Maria can obsess on almost anything, once she sets her mind to it. She has launched the first Bedlam Farm Manure Project, her plan was to take one wheelbarrow a day from the manure pile and spread it all over the farm.

This would kill two birds with one stone. We could help to fertilize the pasture, which is a bit tired, and also reduce the size of our small mountain of manure, the result of a winter’s daily clean-up of the barn.

Maria said she would do one wheelbarrow load a day, (today she did two), but would not obsess on the project.

I smiled at that.

I wrote down on a Post-It how long it would take her cut loose on this task, and do it in a three or four hour grueling stretch.

Maria loves tasks like this, as long as no one is making her undertake them, as long as it’s her choice. Once she gets into it, obsession is not far behind.

In three days, she’s already cut the manure pile in  half. We have filled our gardens and the gardens of our friends with this manure, anybody else who wants manure needs to get here quickly, I know how this girl works.

“Why hire a tractor?,” she asked, “when this is so much fun!”

My job is to push the wheel barrow around when she shovels, we’ll be back at it in the morning.