Poo

poo, manure, droppings, scat, doings...
Isn't the English language full of euphamisms. As a horse owner poo is part of our daily life. We don't have that much land and so we have to "poo pick" every day. This involves going around the field with a barrow and collecting all the poo's and then dumping them in a big pile out of the way. Its very instructive walking your land scanning the ground constantly. There is lots of signs of other animals that have passed over your land the previous day. Before we fenced off the whole area, there was a lot of deer droppings, but I've also seen the occasional badger latrine. Badgers tend to poo in a small hole they've dug for the purpose. Occasionally I find poo that I couldn't identify immediately. It turned out to be stoat poo which is very strange, it has a twisted and curly form. Most odd. Sometimes I'd find a horse poo that's been scattered (no pun intended). This is because blackbirds and thrushes have discoverd that if a poo is a day old, it'll be full of beetles and worms.
Most people would think this much poo to be of no use, but that's not true. Our poo piles are very useful, 8 months later they are full of worms and have a lovely crumbly texture and ideal for gardening. The birds know that poo's contain edible grubs and since we have a lot of straw amongst the poo piles, they've also discovered its a warm place to roost. Especially in the winter. This winter when it was -5C outside, it was 15C in the poo pile.
So poo is useful, a source of food, nutrients and warmth for the fauna around the beggshill bothy.