A Load of Manure

I love living on a farm.  There is a never ending string of improbable, unlikely, and never-ending stories swirling around me most of the time.  Take the other day.....


I came in the other day to discover Hubby missing.  I had left for the afternoon with Hubby working on cleaning out the feed barn.  The feed barn is a blessing and a curse.  It is a large, open sided barn with a concrete floor.  By feeding the cattle in this area it keeps them from milling around the hay bale and churning the mud into a deep quagmire in the field.  It also tends to keep the majority of the manure in one place.  The floor is periodically scraped of the collection of manure and piled on one end of the barn.  Then, when the pile becomes unmanageable, it is loaded onto a piece of equipment to spread it over the fields for fertilizer.  This spreader looks a lot like a wagon with short sides with a set of rotating blades on the back.  The blades literally grab the manure and throw it off the end of the wagon.  Same basic design since they were horse-drawn.


Although I couldn't see him I just assumed he was still working on spreading the manure.


Some time later he called.  "I'm on my way home." he declared.  "From where?" I asked hesitantly.  "Mack's.  I have to finish this load.  I'll be late getting in for supper."


Feeling puzzled, I tried to translate his cryptic message.  "Mack" referred to a friend who had a welding shop in town.  Hubby often stopped in to visit but I couldn't figure out why he went without finishing his chore.


Later, when a tired, dirty, not very fresh smelling husband came in to eat I got the whole story 


It seemed that during the afternoon he had managed to break the belt that turned the spreading part of his wagon.  After spending some time crawling under the wagon and struggling with the mechanics he just couldn't figure how to get the thing back together.  "So what did you do?" I asked.  "Well, I figured if anyone know how to fix this it would be Mack.  He can put about anything together."  "Did Mack know?" I queried.  "Well, not at first but he just took out this bolt and that bolt then it all came apart.  Then he know exactly what to do."  "So, Mack came out to help you", I asked, still mostly lost in the narrative.  "No, I had to take it to his shop."


"You what?"  I gasped.  "Don't tell me," I choked on a giggle, "you drove a wagon load of manure to town and through town to Mack's shop?!!"  "Well sure, how else was I going to get it there?"  By now I was in all out laughter.  Visions of my farmer calmly hauling a whole load of manure past businesses and homes to get it fixed then hauling it home again filled my head.  Hubby just looked at me in disbelief.  To him his actions were perfectly normal.


Considering the lumps I saw going up and down my driveway that had fallen from the spreader, I have a feeling the roadsides will be well fertilized next spring (and maybe a few yards along the way, too.) 


It could have been worse....it wasn't really, really fresh manure.


At least he didn't decide to work on it outside my Kitchen Window!