The Cost of Carelessness

care·less·ness

ˈkerləsnəs/

noun

1. failure to give sufficient attention to avoiding harm or errors; negligence.

   "most road accidents are caused by carelessness on the part of motorists"

The weekend of Independence day was busy! DH was home and we raced to get the shade project for the chicken run and rabbit hutches done.

Halfway finished! All that was left to do was secure it.

It's not pretty but it's functional for now. On the days when I'm not home to let the chickens free range, they have a shady spot to go under and hopefully we won't lose any more baby bunnies to heat. The framework was scavenged from an old jobsite DH had been on so we were only out the cost of a tarp and the time to set it up.

In the madness of getting that all done and rushing through the daily chores before the big rains came through, one of us (no names, cough cough) didn't fully re-cover the goat hay with the tarp that protects it from the leaky roof. Since we only have to refill the hay feeder every 2 or 3 days, some of the hay was soaked by the time I discovered the oversight. At that point there was nothing to be done except wait for the rains to stop and then toss what was ruined.

Yesterday I spent the better part of the day taking moldy hay out of the storage shed and hauling it off to the garden area.

Mold grows quick!

My helper- making sure I don't miss any bad spots.

It was a sweaty, itchy, stinky job! On top of hauling out the bad stuff, I had to figure out a way to stack the good hay out of the way while going through every bale to check for any sign of mold. I found 11 bales that were ruined and I set aside all the surrounding hay to watch for signs of mold before feeding. Fortunately the rest stayed dry under the part of the tarp that hadn't been tossed back. So we are out the cost of 11 bales of hay and a few days worth of pain killers for now. And that, my friends, is the expense of a reminder to not be careless in a rush.