Making a flat place

For years we have been buying hay in the fall for use in the winter. If we buy a whole trailer load of around 200 bales, we save money. But storing that much hay has been a problem since we were doing it on pallets covered with a large tarpaulin. Mice, rabbits, and even frogs take residence in the hay making it a bit less palatable to the horses, I’m sure. (The frogs like the little rainwater puddles that form in the folds of the tarp.)

Yesterday Luke laid out a new area for a couple of large storage containers that we plan to buy. Using a rented Bobcat, he shoved dirt and rocks around while I manned the nozzle on the end of 400 feet (122 meters) of garden hose I had laid out the day before to control dust and perhaps soften the dirt/clay/rock soil mixture. One part of the project that took the longest was extricating a rock that eventually came out after a couple of hours’ work. What was left of it was almost as big as a washing machine.

Anytime we want to put up a structure we have to make a level place for it. On our entire two-mile-long piece of property there are maybe five or six natural level places, each the size of a postage stamp. Our new level spot is the size of 103,680 stamps! It could hold quite a stamp collection, but will have to settle for a couple of hay-filled aluminum freight containers instead.