Layers of detritus

The farmyard tells an ever changing story. It has a daily tale. Today, soft white down dances across it, caught by puffs of wind. Spots of blood speckle some of the feathers. I have been dispatching and plucking the two surplus Aylesbury drakes and my hands smell of burnt feather and my hair is full of fluff. This evening I will be clean, but the farmyard will bear witness for a week or three yet.
A couple of days ago the muck heap in the little yard was savaged and its goodness spread about various fields. A few tractor bucket loads was snatched for the vegetable garden, and en route a small trail of the precious stuff was dropped in the farmyard to tantalise the dogs who brunch on it eagerly. I must pick up the remnants before they bust their guts.
The goose hut is in the orchard, some way from the compost heap, so when their dirty bedding is barrowed away down the track, through the farmyard and to its designated rotting place, wisps of straw drop to reinforce any interested watcher that I have, yes, mucked out again this week.
And then there are the dried onion stalks. I plaited up the onions and removed any excessive stalk length, binning most but again dropping some, and they mix with the rest of the detritus in the yard.
Not all the farmyard droppings are organic; small bits from the tractor, nails, washers, dull coloured bits of metal and offcuts of wood tell you that a repair job took place in recent days or that something fell out of a barrow or a toolbox. I pick these things up and put them where they belong, but tomorrow there will be something else, evidence of other comings, goings and doings.