Sometimes in a well-run barn, it's easy to forget what our moms always said: "This place doesn't clean itself." Barn management can set the standard, and workers can sweep and tidy, but boarders do their part keep things looking good.
My all time favorite barn note
Thanks to "B" for giving the okay to share this! "B" posted this notice to other boarders at a show barn where I boarded years ago. It is a true classic, combining humor and exasperation and cartographic flair. The map still cracks me up.
People do seem to have a neural disconnect about recycling. Where I presently board, only a small minority of us use the centrally located recycling can for recycling. Everyone else stuffs the regular trash cans with soda bottles, fly spray containers, and pellet/shavings bags -- there is no room for real barn trash. Unfortunately we don't have a boarder like the one who made the sign above. I'd attempt one but it would be a sad substitute.
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I had to make a rule in my classroom about bottles and cans too. And these were kids who seemed really ecologically conscientious about other issues. Apparently, the recycling cans were too elusive or too many steps away to attract attention.
ReplyDeleteI can sooo relate. I like the map idea. Nobody here would read it. Guess I'll spend my life pulling recycle stuff out of the trash. *sigh*
ReplyDeleteI once made a sign like that for my bathroom. My brother and all his friends kept using it and leaving the seat up. I was 15 or so and drew a picture. My brother credits the sign with his ability to lower the seat when he is finished every time now.
ReplyDeleteOh how funny! It's amazing (impressive? alarming?) how oblivious people can be. Working in the school system, I tend to see obliviousness operating at peak efficiency *grin*.
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh! That needs to go on www.passiveaggressivenotes.com!
ReplyDeleteI guess you must have a barn note file. That one is definitely a keeper. I especially like that the recycling bin was colored yellow and described in words as yellow. No excuses people! Unless you do not know your colors.
ReplyDelete"B" is brilliantly funny, Stacy! The barn where I am currently has stackable recycling bins (one for paper, one for plastic, one for glass... though rarely used)located in the aisle-way, and I try to remember to use them when I have something to throw away. It helps that they are next to the (quite small) regular trashcan :)
ReplyDeleteI once read a hilarious sign at a boarding barn where the person in charge of laundry had clearly gotten fed up with untangling wraps stuck together by their velcro closures... something about facing the wrath of an angry dryer god if one put unclosed velcro in the laundry pile... never seeing your socks in pairs ever again... forced to walk the earth in mismatched socks for all eternity. It was fantastic. There were flames.
ReplyDeleteAs the resident barn hippy, I can completely relate! We don't even have a recycling can at my barn, so I take all of my plastic, cans, etc. home.
ReplyDeleteWhen I had Smartpaks, I had a special canvas bag for the barn guys to put the empty packs in so I could take them home to recycle.
And, yes, if I see plastic supplement containers, empty fly spray bottles, etc. on the top of the garbage, I will fish them out and take them home, too. Guess that's why the owner of my last barn called me The President of Greenpeace. (When I found that the elusive feed room rat was finally sitting in his rat trap awaiting execution, I took the trap to a nearby field and released him, then left a note on the whiteboard announcing his pardon, and signed it "The President of Greenpeace.")