Tunnelling to the Manure Pile

We have a lot of snow here.  Maybe not a lot by Edmonton or Alaska or South Pole standards, but a lot for Gael Glen Farm.  After our first major snowfall, Ian plowed my walking path from the main house to the chicken coop; however, thanks to additional snow fall combined with drifting snow from the equestrian park next door, the snow in our back yard had begun reaching up past my knees again.

I was starting to get frustrated trekking out to the chicken coop each day as each trip was becoming a more and more lengthy affair as the snow got farther and farther above my boot tops.  Each trip now required snow pants in addition to my farm boots.  My level of tolerance with trekking through the snow came to a head earlier this week when it was time to muck out the chicken coop.  Not only was the path from the main house to the coop covered in knee deep snow; even worse, the path from the coop back to the manure pile was covered in thigh deep snow.  It was time to take action!

I appealed to Ian citing both the moral requirement to keep our chickens healthy by providing them with a clean coop and more effectively, I think, the reminder of the happy husbands' motto: "a happy wife is a happy life".  So he, and our trusty Husqvarna snow blower, blew me a wide tunnel running from the main house all the way back, past the chicken coop, and into the back paddock where the manure pile is located.

Tunnel from main house to coop.

Tunnel from coop to manure pile.

 Ian also dug out the wheelbarrow for me from under four feet of snow and removed the gate to the chicken run so I could maneuver the wheelbarrow from the coop to the manure pile with relative ease.  While he could not build me a coop cleaning snuffleupagus machine (so I still had to do the mucking myself) all the tunnels he dug out made disposing the dirty straw much, much easier.

Chicken run gate removed and waiting for spring to be reattached.

A funny side effect of having tunnels running through the yard is that the puppies now only use the tunnels to do their business while ignoring the remainder of the yard.  When their poop is spread out throughout the entire yard it is barely noticeable, but with it now concentrated only in the tunnels the path from the main house to the coop has become a poop filled mine field.  Step, step, dodge left, step, step, dodge right.  I wonder if the husbands' motto will also work for poop patrol?