We finally got the barn cleaned!!
This has become a real struggle for us, physically, as the years go on. In the last 2 years or so, age has hit Larry and I really hard. I mean, he literally got hit by a car not too long ago.
I did not. I think I got hit by the perimenopause bus, and I'm just exhausted and losing strength in my hands. I still don't have a single grey hair, even though my next birthday will be the big 5-0.
Let me back up...
I LOVE OUR BARN
It has a tack room, 2 stalls with mangers, and a large open area. We split the open area in two, with some removable gates, to give more area for the sheep to sleep, but still allowing a space for hay storage, baby chick brooder, quail coop, etc. As a reminder for folks who don't remember - poultry feed is poisonous to sheep - so it's critical we can separate this area of the barn from the sheep. Also, for functionality, so the sheep and come and go from the barn - and the poultry can come and go (mostly the ducks) without the sheep getting loose out the front.
Anywhooo... there is a person sized door on the north side of the barn, the two split stall doors facing west, and a big big barn door facing south. The big barn door allows the big and small tractors in to clean that section. I can remove the gates (which I recently did) to get the small tractor in over by the quail coop and clean most of the east side of the barn.
However, the stalls.... There are internal and external stall doors. They are all 34" wide. A standard bucket on a loader is usually 36" wide. So you can't get a loader in to clean those stalls. We have rented a mini-excavator to try and clean those stalls, and they don't actually have the juice to dig things up. Our big tractor, the Beast, does have a back Hoe. The Beast has been out of commission for some time. We had to send it off to get a few things fixed. It does have a quirk of draining it's own battery now, so we have to disconnect it every time. It doesn't like starting in the cold, but it also needs a new water pump as it will also over heat. We had a clogged fuel filter that we finally broke loose, and now it's functioning again.
Add on top that we couldn't really use the beast most of fall and winter... And I really want to clean the barn down to the dirt before winter, which we didn't get to do.
Then this winter - LORDY
There were entire days that the weather was so bad that the sheep and cows spent all day in the barn. They were given their hay and water in the barn, and got to stay out of the wind and blowing snow. Those cold snaps just made me rather be safe than sorry. And of course, all the snow just really brought a lot of moisture into the barn - and it just meant it was more than normal - dampness, which then I put down more hay to keep things dry, and they'd bring in more snow on their wool and get the barn all gross again, so I'd put down more hay. Which means the barn really got full.
With the cold winter, we also couldn't clean the barn mid winter. It's so hard to dig in the cold, hard to start the tractors. So finally Spring did arrive and we asked some folks to come over and help. The barn has never ever been as bad as it was this time. I had cleaned out the mid part of the barn several times, as well as the poultry side. We just needed to get the stalls done.
It requires the back hoe to loosen everything up, so people can dig and clear. We had at least 2 teams of 2 most of the time, and both tractors. So we pulled the loaders up to the stalls and filled them, then we would dump them into our compost piles once the buckets were full, It took most of the day, but with both tractors running and lots of pitch forks and shovels going, we finally got it done.
It makes me so happy to finally get the barn cleaned!! And when summer really comes on, we don't make the sheep sleep in there anymore, as they get too hot. So they won't fill it up quite so fast!!
But I think back, and Larry and I used to be able to keep up with this by hand. We didn't always have the Beast. We'd take mauls and pick axes to break up the build up, and we would load it on to a wagon and drag it to the compost bins. I can't believe we could do that. But then again, we used to push the chicken truck around the pasture. We used to roll round bales BY HAND. We would PUSH THEM OFF THE BACK OF OUR PICK UP TRUCK WITH OUR LEGS and then ROLL THEM by rugby tackling them. I can't believe the things we used to be able to do. Sometimes it still feels like we started this farm just yesterday. But then I think about what we used to be able to do in our 30s, and that we are now approaching our 50s (NO THAT IS NOT OLD!) But our bodies are worn out. We can't work as hard or as long as we used to. Probably because we spent our 30s working hard and long!!
But the barn is clean. Of course, right AFTER all the lambs were finished being born....
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