Pens

Yesterday we cleaned em, or at least the big one anyhow. I was dreading the job. The wind was whipping like a cut snake, dragging icy cold across the region, setting the mud like concrete, and generally spreading misery in its wake. Outdoors was not really someplace I felt any great desire to be. You aren't quite outdoors when cleaning pens but you might as well be.

My job is to keep the heifers in the pen, yet out of the way of the skid steer, which barely squeaks through the door and can just, by the skin of its bucket, turn around in there, while the boss scoops up and removes the poo.

It involves a lot of trusting the driver, hoping the heifers behave, and paying very close attention. Six seething not-quite yearlings. One cowboy skid steer driver...although he was very careful yesterday...and little old me, all dancing around the pen together...... choreographed manure handling at its less than finest.

It went well though. The heifers were cooperative....for heifers at least....and we were done in less than an hour. Now they have a nice clean playground and a couple of new friends, as we added two that had outgrown their stalls. Liz has one less water bucket to lug.

Next we brought sand into the barn. We keep sand in the front of the stalls for traction when the cows get up and down and so their knees have padding. Our barn is designed so there is exactly one way to get that sand where you want it and that is with a shovel.

So we shoveled. Then we put down wood shavings in the stalls and left the barn looking nice and bright and tidy.

The only downside was that I missed my old dog Mike. He wasn't a perfect pen dog, being a bit too quick and impetuous, but it was a lot more fun when he was in the mix. Not necessarily safer or more efficient, but very entertaining.

I am still debating the wisdom of a puppy when Nick passes. I am not sure how to function without a border collie at foot, but I am sixty and lame in most joints. Some days I wish I had an oil can like the tin man just to get me going. They are active and need direction and work......hmmm........