It’s not the humidity, either. It’s the inertia.
Not only do I avoid any physical or mental activity when it’s hot, but my capacity to make excuses skyrockets. Once we’re well into summer and heat becomes the norm, I’ll be fine again. But for now, it’s hard for me to do anything more than slump in a chair and fan myself.
I know I’m being ridiculous. And as a Texas girl, I’m absolutely embarrassed about getting sidelined in the mid-90s (though the Texas heat argument is kind of specious because fucking EVERYONE has AC, so I was only really in the heat while driving around, and that’s only because my car was too old to make repairing the AC worthwhile).
But today, the scheduled high is just 90, so I’ve decided to bust through the inertia and TCB, even though it’s going to SUCK.
As soon as I finish my coffee, I’m going to go muck out the chicken coop. If I’m feeling really ambitious (which I don’t anticipate) and if the sheep will let me (unlikely, because they won’t have any other shade until the afternoon–see how my excuses flow like water?), maybe I’ll even start on the barn (read: I will not be starting on the barn).
Interestingly, the coop as actually gotten cleaner from my neglect. With the heat and the chickens’ work ethic for bug hunting, they’ve effectively turned the litter (mostly straw & poop) into quite a lovely compost. But it’s gotta go. I’ve got some stable grid to install before they utterly destroy my sand pile.
Here’s my overall plan for Cupcake Ranch. Hopefully, I’ll lay the groundwork this season and be able to start my garden next (too late this year anyway)
- Stable grid in barn and coop
- French drain to channel water away from barnyard
- Repair/rebuild hay shelter, with some kind of opening on the south side as well; better protected all around.
- Move or discard that stupid pile of lumber
- Move hayrack to other side of barnyard so there’s not a fence between it & hay
- Make path from hay shelter to hayrack
- Compost pile in the chicken yard
- Kill off grass between driveway and garden with cardboard and spoiled hay. Plant there next season.
- Build gate to ramp
- Replace deck over sheep shed and outfit with a picnic table (bolted down) and maybe a pipe frame with a removable coolaroo awning
- Coolaroo awning between coop & fence (where hayrack is now–under Cupcake Ranch sign)
- Semi-dwarf fruit trees on the perimeter of each paddock and on the west side of the chicken yard. For shade, fruit for us, and windfall fruit for the critters
- Herb garden on the east side of the barnyard fence–watered with old water dumped from sheep buckets. Or maybe tomatoes. Something that won’t interest the sheep to much, or that I can shelter.
- Once I sort out the perfect paddock situation (it’s still as little sketchy), kill off the grass with hay-mulched cardboard along the fence lines.
Okay, I’m done with my coffee. Now I just need to find my ipod and hit the salt mines.
It’s the humidity. And it’s miserable… and they’re finally saying we’re going to get a few days in the 80s… good thing, too, because my chickens are miserable.
This is time when you blast through the inertia…and go get a double decker ice cream cone.