Today was a beautiful day weather wise, so I decided to catch up on some chores. After being gone last weekend for a show, then this week the kids were off school for spring break, I haven't been spending that much time with the alpacas. J decided to finish the new girl's shelter, so he was busy painting.
I decided to clean up the boy's area. I usually try to clean up their poop every 2 or 3 days. This way it's 1 wheel barrow worth (at most). I have to haul their poop some distance, so it's easiest if it's only 1 wheel barrow full. And, I've read that for parasite control, it's best to scoop at least every three days. It has to do with the cycle of the parasite (if they have a parasite, the eggs won't hatch within 3 days time). There are times (like over the last week) when I don't meet my 2 to 3 day guideline. So, I ended up hauling 3 wheel barrows from the boy's area today. Part of that was because I cleaned up the old boys' area, where we plan to put the weanling boys. Still, it was 3 trips with the wheel barrow. The boys barn is .16 of a mile from our house (where our poop compost pile is), so a round trip is about 1/3 a mile, making the 3 trips that I took today a full mile. Not a hard workout, but I do think it is exercise.
I came back to our house and cleaned all the hay/straw off our patio. The hay was stored in our garage which opens onto the patio on the way to the girls' area. It seems I dropped quite a bit of hay/straw throughout the winter. I pulled it up with a pitch fork, then used a hose to clean the patio. It looks great out there now.
My next challenge was to clean out our garage. We have finally moved all the hay and grain into our hay shelter, clearing out our garage. It's wonderful to have the full garage space again! But I still hate cleaning the garage. We have too many odds and ends of things that don't have a specific spot to go. I had the kids help me with this chore and they actually were a big help.
My last chore for the day was poop by the girls' area. I actually do scoop poop in the girl's area daily. But today I cleaned out the area that used to be our garden (it will be the *new* girls' area). I had piled poop there over the winter thinking we will rototill it into the garden. Well, then we decided not to have a garden. I spent most of the afternoon cleaning that up (and I'm still not completely done with that chore).
I am beat! I hold onto my theory that people in the olden days did not have to *work out*, they were getting a constant work out just keeping up on chores. I'm a huge advocate of an active lifestyle, for many reasons. And I much preferred my activities of today than the run I took yesterday. I imagine I got more exercise today just by living than I did yesterday by exercising.
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