Equus Asinus

Sometimes the long-awaited holidays fly by without accomplishing any of the intended holiday projects but at least today I managed to get one of them done. The poo cart.

The main challenge every morning before I go off to work in a local school is to get all the chores done on the donkey field. After morning carrots and mixing the feed for the donks, checking their drinking water and inspecting the fences, the main time-consuming job is sweeping up their overnight manure.  They used to deposit their manure neatly on the edge of the field in three main places, but something changed – I have no idea why – and they now do their droppings in a random pattern all around the field.  For me, moving around with buckets, wheelbarrow, broom, rake and shovel, it is the most time-consuming job, particularly in the winter mornings when I only have a few minutes daylight before it is time to go to work.  A wheelbarrow is really not a very practical vehicle: it only holds two buckets and the broom, rake, shovel etc. always fall off.

Solution: flatbed barrow made from old wheelbarrow & pallet.

Please note: the advertised blog post on the place of the donkey in the mediaeval Feast of Fools, originally advertised for today, has been re-scheduled for New Year’s day, as I have adopted the modern scholarly view that the Feast of the Circumcision is the more likely date for the start of the Feast of Fools, rather than the Holy Innocents, which was my former understanding.