Posts Tagged ‘cleaning stalls’
Nothing But
We had nothing but weather around here yesterday. Moments of sunshine, plenty of degrees, and a brief passing rain shower in the afternoon. It was shirt-sleeve time in the morning for cleaning the barn. The warm temps also provided an opportunity to give the waterer a thorough cleaning, which was badly needed.
It was so cold the last time I tried to clean the waterer, the cover was frozen on solid. That time, I did a cursory scrubbing to break loose the green growth that develops on underwater surfaces, but I couldn’t drain it because I couldn’t get that cover off. I tried splashing debris out, but that offered limited results.
Yesterday, while I was cleaning stalls in the barn, Delilah was reacting to the sound of gunshots in the distance and a neighbor’s barking dog, with a cacophony of her own barking in reply. I decided to take a shot at capturing video of her disturbing the peace.
It took a few tries, but eventually, I caught her. She tends to stop when she notices I am up to something that involves a camera. Honestly, I think it makes her feel guilty, and she worries what others will think if her reckless barking was revealed to the world.
If you are brave enough to endure the video below, I will warn you to prepare for some dizzying panning, and a varied level of audio. I haven’t quite mastered the art of using a cell phone to record moving pictures, and I must have been covering the microphone off and on while struggling for a grip that would support the device.
Judy, this is for you. Your request for more video of Wintervale contributed to my decision to give it a go. Thanks for the nudge.
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High Standards
We have a thermometer attached to the outside of our bathroom window that is my favorite, primarily due to the large size of the digital display. Unfortunately, it is probably the least accurate indicator of the actual outdoor temperature because it is mounted to a window that is likely much warmer than the air away from the house. Still, it serves the purpose of giving me a reference for comparing readings from other days.
It has been indicating all week that it’s cold outside. Not that I wasn’t already aware. When we get down to double digits below zero, the cool spots around the inside of our log home start to become much more noticeable.
I think this cold spell has zapped some of my zest for accomplishing things. I am growing weary of the 5-minute production to get into my outdoor cold weather uniform every time I need to step out the front door. I think Delilah finds me to be a comical gymnast as I wrestle the Carhartt overalls over my pants and heavy shirt, then try to bend down to get boots on without being able to breathe. After which, my face disappears beneath a neck-warmer pulled up over my nose to just beneath my eyes, and my hat gets pulled down to cover the neck-warmer so that only a thin slit remains from which I can see anything.
By this time, she has politely waited twice as long as she wanted, making my fumbling with getting the chopper mittens on my hands, but under the coat sleeve, a painful exercise in beyond-reasonable-tolerance for her. It’s exhausting, and I’ve been doing it way too many times a day for her this week.
The only real work I have accomplished outside has been the daily cleaning of the horse stalls —my least favorite task. It tortures my perfectionist tendencies and severely taxes my urge to be frugal. We use wood shavings on the floor of their stalls. We buy them by the bale, and I keep wanting to say, ‘these shavings don’t grow on trees,’ but, of course, they do. Still, they require that I make a trip to the store and pay money to get them. I don’t want to be wasteful.
Trying to toss out the manure and urine-soaked shavings without getting any dry, “still perfectly useable” wood shavings becomes a fool’s errand. And yet, that’s what I do.
The other failed proposition is expecting to get every morsel of manure separated from the shavings and scooped up. I have this sense that the horses must experience a certain amount of frustration when they step on the frozen nuggets that I have missed. Every time I think I’m done, and sweep the manure fork across the remaining shavings to spread them out, additional poo-cicles always pop up. There is an unending supply. It is exasperating.
On a positive note, the practice I have been getting this week is allowing me to become more reasonable about the precision I try to achieve, reducing the time I spend laboring to maintain my high standards. That’s important during these extremely cold days, because I’ve been starting out already pooped just getting dressed to go out for the cold-weather work. I could do with some improved efficiency.
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Relative Something 