I do not belong in a horse barn!

  Yesterday evening, I decided to be a considerate sister and go along with Melanie to the horse farm where she works, and "help" her muck out stalls. It didn't seem like such a great idea this morning when I woke up, but nonetheless, I decided to go through with it! First we had to scoop all the manure out of each stall, ELEVEN of them in all! That takes quite some finesse to artfully scoop only what needs to be discarded and not the uncontaminated shavings! Next, we had to load and wheel barrows FULL of new shavings to spread in almost every stall. Needless to say, great physical strength is needed for such a feat; in which I am sadly lacking. Then, each stall has not one, but TWO water buckets to be dumped, rinsed, and refilled. Clumsy me, I managed to "rinse" the front of my dress and my boots as well! And, as if all this unusual physical labor wasn't enough, (did I mention there are ELEVEN stalls?!) Mother Nature decided to attack my allergies! The hay made me sneeze,  clouds of dust aggravated my eyes, and mean little pieces of wood shaving snuck down in my gloves and irritated my skin! I decided the shavings must be oak tree shavings as the ENT doctor told me it is quite possible that I am allergic to oak trees! Calm, peaceful OAK TREES! What next?! Melanie was out to make things rough too, as I was at one point completely thrown off the club car near the large mountain of manure shavings! She seemed to think this was enormously hilarious! By the time we were FINALLY finished, the allure of a serene morning working near majestic horses out at the barn was completely ruined for me! It is just not my calling in life. I think I'll stick with being an indoor pansy for now! (still perplexes me though, since I was along to "help", why did it take Mel just as long, if not longer, than usual to do chores?!)