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”
Wonderful – a good spring clean makes everything feel better!
I feel for you. When we got married, I discovered to my astonishment that not everyone puts their tools back after use… I’ve become very possessive of ‘my’ tools, because they now walk, and I can’t find a thing. Of course, they’re ‘our’ tools now, but if neither of us can find them, they’re worse than useless…. Your skip will fill as if by magic, even with Our John diving into it nightly to retrieve treasures. There’s an art to filling a skip efficiently, and I’m sure you know it well. Who wants to pay for empty space to be carted away? Good luck with the clearing.
You know me well Kate – I will be the packer never fear!!
I do like a good clear out. Trouble is I chuck out stuff that I eventually need again
I love that word dumpster (and the idea) – it describes the object so clearly, whereas the British word skip is laughably inaccurate! The French word is “benne” which doesn’t grab me either. I’m wondering if we’ll recognise the Farmy after the clearup! I’m in entire agreement with your views on stuff, and on returning tools to their homes.
I’m having more computer problems, thanks to a rogue Windows update, so I may go quiet for a bit. (Do I hear you cheering?)
Enjoy your day,
love,
ViV
Sorry to hear about your computer problems. Hope they are sorted real soon. You will be missed.
Thank you. I’ve got rid of a lot of junk apps that appeared without my volition, but I still need to go and see my SYM (splendid young man) again.
did you run a scan? If not do so now.
You have had so many computer problems lately Viv, I am sure you are well up to date on all the latest.. if you come across any interesting clean up methods let us know.. mine is running a bit slow too! (Though I know why – too many useless images needing to be dumped in the dumpster) c
USB Keys are great for storing photos, Celi. Mind you, I think you would need to colour code them>>>> ome for each type of animal!
Several – I found 4 different antivirus programmes, all working!
excellent..
Bonjour ViV! I hope you are still online to read this, for you inspired me to look up the etymology of “dumpster”- since I lived for a few years on Dempster Street in Evanston, Illinois, & always heard dumpsters referred to as Dempster Dumpsters & I assumed because they were manufactured further out on Dempster in some factory. So thanks to the brilliance of the net one click this morning brought me to Wikipedia’s story of George Roby Dempster (1887-1964) who created dumpsters. He was a successful businessman & progressive politico in Knoxville, Tennessee, who hired the handicapped & the blind & did many other good things. I guess my street was just named in his honor because I didn’t find any other Evanston connection to him in my brief search. But so, the word was a fun alliteration. And now I wish I were inspired to dump the winter junk all around me. Depeche-toi back again bientot as we enjoy your bon mots from France. Happy Spring Cleaning, Celi, & keep a sharp eye in the dumpster, John. Judith in Asheville.
What a great response, I love eponymic names like Hoover and Dumpster.
And here in Knoxville, you can get still a courtesy Dempster Dumpster free for three days if you request one. We got one when we were moving. I do love lightening the load a bit.
I love purging and sorting and tiding. I would be there in a heartbeat to help fill the skip if I could C! My Pete and I also have disagreements about what to keep and what goes where and he like your John keeps everything!
Have a beautiful day.
🙂 Mandy xo
I would be right behind you Mandy, with willing hands.
So far I have rent three big ones in the ten years we have been on the farm, filled to the brim, its made such a difference but yes, very costly indee.. had to be done
This time of year I love to set things in order and tidy and clean everything. The Mennonite /Amish community that I live in considers everything to be common ground so I have learned to keep what I don’t want carried away (to be used and forgotten elsewhere) out of sight!
Pack Rat here, Our John has my sympathy 🙂 Handsome and Useful … well done Frederico! Freya and Hazel growing up so quickly. Happy tidying up. Laura
Had to chime in with support for the pack rat point of view! My thought is that I’d rather be doing something else–anything else–other than sorting and organizing.
My Gramma used to say “A place for everything and everything in its place’. I just love that saying and really do try to implement it around here. Sadly, My John has not heard of it, and like Our John, not only do things not go back in their personal places, but very little actually is ‘let go of’ which also makes me crazy! I, too, love simplicity! Makes life so much easier, and so much less time is wasted looking for stuff!!! Happy De-cluttering my friend! 🙂 PS I know what you mean about stuff being there from decades ago! The hay loft on our farm was chocked full of all kinds of the stuff you described when we arrived, with not even room for a bale of hay!!!
The term ‘eye candy’ comes to mind *sigh*…. I do believe I am about half-way in between swept clear and pack rat, so my sympathies go with you both. In my heart of hearts I am a pack rat, no question; it almost physically hurts to throw stuff away. However, I have reached a stage in my life where I do appreciate simplicity to a great degree. This is why I say about half-way in between.
Yes, with all the talk of cows calving and possible piggie pregnancies, gardens and gnomes, we haven’t heart much about the goats and their tees…….. lol She is looking rather fine, and hope all is well in that corner.
You, too, have a loveRly day! Mame
Happy spring cleaning. It will make you feel good to have the spaces all tidied up and I am hoping your John can handle a bit of organization. 🙂
Well at our house the roles are reversed for the most part, I am the pack rat and my husband is the organizer. Except when it comes to tools. I like the tools to have a home and for them to spend time there bonding with the other tools to create a happy, easy to locate family. He seems to be of the free range ideology which unfortunately seems to have rubbed off on the kids. Do you have a scrap/junk collector in your area? If you have a lot of scrap metal there might be someone who would haul it away for the metal or if you have enough of the right kind of metal they may pay a small amount. That way the dumpster will have room for more trash. We use to get them at the farm often since it was on a major road on the way to the recycling place. Much to Dad’s disgust they often wanted some of his old machinery that he was still using as well as his actual scrap.
My thoughts too Jeanne… scrap metal recycling might well pay for the cost of the skip, plus a little profit.
So happy for you and your order. Am working on the same here. It’s a slog. Urban style.
A good clear out is very therapeutic I find! We had to do the same with the old church in preparation for the quail; a good ‘bottoming’ as we call it!
Christine
You are on the right track!! That sort of deep, deep cleaning of stuff long ago abandoned is SO freeing.
A story similar to Our John’s need to keep things. My husband has a wool sweater. The moths got to it one summer and when he needed to wear it he discovered a hole (too big to mend)—right where a pocket might be. Instead of tossing the sweater or donating it, he merely put a piece of duct tape on the inside of the sweater. It was gray like the tape. We had money by then, we were no longer starving newlyweds. “It’s perfectly fine, no one will notice.” The next year I snuck it into a bag of donation clothes. He fished it out!!! We still have the sweater and he still wears it.