That looks like a formal version of those Jamaican drums you hear people playing on the streets in NYC. The barrel is just a steel barrel but the head has been finely worked: you can't see where the different notes are, but they're there.

MOM wants to hire the dogs out to chew sticks to make mulch—she figures if it's something they're supposed to do they might stop doing it altogether. The house is full of chewed sticks (since it's too cold to chew them and leave them out in the yard.)