Dear Farm Journal,

I have often heard Rufus say that much of farming consists of moving things from one place to another, and today we did just that. As it is winter, we have been chipping away at farm organization. I say chipping away because the back of the barn is a Capricorn nightmare. There are generations of ….well everything, and many items are unidentifiable to me. Today we began organizing and restacking the building supplies for a kiln. This consists mostly of a ton of bricks of different shapes, sizes, and weights. Apparently this kiln was a Craigslist purchase made by Papa Rich and Charna five years ago. Rufus informs me that this is at least the third or fourth time that the bricks have been moved, and at this point, a jumble of other “materials” have begun to pile up on top and around these pallets of bricks. To kick off this project, our dog Gizmo saunters over to the pallet and takes a big shit right where we were intending to begin. A quick scan of the area reveals that this is a common occurrence. This was the first of many shit encounters during this task. Evidently all kinds of mammals have found this area to be quite an acceptable shitting ground. I find myself squinting my eyes, holding my breath, and wishing my gloves were a little thicker. When I need to scratch an itch on my nose or sweep the hair out of my face, I struggle to think of how I can make that happen without puking in my hand. I watch Rufus cringe in hesitation as he disassembles the piles. He says he is just bracing himself because he knows that something is going to jump out at him at some point. We silently restack the haphazardly stored supplies, brick by brick. One day, this will be my cow area…so then it will be full of cow shit. Farming….lots of moving things…lots of shit.  

~Joy