Just popping in to vent for a minute… this is, by far, the worst weather I’ve ever experienced. Three days in and I still can’t even feed the chickens without falling flat on my face on SIX SOLID INCHES of slick ice despite using two fence posts as walking sticks.
My farm stays 4-8 degrees cooler than the rest of the county year-round due to our low spot right by the lake. It also gets more moisture. So, I don’t know if everyone’s place is as bad as mine but I am just hoping and praying that we get enough melted tomorrow for me to be able to get to the road, because right now it’s an 800ft uphill climb on solid slick ice that my 1800lb bull doesn’t even dent when he walks across it. If I can’t get to the grocery store tomorrow I’m gonna be eating a lot of chicken eggs for a few days.
All of the animals are alive so far, but we’ve had some close calls. Our main coop, which has around 40 mixed chickens, ducks, and turkeys crammed in it right now, is wrapped on all sides with tarps, has six inches of dry hay, and two heat lamps – it’s still 24 degrees in there and their water is frozen solid. I have two smaller breeding coops but had to abandon them yesterday when I checked on their tenants and realized they were very lethargic.
Yesterday, the coop roof caved in when the 2-3 inches of ice on top of it shifted. If I hadn’t been sitting by my living room window when it happened we probably would have lost all of our birds in the resulting fire. I was able to quickly run out there and pull the heat lamps off of the dry hay floor. I am very thankful that I shelled out for a good ladder two years ago with adjustable legs and extra grippy feet, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to get the ice off.
As it was, I still slipped and fell at least half a dozen times – once on my face. I’ve pulled muscles I didn’t even know I had. I’m using a full-sized pickaxe to bash a 2ft by 2ft hole through 6-8 inches of solid ice in my cattle trough once a day so the cows can drink for 5-10 minutes before it re-freezes. Thankfully we stockpiled enough hay this year to last us the entire winter, so their food hasn’t been an issue.
The dogs and pigs are loving it and are outside playing all day, they won’t go in their houses. The cows love cold weather but hate being covered in 12-inch-long icicles. The birds have no idea what’s going on and are just confused. The geese are angry at being stuck in a small coop, and just hiss at me anytime I check their food and water. Given what I’m going through to make sure they get fed, you’d think they’d be a bit more grateful.
It could be worse, though! At least it’s pretty. Here’s some photos from around the farm right now.. Praying for sun and above-freezing temps soon…
New baby chicks on our farm has become such a common occurrence that I would not normally even think to mention it.
However, our recent batch of chicks is something unique and special.
These baby chicks are the first chicks ever born from our new breeding program!
We’re making purple chickens!
Over the past couple of years since moving out to the farm, we have probably had a couple dozen different chicken breeds – most of which we’ve raised from baby chicks.
It has truly fascinated me to see the vast differences from one breed to the next.
Barred Rocks, for example, are some of the coolest and most annoying birds you can own.
Why?
Well, for starters, they are extremely curious. From their first day out of the shell, they will always be the first in a mixed batch to step forward to investigate new objects, animals, or people. As they grow, that curiosity turns into intelligence.
Thanks to this intelligence, Barred Rocks quickly learn that humans and other animals are generally only going to interact with them in an unpleasant way – whether that’s being picked up and snuggled, moved to a new coop with fresh pine chips, or given a shot of medicine for a respiratory illness.
Obviously, all of these are good things. But if they aren’t what the Barred Rock wants to be doing in that moment, she will not want to do them.
This curiosity and intelligence combine to create impeccable survival instincts. If a Barred Rock and ten other chickens get lost on the way to their coop at night (not uncommon when the days are quickly becoming shorter), the ten other chickens will likely be found huddled together under a random structure – warm, yes, but vulnerable to attack by predators. The Barred Rock, meanwhile, can be found at the highest point possible for a chicken to reach, even if it takes multiple jumps.
This makes Barred Rocks some of the most annoying birds you can own – but also some of the most fun. They are amazing foragers, can have spunky personalities and are usually more than a little sassy… but they hate being picked up and they will randomly decide that they are going to move out of the coop and live in the trees at night now. Or, they’ll decide that the nest box you provided is not up to their standards, so they will make a new nest in a very concealed, secure spot. Great for incubating eggs if you’re a broody hen, but horrible if you’re a hungry human trying to make a burrito.
