Cleaning the Coop

"Keeping the chicken coop clean is very important. During the summer months this isn't so bad since they will be outdoors most of the day. I don't put much of anything down for litter in the summertime. In fall and winter, I begin to put down fresh litter. They do better if their feet aren't cold and they can walk in some clean straw or hay. If you put down some fresh hay every couple weeks, you should do fine. I like to clean my coop with pitchfork and shovel every fall before winter sets in and in early spring when it gets to stinking and you've added about all the litter you can." -Home-Made Living

You know it's beyond time to clean (and organize) your house when:

-You move the couch for your kids to sweep under and there are creatures living there.

-The stuff growing in your toilet starts to bloom and you think, "oh, how lovely!"

-You can't tell the difference between the toothpaste build-up and your kids' play doh.

-The deadly spiders in your bathroom window have put in a mailbox.

-You give the spiders first names...and everyone in the house knows who you are talking about when you use them.

-The kids crawl under the dining room table to look for an afternoon snack.

-You mistake the weather for being cloudy (when it's sunny and 90 degrees), because you can't see through the windows.

-The kids start naming the spots on the floor and ask if you can keep them.

-There's a tumbleweed (of hair, dirt and other unidentifiable stuff) floating through your bathroom and it moves around on its own accord.

-Your kids hide under the laundry pile during hide-n-go-seek and even when you look there, you still can't find them.

-You have not one, not two, but THREE SMOOSHED FLIES where your window closes against the frame.

-You start connecting the dots on your bathroom mirrors, just to see if it will make something.

-You go to iron your husband's work shirts and they ask for Botox.

-Your kids ask if they can draw pictures....in the dust on top of the piano.

-You go to help your daughter find the princess dress in her closet and you can't find the closet.

-There are creatures in the vacuum doing the Macarena.

-You give your kid some Lego instructions for a Star Wars ship, they follow it perfectly and come out with a Starfighing-Bionacle Man-firetruck, with two heads.

-You get under your child's bed to look for something they dropped and find an entire new bedroom set.

-You can't recall what color the tile in your shower is but you are fairly certain it isn't supposed to be orange.

-You turn on the bathroom exhaust and it chuckles before asking, "Why bother?"

-You go to empty the trash can and realize, there is no can under the trash.

Of course, these things never happen at OUR house....with all that fresh hay and litter down, it stays real nice.....