Cleanliness is next to godliness. Okay, really???? I think that old saying was invented by a OCD type, who never stepped outside on a beautiful spring day. The truth is that I am learning a few things about keeping an old farm-house clean and I have come to realize that there are only three levels of cleanliness here and they are:
1. sort of clean (so if you visit and it is sort of clean, then you are special)
2. sort of dirty (you are now considered family)
3. filthy (you live here and you probably helped make the mess)
That’s it, that’s all there is and I’d have to say our home usually varies somewhere between ‘sort of clean’ and ‘sort of dirty’, except for now, right now it is down right filthy. It is not going to get better until the Grand dogs return to their home and we’re accepting of that fact.
Besides, yesterday was beautiful!! A day to be spent outside working, which is what I did. Our arena is dirt and weeds and we’d like to transform it to lush grass for our herd to eat. I started by sowing oats (not ‘wild oats’, just regular oats given to us by Our Friend the Farmer), then added grass seed, harrowed (official farm term) and irrigated. The farmers here have impressive irrigating systems, gated pipes, pumps, overhead water sprayers (which I don’t know the name for), canals and ditches. I had 5 garden hoses and a rain bird, which was not impressive at all. (A better watering system is on the to-do list, but the seed could not wait).
There were breaks to let the 4 hounds out and run. All dogs are dirty, no filthy (just like the house, which came first? the chicken or the egg? The dirty house or the dogs?… the dirty dogs for sure!) The brown and white dogs are now, brown and browner, our white dog is now white and green (as she has discovered the delight in rolling in fresh horse poop) and the black and white lab. So at the end of the day, they are all happy, healthy and exhausted, which is all that really matters and which I hope is going into my future ‘Grandma’ file for being a good babysitter, as someday I hope to be left with grand babies to take care of, not just grand dogs. Probably the same level of mess, but hopefully a tad less barking.
Three dogs sharing one bed, because:
a. They like each other so well.
b. This is the best bed.
c. They are too tired to care.
d. Even the dogs do not want to lay down with the dog who rolled in the horse poop.
e. All of the above!
Oh I love this blog, Ellen! Those dogs do look exhausted and satisfied with their lot in life.
Smart dogs!