Phooey!

Remember Pigpen? He was the little kid who could best be described as a "dirt magnet." That's me.

On Monday, I took a shower before going out to do the morning chores. That was a collosal waste of time and water. Before going out, I had to change all my clothing and shower again.

Ten minutes after going out, I was covered with mud and sludge. Since the spring went dry a day earlier, I decided to take a shovel and clean out the sludge left behind in the cement waterer. Optimally, you'd never see the bottom of a spring-fed waterer, let alone clean it out.

The cows were going "nuts" looking for other sources of water. They'd been let into the lower pasture to get some grass. No rain for so long has depleted the supply in the upper pastures. The large cement waterer usually accommodates them very well, so the ball waterer was fenced in for the goats in the small front pasture. I filled two large water troughs for the cows elsewhere in the lower pasture, but they broke the fence to get to the ball waterer.

Last night, we worked in the dark to switch the fencing around so that it was on the "cow side", then got all the cows on their side of the fence. It was a lot of work and stress, but as soon as it was accessible, I realized why the cows were so determined: it was the small calves who came up to drink. Head slap! They were too short to drink from the big water troughs! The cement spring-fed waterer is at their level, but the troughs are just too tall.

Actually, I think that cows and goats are very patient with us humans and have to work very hard to get us to understand their concerns.

There is a "slight chance" for rain today, so I'm going to go out and finish cleaning out the cement waterer. All the mud and sludge remaining is dried out completely. No shower until AFTER this and all the barn raking and messing around in the garden. It has to rain sometime, and that will, hopefully, allow the spring to collect water again and fill the waterer.

Optimistically, this is my one chance this year to get that waterer cleaned out completely.

Think rain.