The problem with breeding barred rocks, besides their at-times challenging personalities, is that the roosters are absolutely useless. Skinny little things with way too much attitude and far too cocky for their own good. They won’t usually be a good alpha male, and they aren’t very efficient meat birds.
Every breed has their quirks.
Buff Orpingtons were an early favorite of mine. My favorite chickens (and one of my best friends) was a Buff Orpington, creatively named Buffy. She was one of our first chickens and grew up riding on my shoulder or hat while I did my farm chores in the morning. She would act like she didn’t want to be picked up but once she was placed on my head or shoulders she would refuse to come down and would stare at the world in wonder as we went on adventures together. I even took her with me to the back pasture a couple times and she would always follow along right behind me like a faithful puppy.
Ameraucanas (a popular homestead breed) are reliable egg layers with good personalities, and fairly resilient, but they are small, don’t have the best survival instincts, and lay small to medium-sized eggs. Red Stars are great mother hens and extremely reliable layers. Whiting True Blues are selfish screeching jerks. Whiting True Greens are gentle and friendly but are frequently killed by their own curiosity. Leghorns are dumbasses. In fact, I still have one, and her name is Dumbass The Second. Dumbass The First died by flying over a 4 foot fence into the dog pen… like a dumbass.
Dang! That was an awful lot of text to you to read for me to not even tell you how we’re making purple chickens! Thanks for sticking with me – I’m extremely ADHD and tend to ramble.
All that to say, we tried out a lot of different breeds before choosing one to replicate.
It all started with Buffy the Buff Orpington that I mentioned above. We had a few other Orpingtons and between them and her I developed an appreciation early on for these friendly, quiet, reliable birds with big fluffy butts.
My concern with Buffy and the other Orpingtons was primarily their size. They just aren’t very big birds. And, while Buffy was friendly enough, I was hands-on with her since she was a few days old. My other Orpingtons weren’t like her – they don’t like to be picked up or petted, which is one of my favorite things to do here on the farm. In the winter, chickens make great hand warmers! And if you find a lost or sick chicken or if you are trying to deal with a sassy chicken who won’t let you move her, try this trick… stick her in your jacket! They love that. Especially Orpingtons. My birds love to snuggle into a nice winter coat that’s all zipped up, and they rarely want to come out.
Stop it, Trey! You’re being ADHD again!
…Sorry.
Anyway. I started to check out different Orpington breeds. I got my hands on three baby chicks from an acquaintance that breeds Orpingtons, but all of his go into the same brooder so he wasn’t sure what I’d end up with. I ended up with one MASSIVE Black English Orpington rooster, one extremely large Chocolate Orpington rooster, and one Jubilee Orpington hen.
These chickens were something else! Lemme tell ya… nothing made me happier than seeing those giant fluffy butts bouncing around the yard. But, unfortunately, I didn’t end up with a breeding pair of any of the three breeds, even though they were all supposed to be Chocolate Orpingtons.
I ended up getting a line on some Orpingtons one day, and went out to pick them up. First up were two Chocolate hens and a rooster. Much smaller than mine, but I figured they weren’t done growing. Next, I had a couple Orpingtons with really funky colors – I don’t remember the name of the type. They ended up being sick and didn’t make the transition.
But… at the last minute, the guy I was buying them from managed to get his hands on a perfect breeding pair of rare Lavender Orpingtons! The hen, who I named Henrietta, was sweet as pumpkin pie. Medium sized and happy as a clam to sit snuggled in a nest box all day. The rooster, who I named Ender, was another story altogether. He easily dwarfed even my Hulk of a Black English Orpington rooster, and was probably closer in size to my (at the time) teenage male turkeys than he was to any of my chickens. His plumage looked like he had been drawn by a master painter, and he was assertive and strong but also docile and absolutely indifferent to being picked up and snuggled. I’ve never seen as perfect of a specimen as Ender, and I probably never will again.
Unfortunately, Ender died. (audience gasps)
In my rush to snag the Orpingtons when the opportunity presented itself, I didn’t have time to make a secure breeding coop for these new birds. Less than a couple weeks after I bought them, a fox ran out of the woods in broad daylight and tried to nab Jubee, my Jubilee Orpington hen. Ender attacked the fox and successfully got him off of Jubee – but got dragged off into the woods himself for his trouble. I tracked him through the woods and found feather evidence where he had clearly escaped six separate times, but as best as I could tell from the evidence, the sixth time he escaped he actually ran into the fox’s den thinking it would be a safe cover.
