Life In The Country

Beautiful day yesterday. I spent an hour on the annual Spring cleaning of the chicken house. Can't beat the smell of nitrogen in the air. Actually, I couldn't smell a thing. I bought a good respirator to wear while performing that chore and to have on hand in the event there's a anhydrous ammonia spill around here. The railroad tracks leading to the co-op have a section missing right down the street from me and the tracks are blocked off presently but the farmers have been pulling a lot of anhydrous trailers out of there. Must be trucking in the nitrogen?

After cleaning up the chicken house, I went into the shop and noticed things weren't quite right. The duct work for the wood burner in the back of the shop had a couple of sections down on the floor and a coffee can with some tractor parts that was up on the top storage area was on the floor as well. I went to the front of the shop where I do most of my work and looked at the floor of the sidecar rig and the shiny aluminum wasn't shiny anymore. Something had pissed all over it! I suspected a raccoon had gotten in there and after I cleaned off the sidecar, I went up the ladder to the storage area and sure enough, lots of "evidence" of a raccoon having been up there.

My shop has three foot high knee walls with arched trusses going up from there. From the end of the building it looks like a Gothic style arch as you can see in the file photo above. The sheet metal hangs over the knee wall a bit and there's a gap that would be the eaves on a house. When I was rebuilding it from a dilapidated old machinery shed into my shop, I closed the gaps on all but a couple of spots. I left those open so the cats can come in and out and try and keep the mice in check. I've never kept any food in there so I wouldn't encourage any of the "trash pandas" or any other wildlife to make the building their home. Other than the mice and the occasional squirrel, I've never had an issue. Looks like it's time to close up the rest of the gaps and just be careful not to lock the cat in the barn for any length of time after that. And then break out the respirator and do some more clean up.

I put the sharp blades on the mower and cut the front yard again. I noticed while mowing all the fruit trees are loaded with blossoms. Should be a bumper crop of apples and peaches this year. One of my small cherry trees got chewed off, however. Deer or rabbit most likely. I also planted a few lily bulbs and took the dog for a walk after supper.

Typical "shitty" day in the country.

Edit: I forgot to mention cleaning up the dog poop in his pen as well - truly was a shitty day.