There were times this winter, as I trudged through bone-chilling early morning winds and snowstorms to feed the cats and donkeys, that I wondered if deep insanity had prompted me to adopt these money-burning parasites or if I had merely been prey during a weak moment. Today, however, I was reminded why I took on housing of the donkeys,
Ding and Dong. It was all about their poop.
I trust that many of you who read this blog followed your normal Sunday routines this morning, perhaps coffee and paper with a loving spouse, or time spent in pursuit of spiritual knowledge or experience. ProfessorRoush, however, was not engaged in such high-minded or polite endeavors. I was loading donkey crap into a cart shovelful by shovelful (as pictured above) and then, as any self-respecting rosarian would, unloading it in measured fashion as more shovelfuls onto my roses. Four carts of donkey dung were distributed among approximately 200 roses by early afternoon, interrupted only by a minor drip in the basement ceiling and by personal time to rehydrate. I threw donkey poop onto the feet of 'Charlotte Brownell' and 'Maria Stern'. I cast manure onto 'Queen Elizabeth' and at 'Madame Hardy'. I even tossed a little donkey crap on 'Jeri Jennings'. I should apologize to the latter since it is entirely possible she could run across this blog entry, but Jeri is an outstanding rosarian of great reputation and I'm sure she will understand my transgression.
Four heaping carts of donkey crap may sound like a lot of work, but I'm a long-time feces-slinger. When I was the tender age of 12 or 13 or so, at the end of our first year with registered Polled Hereford cattle, my father decided the barn needed cleaning and bade me to load the accumulated manure into my grandfather's 2-ton manure spreader. "It'll only be a couple of loads," he said. Two weeks and 28 tons of manure later the barn was clean and Dad and I had reached an understanding that he was going to buy a front-end loader for the tractor. Today's job was not nearly so taxing as that, and this afternoon I have a garden that looks like the bed pictured at the left, roses surrounded by piles of donkey poop.
There were learning opportunities today, as always. After some period of applying donkey-based fertilizer, it dawned on me that Mrs. ProfessorRoush was not going to be happy about the aroma in the vicinity of our house after the predicted rains later this week. Additionally, based on personal experience, I can now recommend that those who shovel donkey excrement into the face of a Kansas wind gusting up to 41 mph should take care never to exert themselves to the point of breathlessness and open-mouth breathing. Such inattention to detail may have dire consequences, the least of which is the likelihood that Mrs. ProfessorRoush, upon reading this blog, will subsequently withhold any affections until she forgets or at least stops gagging at the thought. The latter is, as stated, the least of my problems because after shoveling, unshoveling, and aspirating dust from four cart loads of donkey muffins, I could frankly use the rest.
Easter arrived at last, a rebirth of spirit and earth that is long overdue this year. March came in like a lion, went out like one, and winter continued into April here in Kansas, more overnight freezes in the forecast and a chance for snow predicted tonight. The closest thing to a Lamb evident in my garden this week was the small, peaceful concrete fawn that graces my viburnum bed. I found it last week, half-buried under a year of debris, and laid it on this nice new bed of straw for comfort. There perhaps, watched over and aided by the last daffodils of the season, it can tempt the weather to act more like springtime before the furnaces of summer fire up.
We began to at least pretend it was spring here this week by burning the prairie, our annual ritual here of welcoming warmer weather and clearing the fields for growth. My neighbors and I got together Friday and burned in mass, teams spread out on the periphery to protect the town from our exuberance and teams within to protect our homes from ourselves. This year's burn started out on a cold morning at 35ºF but rose to 60º temperatures by midday and it was a fine burn, windless when we were burning the edges and a mild breeze when we wanted the fire to sweep across the barren grasses. You can see the result here, a few piles of donkey dung continuing to smolder long after the fire was out elsewhere. Donkeys repeatedly pile their digested offerings in discrete places rather than sprinkling it over the area like bovines, so theses piles often burn slowly into the night, appearing as stars glowing on the dark prairie during windy times. Sometimes we combine the prairie burning ritual with a sacrifice, usually of a random shrub, fruit tree, or 4-wheeler caught in the fires, but this year we got away almost clean, with the only casualty a late-afternoon singeing of a bridge at the neighboring golf course.
Within the house, spring is at least trying to overcome winter. Appropriate for Easter, this white orchid began to bloom in our sunroom this week. I apologize for the reminder of winter in the still-blooming Christmas Cactus behind it, but the purity and beauty of the orchid embraced by the warmth captured by the south-facing windows tells me that Easter, as always, foretells rebirth and the arrival of more tranquil days to come.