So, back to square one. Or, square one and a half, since I at least had Henrietta.
A couple months later, I found someone about an hour and a half away who had four Lavender Orpington roosters she was selling very cheap because she had raised them to be meat birds but couldn’t bring herself to butcher them because they had such sweet personalities.
Well, she was right about the sweet personalities. These four roosters were inseparable. They never fought each other, stayed glued to each others’ side at all times, and shared all of their resources. They also didn’t eat any feed I put out for them, preferring to wander deep into the woods to forage. No complaints!
Technically, all five Lavender Orpingtons are visible in this photo, although two of them just have tail feathers in it. And yes, they are eating feed, but that was after I started putting them in the breeding coop where that was their only option, so they were used to it by the time I took this photo.
While none of these four roosters held a candle to Ender’s genetic superiority, they were all excellent examples of the species. Given my luck so far, I was happy to get four of them in case anything happened. It is very common to lose birds during a transition period due to new diseases they’d never been exposed to, stress, and other factors.
Sure enough, one died a few weeks later – never did find out why. As docile as they were, they were getting picked on by my more dominant roosters who resented four new large and impressive-looking roos suddenly moving in. Things tend to get tense when you have more than one rooster per ten hens. I think he may have just taken a really bad peck in the wrong spot.
One of them got sick and died – again, not uncommon when moving adult birds to a new environment full of germs and bacteria that their immune system has never encountered.
A third one, the alpha of the foursome, recently got his head stuck in a hay bale. Not the brightest bulb in the economy pack. His brother snuggled up to him to keep him warm and to draw attention to his predicament, and I was able to save him – but not before he’d spent an entire day stuck between two hay bales in freezing temperatures. He’s still alive, but he got frostbite on his comb and appears to have been oxygen deprived long enough that he may have brain damage. He may or may not make it. The fourth one is still perfectly fine.
While all this was going on, however, I had Henrietta on a rotation in her new breeding coop – swapping out a new rooster every week. She was probably the happiest animal on our farm and laid me a new fertilized egg every single day even in the deep winter. I add eggs to the incubator once a week to avoid too many temperature and humidity fluctuations, so the first batch had 7 eggs.
Sure enough, three weeks later, the first eggs started cracking open in the incubator! We appear to have ended up with one Chocolate/Lavender cross. In case you don’t know, rooster sperm can remain in the hen ovum for a couple days before fertilizing an egg, so that was from before she went into the breeding coop.
The next four eggs came out perfectly – three grey babies and one black one! Overall, we had five chicks out of seven eggs, which was impressive considering that I accidentally left the water plug out on the table and their humidity was in the 20s and 30s for the first half of their development.
It’s always funny when I tell people about my “Purple Chickens” because at this point I usually pull out my phone and show them some photos.
“But wait… THOSE AREN’T PURPLE!”
Okay… technically… they aren’t purple.
But they are called Lavender Orpingtons, so I will continue to refer to them as my Purple Chickens, or Purple Bois. Why? It’s fun! And life isn’t worth living if you aren’t having fun every now and then.
In order to breed Lavender Orpingtons, you actually need at least one Black Orpington rooster. You have to mix that black gene back into the gene pool every 3 or 4 generations or their color gets really washed out and their feathers have quality issues. That’s why I said that 3 greys and 1 black chick were perfect. It may grow up a Lavender after all, or it may grow up Black. Either way, it’s perfect.
Lavender Orpingtons are, quite simply, the best.
Why? Here’s ten reasons why these rare Lavender Orpingtons are the best chicken breed ever:
They are massive. Just freakishly massive.
Roosters are extremely non-agressive, but also assertive in their flock and highly protective of their hens.
Hens are reliable layers of medium-to-large pink eggs.
Both genders are very docile.
Both genders are excellent foragers for free ranging but also perfectly happy to live in a coop. In fact, my Lavender Orpingtons confined to a coop honestly seem much happier than my free ranging birds.
Due to their size, they are a fantastic dual-purpose breed – meaning they work equally well for eggs or for meat.
Also due to their size and extremely fluffy butts, they are unable to fly over fences. I have a lot of animals in various pens and have lost quite a few chickens to “suicide missions” when they fly over the fence to the dog pen for no apparent reason (it is NOT near their coop). My main coop is also a movable coop with Premiere One electric netting around it and many breeds (*cough cough* Red Stars *cough cough* Barred Rocks *cough* Leghorns *cough*) fly right over that. While I normally prefer to free-range my birds, it is very important to be able to keep them inside the netting when I’ve recently spotted foxes or coyotes in the area.
