Not ready

...for winter. I've done some of the prep work, but not nearly ready. We still need to get another load (50+ bales) of hay. We prefer to do that when there isn't snow on the ground, but the ground is frozen--kind of specific with our weather needs there.

Also, we don't have the stall flooring done, so we can't put up the south wall. And now, we've dug the stalls down to the point that today the water is seeping in under the skirt board at the bottom of the doors. So what little bedding in there is being soaked up with rain water.

Meanwhile I have $400 worth of rubber mats piled in the (future) tack room.

It was so cold this weekend that I had to put horse blankets on. It seems like I didn't use them until January last year. I cannot wait to have that south wall done, so I can shut the stall doors when it's raining and close the place up.

The giant sliding doors at each end have little gaps between the wood siding. I don't know what the ideal solution for this is, but I made a big trip to the log home store last year for Handyman and the guy there was nice enough to load me up with multiple options (for free), that we could try to decide how we would caulk these gaps without adding lots of weight to the already-massive doors.

My solution? Tyvek, man. I just want to staple tyvek across the entire inside of the door for the winter. Cuts down the breeze, keeps the snow out altogether. Handyman (Mr. Perfection) says no-go. Last year, in protest, and when I had an old, crippled rooster to watch out for, I stapled split open feed bags across the hayloft doors and the bottom of the big doors, to give the old buzzard a wind break.

Needless to say, this put H. into a twitching fit every time he came into the barn. But, it worked. He says Tyvek isn't cheap--not that that has EVER slowed him down on any plan he's ever hatched. I figure while he's in Evansville this weekend, Dad and I can do a whole lot of "visual damage" to the master plan.

Me and my dad--coneheads with a mission...