Barn Chores: Wood Pellets

Not one of my favorite barn chores, but it's one that I have to do twice a year. We have very sandy footing here, but it's not particularly soft. Sand is actually quite hard so we like to bed our stall footing with either shavings or wood pellets. 

I've blogged about this a dozen times or so, but wood pellets are small pellets of compressed wood that separate into a coarse sawdust when wet or crunched. They don't blow away in the wind, they don't get lifted with the pitchfork, and they blend into the sand nicely to give a fluffier surface.

Not my photo, but this is what they look like.

I buy a pallet of 50 bags twice a year. I use one bag in each stall once a week. I usually buy the pallet earlier in the spring, but my schedule got a little hectic in April due to our trip to Washington, DC, so I had to do it yesterday in the heat.

Since Sydney was still a bit tender footed on Saturday, I was left with some free time so I drove on over to Tractor Supply. Unfortunately, the guy who loaded the pallet into my truck wasn't such a great forklift operator (oh … hahahah - that reminds me of my favorite meme).

i am not saying that's my favorite curse word or anything ...

As soon as I turned out onto the road (a busy four lane street), the top half of the pallet slid over the side of my truck. The pile of 50 bags was shrink wrapped, but there was no way the plastic was going to hold all the way across town. And at just over $5 a bag, I couldn't afford to let 15 bags hit the road.

I pulled over as quickly as I could and sliced open the plastic shrink wrap. I then had to lift at least 15 bags back into the bed of my truck. I wish I had thought to take a photo of my leaning tower of pellets, but alas, I didn't. I made it back to the barn safely and then had to unload and stack the 50 bags.

I lifted and moved at least 5,000 pounds. Who needs a gym membership?!

I should be good until fall, but then I'll have to do it all again!