I had five (count 'em...FIVE) yards of crushed rock delivered to my back yard yesterday. It's for the goat pen.
I spent an hour and a half yesterday pushing it into the pen via wheebarrow (a distance of about 35-40 feet one way); then I spent two hours this morning doing the same. The chore also included "mucking out" the parts of the pen where I had strewn straw to keep their hooves clean and dry until I could get the additional six inches of crushed rock in... so there were about 10-12 wheelbarrows filled with that sodden mess in addition to 40 or 50 barrows of crushed rock during my two solo adventures as a Goat Protector and Defender.
Not long after I took off my "goat clothes" for the day, the four grandnieces (ages, 12, 10, 8 and 6) came over, so I asked (tongue in cheek) if they would like to help me shovel crushed rock into the wheelbarrow "for the goats" (whom they love and whom we had just walked). Much to my surprise, not one, not two, not three, but all four said "YES!" Oh, my...
I was bushed, BUT I figured they'd last (if I was lucky) 20 minutes and I knew I'd be glad for whatever help they could give, so I gave them all buckets or shovels and had them fill the wheelbarrow (twenty shovels per barrel). I figured I could handle another 20 minutes of work without croaking...
Wellllll... to make a long story very short... they loved the task. Adored the task. Did not want to quit. They didn't get tired. So, once again, I pushed crushed gravel for yet another hour and 15 minutes... maybe more...until my pusher was bushed and I had to call a halt.
Tonight I feel like I've been hit by a Mack Truck and then run over by a military tank. I need a chair to help me get up from the couch...
But the good news is that Laverne and Shirley are high and dry tonight. HALLELUJAH!!!
The girls and I didn't get it ALL done to a depth of 6" but, between yesterday and today, we got 80% of it put down to that depth. (The girls and I did about 20% of it today.) Tomorrow (IF I'm ambulatory; I recover pretty quickly for an old broad), I'll probably put in the balance.
The entire floor of the outdoor portion of the pen has some new gravel in it; the last 15-20% only has a sprinkling of rock, though... perhaps a half inch...just enough to salve my conscience and make me feel like Wonder Woman Mom-goat. I wanted us to get that far before I called it quits so the goats wouldn't have ANY wet or sodden areas beneath their hooves since I had taken out all of the straw prior to putting down the rock.
It's supposed to get real cold tonight. It may snow. Knowing the goats have crushed gravel down and an indoor area to bed down on clean, dry, warm straw makes me feel a lot better...well, except for my body, that is. IT wants to know what the hell I was thinking, to go from a deskbound writer to an earth mover with so little advance notice... What can I say? From the moment the rock got delivered, it began calling my name and giving me the guilts: "Hey, Mom-Goat... what are you doing leaving us lying here in your driveway when your precious goats are languishing...languishing...in less-than-perfect conditions? If they had a phone, they would call the Humane Society on you..." (And the Humane Society would laugh their arses off when they responded and found two very happy goats HARDLY in any immediate danger of ANYTHING other than being spoiled half to death.) (Guilt doesn't have to make SENSE, you know. All it has to do is suggest a minor, puny anomaly, and all hell breaks loose trying to convince me I am a lousy Mom-goat!!!)
I expect to lose ten pounds this week. If I don't, it won't be for lack of enough exercise... that's for sure!
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