*SNIF* I miss doing stuff with/for my Dad. Wish he had made it longer than 83; we were finally getting to know one another. ;)
Sounds like a good day! Packers aren’t on until this evening (odd Saturday Night game, so 2020!) so plenty of time to do things that need doing around here.
Just finished breakfast (late risers, today - I was pre-hibernating, Beau was out hunting until 3am, plus, it’s wintertime!) and we’re heading to the barn to re-configure where the steer is staying so I can get food and water to him without wading through mounds of manure to get to him. See, Beau doesn’t mind slogging through sh#t, but I’m 99.999% I’ll slip and end up with a manure facial. Nope. You want my help with chores, you make them EASIER for me to handle! (Already got him to move all of the dogs into indoor kennels, which has helped tremendously!) And, it’s my turn to make sure they all get exercise and some command training, today.
Anyhow, only ‘garden-related’ project today is sorting potatoes - he finally got them dug, but some of them are split or going bad so need to be culled before they wreck the whole batch. Luckily, it only ended up being about 50# of potatoes, not the 700# I was anticipating, LOL!
I started some basil & more salad greens under lights - my two rosemary plants are still doing great in a southern window with watering 2x a week - they’re in clay pots; they prefer to dry out between watering.
It’s overcast and about 35 degrees, but the greenhouse is already at 45 degrees, so I haven’t dumped the salad greens out there - fingers crossed. If Elliot Coleman can grow greens all winter in Maine, I should be able to do it here!
I remember the days when I had a barn full of horses and it was snow/ice on the ground. The horse poop was frozen solid so it was like walking on marbles when cleaning the stalls! If it was icy, I tried to leave them in until it wasn’t so slick - always afraid they’d get to running & “horsing’ around & do the splits on the ice .... not a good thing for a horse to do. My old, fat pony was more than happy to stay in her stall - very contented. The Thoroughbred mare, being more high strung, wanted OUT .... as did her younger son(s) when they were on the place. I did have a heater in the outside stock water tank so that helped, but the water buckets in the stalls needed to be hauled outside, ice broken out, then re-hung & refilled. The buckets were black rubber, so you could stomp on them to get the ice broken out without breaking/cracking plastic. I always did like walking into the barn on a cold morning - the horsey smells and seeing the horse heads over the doors, hearing the happy nickers of welcome (”breakfast lady” is here!) and watching the ‘steam’ blowing out of their nostrils ..... nice memory (before we get to the frozen ‘marbles’ part!).
Glad things are getting easier for you with taking care of your animals!