It’s Taken 10 Years Of Marriage To Work Out A System This Effective

This weekend my husband and I decided that we were going to tackle some projects that we have been putting off for a very very long time. First on the list: to finally move the 2 piles of horse manure that have been sitting on our front lawn for the past year.

How did we come to have 2 piles of horse manure sitting on our front lawn for an entire year, you ask? That is an excellent question, especially since I am not entirely sure how this happened myself.

I think what happened is this: Last spring some new neighbors moved into the house across the street from us. Somehow in the course of making their acquaintance they happened to mention that, for reasons not relevant to this story, they would from time to time be receiving deliveries of horse manure fresh from the stables down the road, and would we like some too?

I, whose hospitality extends pretty far but does in fact stop short of poo, was ready to politely decline. But my husband, either caught up in the spirit of welcoming our new neighbors, or perhaps tapping into private knowledge of some future time when we would indeed need our own supply of fresh manure, said yes.

So we received our delivery, and there the piles sat for an entire year. Until today when, perhaps prompted by the same mysterious urge that made him request the poo in the first place, my husband announced that it was time to for us to actually use the manure to fertilize our yard.

He asked me if I would help and I said yes. But because 1) I was working with poo, and 2) I was working on the part of the lawn where the imaginary snakes live I was working very cautiously. This meant that the work proceeded only slightly faster than it would have were it being performed by a lawn crew composed entirely of tortoises who had only recently been dug out of the glacier where they had been frozen for the past 40,000 years.

It also meant that our work was frequently interrupted by conversations like this:

Me: EEEW! NASTY!

My husband: What?

Me: Something dead. For real this time. It’s furry.

Me: (backing away so as to give my husband a WIDE berth for dealing with the furry dead thing in the pine straw.)

My husband: (rustling around.)

My husband: You mean this tree branch? (Holding up something that is clearly The Opposite of ‘furry’.)

So, if we take the two piles of poo, and divide them by two people working with three rakes and one wheelbarrow, and subtract all the times I get distracted by the cats playing in the front window, and also subtract all the times I mistake totally innocuous yard debris for threatening wildlife, it will only take us approximately 50 katrillion more trips around the yard until all of the poo finds a home.

Like a well-oiled machine, no?