Spring and the manure pile of Love

Now that spring is coming, I know that I've piled higher and deeper than ever before this winter. Here at the Lovestead, the 4-foot deep manure mountain extends the full length of the barn. It's hidden from the road so people won't drive by and say, "They sure are full of s---."

Only we Love family members, our dogs and anyone who goes down our lane west of the barn knows how much s--- we really have here. I also try to keep the pile hidden because I don't want thieves to come with shovels in the night, scoop it all up and haul it home to enrich their garden spots. There's some ripe and rich stuff in that pile, and it's destined for use at the Love gardens this spring.

I know from experience how people covet other people's horse apple piles because one day I ran into a former student at the grocery store. He introduced me to his wife and told me he lived on North Center Valley Road. Somehow the subject of my sisters came up, and I described where they lived, to which his wife replied, "Oh, they're the place with the beautiful---here is where I fully expected her to say 'horses', but here is where she completed her sentence with "manure pile."

Barbara and Laurie keep their manure pile out in full view so all those people driving down HWY 95 will have to choose between the pretty horses and their pile aplenty. Oh well, it's all related since those Arabian horses all did their part in producing the pile.

After all, when you have nearly a dozen creatures depositing their excess nutrition inside box stalls for 12 hours daily, you can stockpile that stuff fairly quickly. And, as the pile grows, several HWY 95 drivers keep track of that ever-growing brown mountain which sends off clouds of early morning steam, almost threatening to erupt like Mount St. Helens. Imagine the possibilities of manure mountain eruptions!

When my sisters' gets to a certain size and spring settles in for certain, the Tibbs telephone starts ringing. Manure aficionados line up to get their load, and occasionally one manure glutton comes by and scoops up the whole pile for himself. Barbara and Laurie keep their manure fund in a jar at my mother's house. If they do the scooping with tractor and loader, the well-aged stuff costs five dollars a load. If folks choose to shovel their own stuff, it's free. Most opt for the five-dollar variety.

Now, the Love pile over here in Selle won't come close to that at the Colburn farm. After all, a little ciphering will show that our three horses probably produce an average of 18 deposits in their stalls during a 12-hour period, while 11 times 6 equals 66 piles of poop daily for the Tibbs horse herd. There's no way I'm even going to try to feed my horses extra flakes of hay and cans of grain to up production. I'm happy to keep my inventory low, cuz I like shoveling the stuff for only so long each day.

I'm glad to see how much has built up over the winter because it should translate into some phenomenal lettuce, beans, carrots and spinach this year. Still, there will be plenty left over. I don't live on a highway and since I hide my pile behind the barn, I might have to advertise. So, keep our Love apples in mind if you're needed some rich fertilizer for your garden this spring. In our case, it will be free for the shoveling.

That said, I'd better get out there to the barn and start shoveling, cuz one thing's for sure: horses will keep on supplying regardless of weather, wars, or calendar dates. If only it could be the same with oil!