A Bit of Farm Reality

Yesterday was a bit drizzly out, it wasn't really raining but it was wet out. Emery had all sorts of projects he wanted to accomplish during the day outside. One was to spruce up the chicken house, we had to buy a new waterer, which led us to fix the feeder and change the roosts. It was also time to change out the hay in the nesting boxes and put up the light so the chickens will have more "day time" which keeps them laying better. Yes, its a bit unnatural but it gives us more eggs. A prime example of man manipulating the natural world for his own personal need.
At any rate, Emery and I made several trips in and out of the house in this damp weather. Damp ground means, stuff sticks to your boots. Leaves, grass, dirt, a bit of mud, and of course, chicken stuff. Its part of farm life, no getting around it. Some of this stuff forms what we call waffles on the soles of your boots and drops off on the kitchen floor, natural matter, formed like the lug pattern of your boot sole. In no time at all my nice white, (what was I thinking when I chose white ????) floor looked a fright. I swept it, and mopped it and headed outside again. Once again, in less than an hour, the floor was a mess. We have a mat outside to clean off our shoes but it doesn't get it all. Its just too inconvenient to pull off boots every time we come in the back door to get something since it may be only a couple minutes that we need to be in the house.
So it went all day long. I cleaned and cleaned and wondered why I bothered. Might have been better to just do it once and for all at the end of the day. But it looked sooooo bad.
When you add goats, sheep, ducks, cows, turkeys etc, the mess is greater.
My husband tells of working with the cows before school and then having to hop right on the school bus with nasty manure caked boots, but he was not alone, it was a farming community and all the kids had morning chores before the bus came. No time to change.
We are soon building on a back porch. It will not have a white floor and it will have lots of mats so that maybe most of the stuff will fall off before it gets to my kitchen.
The kitchen floor is new-ish but already I am wishing it was a wood plank floor that shows less. Well, maybe next year I can convince Emery we need to have the kitchen floor match the dinning room floor

The floor after its third washing of the day !