Spring Cleaning In January!

It's been warm, REALLY warm here for January.  I know I have mentioned it before, but its to the point now, that we have to clean the feeding area for the girls.  The good/bad thing about the snow we get is that it covers up the "mess".  So you get layers of manure, discarded hay, and snow. 

I would like to add that since Tari got caught in the hay feeder and I've started feeding on the ground, our hay waste has increased 10 fold...  We are going to go back to using it...and Chad is working on getting something to fill in the void she stuck her rear hind into.  Wasting hay is wasting money!!  (0:

When the snow begins melting, it makes and ugly mess.

  These pictures brought me great anxiety in posting.  I don't want it to give anyone the impression that the girls live in filth.  They don't...this is like, well their living room.  They hang out here the most,  its directly across from the barn and also allows them to look at the house.  They can see the kitchen window and the bedroom slider from there...which really means (IMHO) that they can see when the lights are on and know that breakfast is on its way in the morning!

This is not where they bed down and as you can tell by the pictures, they aren't covered in filth.  They keep their bedrooms much cleaner than this area! 

This is by far the dirtiest place on the property, because they use it so much.  When we get our pastures finished and cross fenced this area will have a long lean-to on it and will be used as our "sacrifice" area.  Until then, it just causes me stress at the mess...

Chad has added to my self imposed stress by warning me that if our neighbor is the a$$ that the other neighbors claim he is, he is going to complain about our compost/manure pile.  Chad said, you'd better find a place for "your pile" and plan for it this spring....  Like I hadn't already thought of that myself.  Thanks Hunny, I love you! 

As the snow gave way to mess, I took the dogs out with my rake and started working on it.  Not that I thought I should clean it by hand, but I needed to figure out what we had on our hands.  It took me 10 minutes of trying to get Fiona off of me, 5 minutes of convincing Seven not to attack the rake, and 2 minutes of clear thought to realize I needed Chad and the Hydraulic Spoon.  With the Hydraulic Spoon it should take 20 minutes...  Well maybe 30 if Fiona decided to help....

Of course Fiona tried to help, she always does.  In fact all three of the girls had to greet Chad and the Hydraulic Spoon.  They took turns touching the tractor, bucket, snow blower, and Chad.  They like to feel like they have some say in all matters concerning.... well everything!!

It was pretty easy work for Chad and the Hydraulic Spoon once the girls gave him the OK.

He used the bucket to drag rows, then he used it to push the rows into a pile. 

Fiona and Horse Girl spent some time checking Chad's work.  They spread out some of the rows... I guess they weren't straight enough!!

Tari stayed out of the silliness.  I guess that she has taken on more of the responsible thought process now.  Being a soon to be mom and all, she didn't need to mess with this stuff.  And heck, there was a butt-scratcher right there watching everything.  Why not take advantage of that while she can?

I scratched until my fingers were sore...I'm a sucker like that!!

Once the pile was done, Chad made sure I wasn't looking for him to do anything else...he was released, and went back to organizing "his" side of the garage. 

The dogs raced to the top of the pile a few times, and then the girls decided they had better inspect Chad's work too.  Thank God they decided not to dig around in it...  If the weather stays on this warming trend, I am sure we will have round two of this fun!  I may take it a step farther though and have Chad load the Danger with the piles and I'll dump them over near the big burn pile...out of the neighbors eye site and ours too.

Now if I could only think of a really good place for a permanent pile....life would be grand!!

Suggestions???