Big jobs

This is the Corral OK yesterday morning before the cavalry arrived. Pip is struggling through the mud and in all this is not a good place to be.

The big job planned is to convert the goat house into a field shelter for Hetty and her love interest (which we hope will be Rudy but it seems he has no work permit so there are a few complications on that front) or as a shelter for the shitlands Misty and the Pocket Rocket, Trevor. Any attempt at refurbishment would be doomed to failure thanks to the foot deep brown stuff. My cunning plan was to get the digger to scoop out the old bedding and dead goats night time accidents, thus speeding up what is inevitably going to be a long job.

As can be seen the digger has saved a huge amount of spade work and several trips to the osteopath. The would be shelters are prepped and ready for concreting, bonus find was the hard core in the shelters, I had forgotten I had put it there, again this saves hours of spade work (and some pennies)

The pic above and then the one below shows exactly how muddy it was and now how muddy it isn't, the curious white blob in the picture below are the dry ingredients for several metres of concrete that will be laid tomorrow, after the rugby but before we get a ton of pig feed. The plan is to concrete the bases of the shelters and put steel gates across the front. The building was put up by a friend called Karl (see the first entries on these blogs to establish quite how inept he was at cutting and measuring, this explains why one shelter needs a 7 foot gate, the other a six foot gate, and why the whole building is not as tall as the kennel block on its left, it should have been but Karl did not follow the plan given) who we think is currently tied to a rubber tree in Burma. Once the shelters are fit for purpose a concrete path will be laid along the front linking the kennel block to the rest of the world, and slowly but surely the whole of the Corral OK will be transformed from a potential quagmire to a concrete pad where ponies and cows can skip and frolic with mudless hooves in the worst of the weather.

Now this will take some time, and a bit of effort from yours truly, George, several mugs of tea and at least one trip to see Agnes. But it will be done. Eventually. By Christmas it will all be over.