Way back then, when we were an “nice” adults-and-kids type family (unlike the noisy-often-irreverent-collection-of-individuals we are today), I mentioned to the soccer mum standing next to me on the sideline my loathing of “family outings”. I remember, as the words left my mouth, being utterly horrified at my slip; even in the days before facebook, instagram, and pinterest, admitting you didn’t live for picnics in the park or road trip treasure hunts (are we the only family for whom those always ended with us screeching to a halt to pull the kids apart because they both claimed they’d had been the first to see the trig point?) was akin to showing your membership card to the local witches coven. You know: just not lovely.
Turns out, I had chosen to confess to the right person. Mrs Smith (real name) not only shared my dislike of outings likely to spawn what we used to call Kodak moments, her family had taken it a step further, bestowing these outings with their own appellation: Forced Family Fun or FFF for short.
From that day it has been part of Homestead venacular and today we undertook some FFF of our own.
You see by now, on that list we compiled in preparation for our move to the country, we were meant to have procured both the set of harrows and the ATV to pull them. They came just under 1. ride-on mower and 2. pig pen fencing. Harrows spread the animal manure, helping the pasture grow evenly and limiting the paddock’s parasite load; oh yes, we did our prep! Suffice to say, the list now only exists in our memory – proof positive of our naivity – but we keep telling each other that, one day we’ll get there (wherever that is).
But (this next bit must be said in a Yorkshire accent) the muck won’t spread itself, and as none of us felt enthused enough to attempt the harrows-from-a-pallet plan we found on Pinterest capable of being towed behind the ute, we instead got ourselves out into the sunshine.
It was quickly ruled that, whilst Homesteaders were free to adopt their own technique,
a unified direction must be adherred to.
Turns out this FFF was actually fun,
and noisy enough to haul yourself up onto the goat paddock grandstand and check out just what it was we were kicking up a stink about.
Hope you’re all finding lockdown-appropriate, belly-laugh-inducing ways of passing your time, too.
Union Homestead 
Very practical in these virus ridden times, I’ll bet you had a lot of laughs while doing it!
Always😂
Haha – the thought of the goat watching you seems funniest of all to me – our dog always used to look a way in what I took to be an embarrassed fashion whenever I had to stoop to collect the evidence if we were out walking in public places, which always made me giggle inside. I notice one member of the homestead is not kicking up a stink – presumably he was holding the camera? My brother and family keep llamas, which my offspring are occasionally hired to look after at vacation time – I have stepped in to help once or twice. I am not fond of the llamas, aloof, stand offish and somewhat “you talkin’ to me?” if I get too close – but I will say that they pick a part of their paddock to use as the facilities and stick to it – all of them sharing the one spot. It makes scooping very easy, and it turns out llama poop commands a fine price, so scooping is what is done. Does goat poop have magical gardening properties?
Totally agree with you re: animal expressions. We woke the other mornjng to find the paddock neighbouring our goats had new residents: a flock of Merino sheep. These guys spend most of their time looking at us in what we take to be utter disbelief – “good grief! Get a load of what these twits are doing now!”
Yes, The Farmer was behind the camera and also responsible for The Goat Herds costume change. Its funny when its not you🤣🤣🤣
Nikita has alpaca – a tad aloof and flighty but, as you say, easy to clean up after and yes goat poo is really high in nitrogen so great for the garden.
A more vulgar expression than yours came to my mind as i read this post. Good fun.
Vulgar?? You?? I am truly shocked🤣 It was great fun, inspired an online chatgroup comment. A man said he always hosted his son’s preseason football get together: a full paddock game of touch rugby. 😁
I totally agree with you about family outings. So much worse when the girls were teenagers and wouldn’t do anything to please anyone. I always preferred the spontaneous events where we all just happened to be together when something nice happened.
Such fun you must have had! Even getting a direct hit must have caused a bit of a titter! 😀
Those spontaneous moments are what being a family is all about. It was great fun…especially the direct hits on someone else 🤣
Hehe!
Agreed!!!!
Thanks for sharing Hilarious fun. We had an old gate we used to drag around with whatever vehicle was running & smaller paddocks manure were spread via manure fight. So much fun.
Yep everyone suggested a gate but as we’re a couple of gates short anyway and have to cart them around for various tasks I didnt want to risk the ones we have😊 yep, nothing like kicking animal poo at at each other. I think its a primal thing 🤣
Hi, I like the use of the cricket bat to do the spreading as well as terrorising other family members.
I’m not sure they’d approve of it at Lord’s 😁