Oh Buckets

Once upon a time and a long, long time ago when I was pregnant with Mr Blue Eyes, Handy Man and I decided to re-side our little house on the prairie by our selves. Not because we enjoyed manual labor - although being 7 months pregnant, standing on a ladder holding siding could have caused me to go into labor - but because we were a cheap thrifty DIY couple, we sided our house by our selves. After hanging all of the siding, we had to caulk all of the joints and cuts in the new siding. Then we painted over the siding.
~The End.


Last weekend was beautiful. I spent the majority of the day Saturday out in the barn. Organizing first aid supplies, cleaning the paddock, attempting to grade my new arena - which was not very successful because it is January... in Colorado... and the ground is frozen. But I sure did enjoy getting back on that tractor. I missed feeling the farm girl alive in my veins.

I knew this week's weather forecast was calling for snow.

I no longer have fifty foot runs off the back side of my stalls. Runs that had water tanks at the ends that we would fill up and sink fancy water heaters in them.

I do have a fancy new automatic waterer now. But it's outside... in the paddock.

The dread of frozen water buckets flooded my mind. Oh, how I despise frozen water buckets.

It was a beautiful day. A good enough day to wash some old buckets and get ready for the snow that would be coming in just two days. I rummaged though the barn and as I was counting my buckets I came across one of my fancy purple buckets... caked with some kind of hard, white, goop.

Son-of-a-... who would have... HANDY MAN!

So, I asked him.

So remember that time we (see the above story) caulked the house? Well, we used that there beautiful purple HORSE bucket in the process. I am just guessing here... but I don't think it was really washed out properly and was instead allowed to dry.  

His suggestion, "Just use a different bucket." Geesh why didn't I think of that?!?!

Once upon a time, I used to have many buckets...

Back in the barn, I only counted 6 buckets.

I have 5 horses. (6-5 = 1)

I hate taking each bucket down, refilling it, then replacing it. It's much easier to have a community bucket to fill and dump, fill and dump.

But if I just use a different bucket and I only have 6 buckets, and I have 5 horses and I want to use one for filling and dumping... Oh, hell, I am too tired for a math problem.

Do you know how long it takes to clean caulk out of a bucket after it has cured for 2 years?

... about 20-30 minutes. Scrubbing. Scraping. Finding random possible tools in your barn because you are too frustrated to walk all the way to the garage to find something else.

Here is what I had to work with...

An old toilet brush re-assigned to clean water tanks.
An old food scraper-brush-thing also re-assigned to clean water tanks.
A hoof pick.
And some sort of a hose clamp.

I am an Equine MacGyver. You should see what I can do with bailing twine!

After 15 minutes, maybe more...

Cussing and scraping...

Scraping and cussing.

Voila!

 

For the record, should there me a "next time" I will take Handy Man's advice and just use a different bucket.  

And it will be shiny and NEW from my local feed store. 

And it will be heated so that I do not have to break ice in the winter.