The Big Clear Up

We have been dreading it..but it has been so dry we just knew we had to go ahead.
The enormous muck heap in the slurry lagoon has been cleared. James,Gerald and Barry along with 2 huge tractors and JCB started work on it at 9am and didn't finish until late afternoon yesterday. The trouble with this procedure is that the tractors and trailers have to drive through the yard and around the buildings leaving the inevitable trail of detritus in their path, which we then have to clear up by hand. Oh joy of joys...especially when Becky, Robbie, Hettie, Coudy and Lucie were on holiday.
We had to bring in BT and Al, although BT has been entirely used to tractors throughout his life, on this occasion this whole situation was just too dreadful and simply would not be borne. I then had to juggle him around to try and make sure that he was out of earshot (impossible) and certainly put him somewhere where he couldn't see what on earth was making all that clatter. I've always said that whoever named him Broughton's Turmoil got his character on the nose. Oh well.
Matt Day Robinson finished the fencing in the orchard at the weekend. It looks really splendid and will make such a difference to Laura because the children can now be in a safe area. It's just a bit of a shame that we have had to put the contents of the slurry lagoon adjacent to this wonderful bit of fencing, and it's just a bit of luck that Matt DR is not around now to see it.
Talking about the children, Matt overheard one little girl ask if all those animals in the fields were buffalos............
We have spent all morning clearing up the yard but at least that is one less thing to do before the Open Day.
Steady Eddy isn't so good. He is thirty and although he has been exceptionally well all over the winter, we had to get Andrew our vet to come over and have a look at him on Sunday. I couldn't quite work out what was wrong because he couldn't put his head to the ground and was inexplicably sensitive pretty much all over. After a bit of head scratching the only thing that we could come up with was that he had taken a fall in the field. He is now in with Runner and Monty (which Monty is a bit fed up about)but you can't separate these old timers. I'm hoping that a few days of painkillers and enforced rest will see him feel a bit better. It's always worrying when elderly horses 'go down' with any ailment because it can very well lead to something more serious.
Anyway, we will have to wait and hope he is ok. Sue has just come in to tell me that he can now put his head on the ground to eat but is still uncomfortable, so, sadly for Monty they will still be confined to barracks.
We have just done field checks only to see Sam and Forgery have quite a serious squabble over the possession of a bit of wood that one of them had found.
We have nearly all the horses out now, and are hoping that New Seeker and Fairfield Lodge will go out tomorrow, this is great news for them both but because they have been on box rest for so long, extremely nerve wracking for us!