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}