It's a Kind Wind ....

It's a kind wind that blows east the past two days. We've been waiting for professional barn cleaners to come for over a month now and Glen finally decided he couldn't afford to wait any longer. Friday he rented an articulated loader/tractor and borrowed the neighbour's manure spreader and started the job himself. Of course, he wasn't even half done when the guy called to say he could make it Monday, but by that time, Glen will be finished.

Barn cleaning is a nasty but necessary job. The cattle are all our on paster doing the spring, summer and fall, but when winter hits, it's easier to feed and shelter them if they are kept close to the yard and are given a roof and windbreaks to protect them from the weather. Of course, this keeps them all in an enclosed space - and stuff starts to pile up. Between the bedding Glen puts down for them, and what they add to the mix, the "floor" of the corrals gets mighty thick by springtime. If it didn't get cleaned out every year, the cattle would soon be able to walk out over the fences, and have to duck to get into the barns.

Hence, the barn cleaning days in the fall. It's done in the fall because the manure is spread over crop ground as fertilizer and you can't do that until this year's crop is harvested. There are several barn cleaning outfits around, but as we've only recently got into cattle, we're not a long- standing customer. It leaves us pretty low on the list.

Oh well, the job is all but done now, and Glen says that renting the tractor wasn't any more expensive than hiring the job done. Glen did the loading, and Mick was home for the weekend so he did the hauling .... and thank goodness the wind was blowing east! It's hard to imagine - or describe - the smell that comes from stirring up several months off manure. Suffice it to say that you do not want the wind blowing that kind of perfume toward your house!

I wasn't needed out there (another THANK GOODNESS!) so I stayed inside and baked up a storm. Mitchell had been hinting that his room mate's mother sure sent a lot of goodies all the time so, with my reputation at stake, I sent him off this afternoon with pies, cinnamon buns and chocolate cookies. That ought to keep a couple of teen aged boys for a day, or maybe two, even.