They don’t mind being picked up. Like all birds, they will often avoid being picked up because they don’t want to be seen as less dominant in front of their other bird friends, but they do not mind being held or petted at all once picked up.
They are as sweet as pumpkin pie. I may be a little biased, but their precocious personalities seem above and beyond all of the other chicken breeds we have here on our little homestead. They are loyal to a fault, eager to share their resources with their friends, and would rather snuggle each other than fight.
They are absolutely gorgeous. Their coloring is so unique – light grey with a light purple tinge. While not “purple” per se, the term “Lavender” certainly fits them to a T.
We’ve kept this first batch so that we can grow them out and start “making” more than one bird per day in a few months. But new chicks are available for purchase.
In the dead of winter right now I can only guarantee 1 or 2 per week but Henrietta sometimes lays 7 eggs a week even in freezing temps. So far, 100% of her eggs have been fertilized. Once things warm up at all, I can confidently guarantee 3-4 per week.
1-to-2-week-old unsexed chicks will be available for $10 each or 5 for $40.
(a minimum order of 3 is required if you do not already have chickens, since chickens will die if they are alone)
Orders can be placed up to 3 weeks in advance, and can be ordered anytime by e-mailing middleforkfarmsal@gmail.com or texting 256.856-9285. Right now we can only do local orders (we are in Franklin County, Alabama), but I do hope to ship eventually.
As a reminder, we do also have chicken eggs ($3/doz) and duck eggs ($5/doz) available for local purchase as well. Most of them will be fertilized if you want to hatch them but they’ll be mixed breeds from our free-range flock. All of our birds eat very well and their eggs are very delicious and nutritious.
I have just finished building a second breeding coop, which I have placed my Chocolate Orpingtons in. Once I get some successful hatches from them, they will be available at $7.50/each or 5 for $30.
I am also planning on breeding my Cayuga ducks, Welsh Harlequin ducks, and Blue/Chocolate Kahki Campbell ducks as soon as I can get their respective coops built (no prices yet).
This is Part 2 of my ongoing series designed to help people in COVID-quarantine adjust to working from home.
The #1 question I’ve been asked over my 10 years of working from home is, “How do you stay focused?”
The truth is, it’s hard. I can’t say I’ve totally figured it out. I’m going to be honest, working in the same room (or even the same building) as your refrigerator and your snack supply is not conducive to focus or healthy living. While you might have just chuckled reading that, it’s not a joke. There are many articles out there about “how to focus when working from home,” but they are typically selling some software solution or tool. Those can help, but they ignore the core issues. I’m going to explain those core issues and how to solve them.
There are so many distractions when you work from home. Nobody is watching over your shoulder making sure you are productive – you have free reign of the place. At first, it feels empowering. But after a while, it can become extremely stressful and depressing when you realize that it’s not like working in an office – focus does not come naturally.
Our brains aren’t wired to work from home. It’s not natural to us – at least not yet. Our brains are used to a separation between the work and “play” areas. It is accustomed to flipping that switch when you walk out the door in the morning and flipping it back when you walk back in at night. It can be hard to make the adjustment – especially if you are now suddenly being forced to work from home while quarantined with the rest of your (very noisy) family.
So, let’s fix the problem. There is no mountain that hasn’t been climbed. I’ve been working from home for 10 years – how do I do it? At first, it was difficult. Now, it’s easy – even natural. I don’t mind the idea of working in an office environment, but now that I’ve adjusted to working from home, I would hate to have to give up the many perks that come with the lifestyle. Here are 5 REAL ways to focus when working from home:
Isolate yourself. There are multiple ways to do this. If you have the option, close yourself off in a separate room while you are working. If you ever transition to not-work, leave the room. This will help your brain adjust by giving it an alternative work space where it can flip that switch and be productive. You are wired to see work and life as two separate existences. Creating a separate space within your home will help you adjust to that transition. If this is not an option for you, there are other ways to isolate yourself – the best way I’ve found is to use noise canceling headphones and fill your ears with background noise – music, white noise, or even a TV show. I like to play TV shows that I’ve watched 10 times already (most of those times doing this same thing) on a separate monitor or computer. I have no need to pay attention because I already know everything that’s going to happen, but it provides a constant background chatter of real people having conversations. Growing up in a large family, I have a hard time focusing in silent environments, so this one works well for me. Only do this if you won’t get distracted by it, though.
