A Two-Post Sunday

 It was a glorious winter day here in Tongie, got up to mid-fifties after the last three weeks that wore us out.  We had a peaceful morning, and I read the paper after chores, at leisure.  Then into my brother's to drop off some groceries, and to get the car washed finally, and to stop at Wally World for some things.  I had intended to broil two small steaks in the oven, but left the oven cleaner at Wal Mart!  It's time to clean, it doesn't look dirty, but we can tell when we broil that it needs cleaning.  Anyway, that will be a project for one night this week, now.  So we are having chili dogs, and though I love to bake on Sunday, the only thing that got baked today were some Cinnabon Pillsbury rolls (and delicious they were!).

Normally I would not do a second post in a day, but there were so many things happening, that I want to talk about them.  First, I came home and let the little girls out to run around in the nice weather for a while.  They were so glad to get out and stretch their legs!

Then, I tackled this:

LLamas are unique in that they normally poop in the same place all the time.  They don't spread it around the whole pasture.  This was in the back of the llama barn, where they have been spending a lot of time in the cold weather.

And after much pitchforking, loading into the big yard cart,  it ended up here:

In my new garden bed (one of them).

Then I tackled the big henhouse, which was horrible from the starlings this week.  In fact, as I walked towards it, numerous of the foul birds flew out the eaves. 

Here is the front of it, showing Beau's old yard stall plainly, now a catch-all:

The big yard cart is there on the right, and if you click on the picture and make it big, you can just see the heated llama trough which I also dumped and cleaned, on the left behind the walnut tree.  On the right is Butch's little four x four pen in the henyard, with it's blue tarp cover.  Out of sight just to the right is the little henhouse.  I had to spread some bad hay there just to be able to get back and forth, as the mud was slick.

I started digging out the nasty wet dirt in the henhouse with a large shovel we keep in there for that purpose.  I only did half of the big room, as it was backbreaking dragging the cart through the snow just outside the camera view behind me. 

Inside the henhouse, I found this:

The bucket on the right is a "nest" that Birdy likes to lay in.  It's a feed bucket.  She was in there early this morning when I went out to feed and let the birds out.  My guess is he found her egg, because he had a lump in him, and I found him draped over the bucket, sleepy.  After I started shoveling, he started into the hole in the wall.  I nudged him and he turned his head around to look out and see what was bothering him.  He was a big one, if it was Mr. T, we have never seen him this early... February 12th... more like March, or mid-March. 

About then, Keith got home and filled the llama trough for me, and we watched hundreds of geese flying overhead. 

So here is Lil inspecting the loads of chicken-cleanings I dumped on my new garden bed.  I had to trundle the carts through the snow, and it was hard work, so I'm pooped out tonight.  Our steak dinner became chili dogs.  Keith will take the pitchfork to the pile of llama poop straw on the right this week, and spread it out better, I was tuckered out when I got that far. 

Spring, I think at last, is in the air!