With 100 degree days it seemed the perfect time to work at cleaning and repairing the barn. We gathered the tools, pitch forks, brooms, dust masks, shovels, leaf blower, pressure washer, pry bars and we used them all! In some places there were three layers of flooring laid over the original floor held in with nothing but dried on and very old cow manure, in other places a small board held in with a long metal spike and in other places nothing but a worn hole with kittens popping in and out. We were a productive, but ugly bunch being quickly covered from head to toe in barn dust with sweat running through it capped off with the back fire from the pressure washer which worked well to spew old bits of cow manure all over us. We were hot and stinky. Don’t you wish you were here?
My loving spouse continued to mutter, I don’t know what they were thinking. We unearthed what looks to be an old milking parlor, painted yellow complete with a poop trough for sweeping manure out the door. We will level the floor reusing the old, charming and manure-removed boards and build new stalls appropriate for horses.
There are rusty nails everywhere, so it was only a matter of time before someone stepped on one. (Note to reader, if you visit Glory Farm we recommend you are up to date on your tetanus shot). Unfortunately, the rusty nail stepper on-er was our English teen whose tetanus shot seemed to be right at the expiration point. With protests that he was ‘fine’ and it only bled a little, I whipped him off to the clinic to get an updated tetanus shot. Checking him in was a fairly humorous event as they asked him simple questions like, “How much do you weigh?” “I don’t know, 7 1/2 stone.” Then they looked at me, where I explained that I didn’t speak ‘British’ and they should probably just weigh him. He took his shot like a man, yet acted like a typical teen, when I tried to take his photo. However, he was completely co-operative upon hearing about my tradition of taking my kids for an ice cream after trips to the ER. Thank you Dairy Queen.
We’ve declared this a ‘clean’ day, not for cleaning, but for staying clean.
Obviously farm fun is a whole lot different than city fun! We can’t get that kind of ‘cow manure’ fun here in the city…. thankfully!