Communicate. You need to sit down with your entire family and have a productive conversation about boundaries during work hours. Everyone needs to have clear and well-understood regulations about when they can and can’t interact with you. Setting these boundaries won’t work 100%, but even if it cuts out 50% of your distractions during the day, that will be a huge improvement. Make sure you explain to your spouse and especially your kids that you aren’t trying to avoid them, and that you love them and that you would be spending time with them if you could. In my opinion, it is important to clearly articulate to your children (of any age) the reason that you are working from home now, and why it is important that you are not disturbed (you have to work so you can pay the bills).
Have a regular schedule. Some of you are still required to work regular business hours, while some of you are not. My recommendation is to force yourself to work regular business hours even if you have the option not to. Your brain is already wired to be productive during those hours, and this is not the time to start changing things.
Keep your routine. To continue on my point above, it is very important that you keep to your previously established routine. If you drink coffee at 7:30 every morning – do that. If you leave the house at 7:45 and arrive at work at 8 – walk into your dedicated space at 7:45 and spend 15 minutes listening to a podcast or whatever you do on your commute. This will help your brain flip that switch into productivity mode and be ready to focus at 8.
Dress for work. This is one that most people never think about. 90% of the jokes that my family and friends crack about me working from home are along the lines of “You work from home? Man, I wish I didn’t have to wear pants to work.” If you’ve been sent home to work remotely from quarantine, this may be one thing you are looking forward to. Don’t. Just like I’ve explained above, it is important to follow your existing routine. Wear exactly what you would wear to work. I spend a lot of time on video conference calls, so I wear a company polo to work every day. But on top of that, I typically wear jeans, socks, and an undershirt – just like if I was going to work for the day. Now that my brain is permanently wired to work from home, it isn’t a terribly big deal if I do without a belt or shoes some days (on some rare occasions I’ll even go crazy and wear pajama pants), but my productivity is always significantly improved if I take the time to fully prepare for work before I clock in. That means everything – a shower, beard trim, tooth brush, and all of my clothes – down to my socks, shoes, and belt. It helps me get into an awake and productive mindset and properly prepare for my day.
Here are 5 additional things that I personally do to help myself focus:
Use an electric sit/stand desk. I try to stand for at least an hour each day while I’m working, especially during video calls.
Taking 5 minute breaks about every hour.
Working with a co-worker on a project over video chat when possible (when I find my focus wandering).
Working extra in the early morning or late at night to knock out tasks while nobody else is online or awake to distract me.
Getting rid of all unhealthy snacks from the house and only keeping healthy, fresh food in the fridge. (This one may not be practical during a quarantine or if you have kids)
Well, there you go. Hopefully this article has been helpful. I’m not selling anything, just sharing what I’ve learned while working from home for the past decade. The key thing I’ve learned is to focus on the core issues and not waste time and energy on all of the many “productivity tools” out there. Once you’ve got the essentials down, these things can help you become more productive. But they won’t ever help you restore your baseline office productivity – you have to do that by working with how your brain is already wired and sticking to your existing routines.
So you’re working from home now. Welcome to the dark side. We have cookies!
As the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic forces tens of millions of employees home, people are being pushed unexpectedly (and uncomfortably) into a work environment that can be surprisingly rewarding once you get used to it.
I’ve been working remote from home at least part time for my entire adult life – over 10 years. For the past year and a half, I’ve been working a full time salaried position at a marketing agency from my home office. My workspace has taken a wide variety of shapes – from being curled up on my bed in what was basically a tiny home to currently having my own dedicated office in my 4-bedroom house with a standing desk and 4 monitors (see photo at the top of this post).
I know what works, and what doesn’t.
I’m currently quarantined in my home due to the fact that my entire household is experiencing flu-like symptoms. With no easily accessible testing available yet, I don’t know if I have COVID-19… it is just as likely that we have Flu A, according to my doctor. My instructions have been to stay home and stay isolated.
Fortunately, this doesn’t significantly affect me. This is already my life. Every morning, I wake up, walk down the hall to my office and work at my desk for 8-12 hours before clocking out for the day. It puts a damper on my social life, but that is a luxury that I can afford to go without for a while.
