Barb Lee
Sun, 23 Dec 2007 16:06:05 -0800
I don't know sort of madness it is that occasionally grips an Oregonian and sends them out in the relentless rain in search of self-fulfillment at the end of a shovel. Maybe it's a form of feeble protest against the oncoming seven months or so of dreary, gray, weeping skies. This morning and yesterday morning, I suited up and took my carriage horses out for a spin in the rain. They're bored and depressed too. Doors wide open, raincoats on, they don't do anything but hang their heads out the door and poop in their stalls all day and beg to be fed. The blackbellies are all huddled inside too. I have a pretty good thing going with the bedding for them. They've got a deep pack of sawdust heavily laden with "stall sweetener." Every day I shoo them out, crank the handles of my ancient Troybilt sideways and zoom around their 12x24 stall, fluffing the bedding and redistributing it. Only rarely do I have to remove wet bedding and there's little or no smell, although on the first promising stretch of dry, I'll go fetch a pickup load of fresh dry sawdust to till in. That should keep them until I toss their wimpy butts out around the first of April. The rain will only be interrupted by snow in the coming week. No sign of the missing 72% of sunlight that we won't see until spring. Despite grading, geo-cloth and 6" of 1 1/2" minus rock, the area around the horse stall doors has gotten pretty mucky and they hate stepping their dainty little tootsies out into the goop. I guess several years of heavy animal traffic have finally destroyed the cloth and sent the rock to perdition. We put some rock in front of the doors this fall, but it seems to be floating in a quivering mass of brown goo. I foresee a truckload of fresh rock next summer. I even bladed the whole area off down to rock before the wet came. But Oregon Mud will not be denied. I scraped the skiff of muck away from the blackbelly stall doors earlier. They are so funny. There is a short piece of railroad tie just about where the rock leaves off. Beyond that I laid a treated 2 x 12 plank with traction cleats on it. Beyond that a short piece of plywood. It's an absolute hoot, watching the ladies lift their skirts and twinkle-toe down first one piece of wood then another, to avoid the hoof-high skiff of soft ground that they must negotiate going from barn to pasture. Even when they're in a blackbelly-panic to leave, several of them will opt for the boards, which is hysterical, because its hard to panic and walk a single-file board at the same time. Half the time, if the rain's falling, they'll clot up at the door but refuse to step outside. So much for the Black-Death-Human-coming blackbelly panic. Anyway, Oregon Mud Fever was upon me today and I had to go out - ALWAYS inadequately dressed - and de-slop the area in front of the horse stalls. Despite having bladed it off in the fall, I probably shoved at least two yards of High Quality Oregon Mudslide Grade muck off the gravel. Upon hearing the first clunk of shovel against gravel, the Blackbellies all decided The Black Death was upon them and they came spraying out of the barn as if from the end of a fire hose. I leaned on my shovel and watched in amazement as one lamb nearly broke her neck repeatedly trying to force her way through a cattle panel, when a four foot gate stood wide open not 18" to her left (towards me). She finally figured it out and departed with all due haste. Amazing creatures, these Blackbellies. Well, I received the Cure for Oregon Mud Fever, enduring sucking mud, leaky Gore-Tex and soaking wet jeans between the bottom of the rain coat and the top of the knee-high boots. At least I didn't slip and fall face first into it like I usually do. That should keep me for awhile. Ha ha, Mother Nature! Take That! I swat you with a square nosed shovel and thumb my runny nose at you with a wet glove! I cordoned the horses away from the newly created mudslide and came in to exchange my Winter Baptismal garments for something dry, warm and baggy. Hot coffee in hand, I'll sink into a chair in the sunroom-dubbed-rainroom (because it's bright in there on dreary days, owing to many windows and skylights), and watch the stormclouds skudding over the canyon until it's dark and I need to go back out and feed. Peace and joy, warmth and shelter to all, Barb Lee _______________________________________________ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info