Another thing rain brings is Mud. When you own a horse the M in mud is suddenly capitalized. When you own my particular horse the whole word should be capitalized.
I used to blame the muddy situation on his stall. "The ground is too low so the water collects and causes all this mud," or "the water from the other stalls is draining into mine!" But after switching stalls twice I really have to turn the blame over to Biggs himself. I have seen the stall he's in now be occupied by another horse and during winters it has always stayed nice and hard with very little mud factor. This is why I requested to move to this mud-less location.
It's become very apparent that my horse is a giant spoon and the stall is his mixing bowl. God only knows what he does in there while I'm gone to make such a grotesque situation. I would feel bad for him but he LOVES his mud creation and coats every inch of himself in it any chance he gets. I walk around to look at different stalls in an attempt to find one muddier than mine and I come across these horses all huddled up in their indoor area, afraid to step out into the wet. I return to mine and Biggs is out splashing in a puddle or mud wrestling with himself. For some reason he has restricted his indoor area for eating only.
Every morning I come to the barn to feed, clean and exercise this beast of mine and each time I'm faced with cleaning poo out of this magnitude of mud I want to suddenly go missing and never be found. I want to pretend I don't see it, get back in my car and go home to take a 30 minute shower. But instead I pull my rubber boots on and start scoopin'. When I'm done, I've got a load that looks more or less like this...
Can you tell what's poo and what's mud? It's very closely related at this point. It's also HEAVY. I'm lucky if I make it to the poo pile without crashing and tipping poo-mud all over myself and the ground. I normally make it, sweating, huffing and puffing. Or I crash right at the point of the poo-pile. This is the poo pile.
I realize this post has been all about mud and poo and I apologize. It's something I deal with on a regular basis and I don't want to be alone.
So this is where the poo of all the horses at my barn is deposited. In it's glory this pile is triple this size but it's been recently cleared out. It's actually put to very good use as compost/fertilizer for local farmers. Every two weeks, the barn owner revs up his big tractor and mixes it all up and turns it all around. It's real steamy. Then, suddenly, every couple months the whole massive pile will just disappear and I can sleep at night knowing the farmers can feed their crops with my horses' poo. He gives back to society and the earth...maybe that's why he feels such a close relationship with Mud.
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