The Easter Chicks are more than happy where they are –
but the Turkey House has happy meat chicks in it. Federico has finished The Turkey Brooder House with a circle of windows around the top, so the chicks are draft free down on the floor but well ventilated with pull up sections to let in sun and breeze when they are older. The other good thing about the windows all the way around the top is that tucked into the garage porch out of the weather like that – the building still feels light. Not blocky and dark.
One of the girls first jobs will be to paint this. (The image was taken with the wide angle so it is looking a bit wonky, but it isn’t). 
A photo for his mother.
In my efforts to create more room on this tiny farm I have ordered a dumpster, in New Zealand we call it a Skip. A dumpster involves a significant investment of hard earned cash but the Junk must GO. And I have hands to help me clear out these buildings. The rat house especially needs cleaning out in preparation for the farrowing wing and even the garage has piles in the corners that are breeding a lot faster than my pigs. I think of the pile-up of rubbish as a bit like juggling, it takes so much energy to keep this stuff in order, to keep it in the air, to dodge and work around it, to keep my eye on all the balls – I have recycled and reused everything I can – but there is only so much I can absorb, much of this stuff was abandoned here years before even John came. Broken windows, and rotting timbers, old concrete, rusty everything, fencing wire, barbed wire, old baling wire, all rusted – useless. Old tins, car parts, cracked windscreens, ruined doors, bent roofing, you know the stuff. All going. 
With any luck the dumpster will arrive on Friday. Our John has been given notice that I will be in his stuff too. Everything will be given a place to live and then it will have a place to be returned to. I spend huge amounts of time every day looking for things. So he is agreeing to help and stay on his toes. Though I imagine there will be words! There already have been. This is where a butterfly like me (who finds it hard to settle or own stuff) and a pack rat like John (who settles into his corner with all his stuff falling apart around him and is set for the course) have to be accepting of our differences and learn to meet half way. I am very sure that he will spend a considerable time after work every day dumpster diving!
I see it as decluttering the flow of the farm. Clearing the pathways and giving my brain a rest from having to follow the path of things like shovels and hammers and hinges and wire cutters. When there is too much stuff around things get lost and everyone gets frustrated. This is why I like a simple life. I do not like to own too much. It gets too heavy. I cannot keep track of it all. 
Good morning. The little goats still come into the barn every evening. I am not ready to leave them out in the field without a mother. They are growing though… beautifully. Such lovely animals and like the pigs they are wonderfully biddable.
I hope you have a lovely day.
Your friend on the farm
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
77 responses to “Everything in its place”
It’s nice to clear things out–something I need to do, too. Daughter has a neighborhood yard sale coming up, the perfect opportunity for me.
Been lots of purging here…..not just me, the whole area from here to the coast and back into the villages…..our local Council kindly offer a hard rubbish pick u twice a year…..also known as ‘bring out your dead’ day. The verges are lined with piles of junk for days……I shudder sometimes looking at the things …or rather, the condition they’re in…ugh!…..people have been keeping under their houses and in sheds for at least 6 months. It’s a great way to have a tidy up. Also a good way to find interesting things you didn’t know you needed 🙂
It’s been a while since I’ve had a good throw out, inevitably I get rid of something I want later on but on the whole it’s great. Both the G.O. and I are great finders & keepers of good stuff often ala Nanette’s footpath recycling above. Not having a lot of room helps us be a little discerning but a farm would be scope for excess.
The turkey house looks great. What paint colours suit turkeys, I wonder.
My house is on the ‘home farm’ and housed one family starting in 1886 until I bought it 25 years ago. The barn was FULL of STUFF! I got the biggest dumpster I could and filled it easily, (including the raccoons in the freezer but that’s another story). I lived year on my own for 10 years and while I tend to hang onto things I’m not a real pack rat. Then I met and married my John and it seems ‘what goes ’round comes ’round’. Everything is almost as full as when I first bought the place! He goes up north for the nine day deer season every November and I’m always threatening to bring in another dumpster to purge the place. As for putting things back, I have given up. I have my own set of tools in my own tool box and woe to him who pokes around in there! His idea of organization is not to be understood and when he’s looking for something and asks if I know where it is my standard reply is ‘probably the last place you used it’. Good thing we like each other!
Love and use the word ‘skip’ but am a real pack rat 🙂 !! And to me everything I own is ‘useful’ and ‘beautiful’. Since barely a magazine and but a few books have been moved out of the door in the 21 years I have lived here I guess I need a huge skip but can’t think of a thing I would like to lose 🙂 !! Specially all the favourites from my school days, all the prizes won, all the presents given, every precious object collected overseas . . . . and I wake up in the morning and say ‘hello’ and ‘thanks for being there’ in every [overcrowded] room 😀 !! Hmm: one of the benefits of living alone . . . .
The turkey house sounds like a veritable Hilton for chickens. Things are getting better all the time, and as for clearing junk, I am all for it! Clutter clearing releases so much energy once all that debris from the past has gone. Even if there are Words, it must be done.
I have to get rid of things when my husband isn’t home. My son was the same way! I think after my mom and I cleaned out my grandma’s house (it took us months), it cured my of EVER needing to hoard anything. Now I declutter my house and send the things I’m not using to charity every 6 months. It’s so freeing. I can’t wait until the farmy is all organized for you, what a treat it will be! So refreshing! Love the picture for mom. Gorgeous.
I do agree, if we don’t do it someone else will have to after we have died – HORRORS!!
Or is it skip surfing in this case?! 😉
I am like you, and my husband was like John. Our solution was to give him his “shop.” He could save anything he wanted, collect anything, as long as it fit in the shop. No slopping out into the yard, no overflow into the house. When he wasn’t able to turn around in there, he got rid of a few things, rearranged others. It kept us both sane.
I was married to a pack rat for almost 25 years. Exhausting. I still have too much and purge almost daily. Now my son has brought his load to my house and my nerves are frayed once again. It’s bad Feng Shui to have that much clutter. Keeps the flow of money and good from coming in. Of course, most men just don’t understand. I wish you all the best luck I can muster up. Your young helper looks like he could be a model. Or maybe your photography has helped.
Oh no.. he is ridiculously good looking.. c
🙂
My Mary Anne is only part butterfly (she settles, but doesn’t like corners that accumulate stuff) and I . . . I settle for an occaional visit to a friend who lives alone in “his corner with all his stuff falling apart around him and is set for the course.” He offers a beer, but it’s too early. We talk about work. When I return, I check the garage first. Sometimes it feels too clean, almost windswept.