Unfortunately, this is not the case for most people. The majority of people are not prepared to work from home. This new reality is very disruptive to their (your) life, adding stress to an already unpleasant quarantine experience.
Since I am trapped at home and unable to volunteer in any other manner, I will be writing a series of blog articles designed to help people like you transition to a work-from-home lifestyle… and love it. There are many advantages to working from home, and many ways to reduce the impact of the disadvantages.
Without further ado, I am going to jump right in and talk briefly on 7 ways you can make working from home an enjoyable and productive experience. I will be fleshing out each of these points in more details in the coming days.
Please share this article with your friends and on social media to help all of us make this transition an easy one. Please comment on this article with any questions you may have about working from home, and I will do my best to answer them directly and in my future posts.
How To Enjoy Working From Home:
Create a dedicated workspace. This cannot be understated. It will 100% make the difference between you loving and hating working from home. Even if you enjoy noise and the people you are surrounded by, it will drain your productivity and cause added stress. If you don’t realize that now, you will soon. This does not have to involve an elaborate setup – it just means that you need a separate space where you can isolate yourself from outside sounds and interruptions.
Invest in adequate equipment. You don’t need a $3,000 workstation, but you do need a computer that will allow you to work quickly and efficiently. The most important change you can make to your computer setup will be a second monitor, assuming you don’t already have one. This is one of those things that you won’t realize you need until after you’ve gotten it… and then you won’t understand how you ever existed without it. This is because, unlike an office environment, when working from home, you will need that second monitor to talk to other people. You will be using videoconferencing tools like Zoom, Skype, or Slack – and unless you have a second monitor, you won’t be able to do much else until those calls have concluded. You will be shocked at how much of a difference this makes to your workflow and overall productivity.
Get high speed internet. Satellite internet or DSL will not work. Period. The latency is far too high and speed too low for any kind of video or audio call to work. If you live in the city, you’ll need a cable or fiber connection. If you live in a rural area, look online for a “Fixed Wireless Internet Provider” in your area. These companies are typically small local businesses that provide high speed residential internet in rural areas that is many times faster than satellite. They attach a dish to your roof just like a satellite connection, but it is connecting to a local tower within 10 miles of your house instead of a satellite in space 22,000 miles away. If you don’t know of any high speed providers in your area, try searching on www.broadbandnow.com. In a pinch, comment below with your zip code and I’ll try to find one for you myself (I work in this industry).
Pro Tip: Don’t overpay for internet. In a crisis like this, a lot of internet companies are going to try to sell you expensive “Work from Home” plans that you don’t need. You do not need a 1000Mbps (“Gigabit”) connection. Unless you are uploading and downloading large files all day, you likely won’t notice a difference in any connection over 25Mbps – as long as it is a low latency connection (unlike satellite). Even if you download and upload a lot of files, you don’t really need anything over 50-100Mbps. If you can get unlimited data, go for it… but don’t waste money paying extra for a “high speed” connection that you don’t really need.
Plug into your router. A common misconception is that a high-speed wireless connection is basically the same thing as a wired connection with today’s technology. This is not true. It doesn’t matter how fast or reliable your wireless connection is, you will notice a huge difference in the quality of your video and audio calls if you are able to plug your computer into your router directly. This reduces latency and packet loss, the two biggest causes of video/audio issues on calls. This isn’t always possible, and it isn’t absolutely necessary, but it will make a big difference.
Dress to impress. How you dress has a huge impact on how you think, even if you don’t realize it. Don’t sit around in your PJ’s on your couch all day. Put on clothes just like you are going to work – including your shoes. Just trust me on this one. It will allow your brain to accept the transition and shift into a productive state of mind.
Sit up. Don’t lounge around on your couch or bed. Grab a real chair and work at a desk or table. Not only is this good for your posture, but it will do wonders for your mood and productivity levels. Also, come back to work at the same spot every day. Like the point above, just trust me on this one. These are lessons I’ve had to learn myself through years of trial and error.
That’s all I have for now. I’m going to work on fleshing these out into individual articles soon, and I’ll also be writing on additional topics, including:
How to build a home workstation
How to create a professional background for your webcam
What software do you need to work from home?
What kind of computer do you need to work from home?
What specific peripherals (mice, webcams, etc) will help you be more productive working from home?
How to avoid/eliminate distractions
How to be productive
And more…
What would you like me to talk about? What questions do you have about working from home? Light up that comment section!
Middle Fork Farms 