Barnday Sunday.

At the risk of misleading the readers of Cowfeathers Farm, my post today is not just about cleaning, but includes cleaning, and that, coupled with my previous blog about cleaning tack could make people mistakenly believe I do a lot of cleaning. Although I may feel like I do a LOT of cleaning, the reality, if one had a poke around the house and farm is you wouldn't know it. Friday, I cleaned my bathroom, which had been bugging me for a while with the dust from the harvest still lingering under the wood stove and the dresser and the claw foot tub. My back has been crotchety still, but I (wo)manfully swabbed the decks on my hands and knees delivering my bathroom floor from a few months of ignored dust. And, this morning, I enlisted Huz' help in getting the pin disengaged from the stopper at the back of the bathroom sink in order to clean the drain. How does so much bleeech get stuck in there? Ew, Ew, Ew. This all sounds very high minded, except if you concentrate on the fact that the dust was there since harvest (which was early this year, making that dust as well aged as a fine cheese) and the sink drain was Ew, Ew, Ew. And that does not happen overnight my friends.
Obviously I am not a regular thorough cleaner of my inner sanctum.
But, the barn is another matter entirely. It is dust free. ( I said that purely to amuse myself, as I have it on years of experience that if I were to blow my nose right now, it would make the tissue look like it had been used as a coffee filter). The barn is not, and never, ever will be dust free.
But, it does get more regular cleaning than some other things. Sunday- the Lord's Day of Rest ( I think I said that to amuse myself as well) is my favorite day to clean the barn. I believe this is because I have the conscripted help of Middlest and Youngest. ( Eldest will not be pried from her bed, she is 16 and she will not).  This has become of particular import with the aforementioned crotchety back problem. I deign to hoist a book at arms length. A pitchfork of wet straw is way out of comfort range. So, today, after church and the grocery store, and lunch, we set forth to the barn on an eerily spring-like day. The sun is warm, but the wind is cold.
First things first is getting the critters out of the barn. Out go the chickens to join the ducks and the gander, who, are always on their own during the day. The chickens get to run amuck when I'm home.  Then, the horses out to the fields, Mike in the middle pasture on his own, and Oslo and Samantha to the front pasture. Then, Cesar- the ram- to the front pasture with Os and Sam. Close Mike's door so the ewes can't enter the barn and out go Dolores and Dancer - D.-LO ready to pop with her lambies...when will they be here???!!! Then, the barn is critter free and ready for cleaning. Oslo's stall and Sam's stall are fairly short work, with me scraping manure into a pile and Youngest shoveling it into a manure bucket for transport to the manure pile. Middlest works on the Ewe's pen- must keep it very tidy for the advent of babies who need dry, clean straw with no ammonia and no drafts.
 Then, the more laborious prospect of Cesar's stall, the Ewe's old pen before they moved to the lambing jugs and Mike's stall- which is HUGE and the only place he will potty atall.
Then, aisles and old straw and hay raked and swept up, all 15 buckets scrubbed with soap, rinsed and filled with their designated liquid or powder. Clean hen house, nesting boxes and duck house, rake that side of the barn- the hens like to scratch, which makes a mess of the general place. Then, because it makes me happy, find something to improve. Today, we laid a pad of stones in front of Sam's stall. I haven't decided what I will do for flooring in the barn, but am trying to decide. Brick is my first choice, but I scraped the chicken/duck/goose poop off the bricks I had laid in a large pad around the water pump and am not impressed with how difficult that is, and how disgusting they manage to make the area. So, cement? Easy to sweep, but not very pretty, and in a 200 year old barn, it seems to be a nice thing to be gentle. Cement isn't gentle.
In any case, I took a photo after our labors, enjoying the barn after "Phase 1" of the new stalls project, begun in 2011 and bound to be continued in 2012- so Mike's stall can also be finished. Then gutters and floors and regrading of the paddocks....sigh. The barn has no dust.