While I did chores on Monday, I let my mind start to wander. I thought of all the times I've done chores over the years: all the horses I've lead in and out, all the water buckets I've dumped and filled, all the sweeping I've done.
I started to do the math: how many stalls have I mucked over the years?
The first time I had a regular shift of chores was January 2006 - August 2007. Let's say that before that time, I had done ~25 stalls at summer camp and at miscellaneous riding barns before I owned Tristan.
That regular shift did not include mucking out, but it did include picking stalls. Let's say that 3 stalls picked = 1 stall mucked. Let's say that I did 100 days of work during that time; it was a 30 stall barn. So that's 1000 stalls during that time. I also did ~30 days of actual stall mucking, averaging 8 stalls per shift, so there's another 240.
From August 2007 - May 2013, believe it or not, I did not do a regular chore shift. I mucked stalls occasionally: when I wanted to pitch in by doing Tristan's, when I took him off property, or when I was helping a friend. More often I picked out Tristan's stall. Let's say during those 6 years I mucked ~50 stalls.
Since May 2013, I have done probably 40 or so days of work, averaging 8 stalls each time. So there's 320 more stalls.
All told, that adds up to 1,635 stalls mucked in my lifetime. That seems really, really low, actually!
What about you? How many stalls do you think you've mucked out in your lifetime?
It changes by orders of magnitude when you have horses in your back yard, and by multiples of two when you board other people's horses in order to pay for your own. I was doing a rough count, and it is kind of astonishing.
ReplyDelete1971 we moved into a farmhouse, as an experiment with country living. There was a two stall barn, and a run-in shed. We had one pony, boarded another, bought our second, and were boarding the farmowner's two ponies, for a total of 5, for a year. That would be 2 stalls plus pasture picking daily, for 9 months (it took a while to accumulate them all!)
1972 we found our own ex-urban development farm, with a three stall barn. The barn was steadily full for three years, with combinations of our horses and boarders. We moved again to a different three stall barn, but only used two stalls, the rest was steady turnout, again for three years.
During college and grad school, if I was riding, I was working, generally 5 to 8 stalls 3x/week. Actually getting older, living not-on-a-farm and getting (slightly) wealthier has meant less stall work. When I restarted, I was working to ride, 5 stalls 3x/week for the school year. A couple years ago that changed, and now I'm actually boarding a horse and (gasp) NOT cleaning stalls except when someone is out sick. It is weirdly freeing. But I'm thinking my life total is well into the hundred thousands. I'm just not up for the math right now.... (only partly because I'm feeling reeeeeaaly old)
A lot. I do my own stalls every single day. I've done my own stalls every single day for many years. I am 43. I've mucked THOUSANDS of stalls. :0)
ReplyDeleteNot that much! I don't much anymore now that I board and don't work off any of it.
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