No More King Of The Hill, Spreading Gravel In The Pole Barn

I didn’t expect to be raking out gravel in the pole barn today.  Friday it was the basement floor today the floor in the barn.

I was on my way home from lunch with a friend when Jon called to say that Mike was on his way to the farm with his tractor.

I got home just in time to step into my boots and grab the rake.

When Mike came to the house to check on our water pump Friday he saw the big pile of gravel in the barnyard.  He said he could come by with his tractor to spread it around and I was thrilled.

My plan was to spread the gravel gradually, but the pile was twice as big as the last time we got gravel and I wasn’t looking forward to doing it by hand even with help.

Mike not only dumped buckets full of gravel right into the barn, but he broke up the hardpacked earth floor by the gates too.  Now I can open and close the gates easily.   He couldn’t get his tractor all the way in the barn, so I raked out the piles of gravel so it was evenly spread around the inside of the barn.

The sheep and donkeys were grazing as we worked.  But as we got close to being done, Biddy came to check out what we were doing.

She stood in the pole barn looking and me and baaing.  I asked her what she thought of it all, and she just kept baaing.

Soon I heard the sheep respond from the pasture.  She was calling to them and they were answering.

Moments later all the sheep along with Fanny and Lulu showed up to see what was going on.  I have no doubt that Biddy was telling them to do just that.

The sheep piled into the barn but didn’t wander.   They stayed clustered together on one side.  I’m sure they stuck together because they were confused and uncertain.  As they sniffed around inside the barn, Fanny took a roll in the newly spread gravel outside the barn.

When I went back to work the sheep left the barn and went back to grazing.

I can understand it would be distressing to them.  Suddenly their home, with all their smells and the familiar hard ground was gone.  Now the ground was soft and absorbent and smelled like someplace else.

It’s like when the sheep get shorn and don’t recognize each other.

A few hours later it was all done.

No more King of the Hill for Robin.  Now the hill of gravel is spread inside and outside the barn where it will help with drainage and hopefully we’ll have less mud.