Fall Project

  Now that winter is officially here with the very short days, I'm doubly glad we did our fall project of painting the inside of the kennel white.  The brighter interior certainly helps on some of the gloomy, overcast days we've had of late.
  Painting is not my favorite thing, so while this project was on the to-do list for a bit, it turned out to be an easier undertaking than I thought.  We used barn paint, which went on easy and covered well.  The biggest problem is that we did the painting during the stink bug swarm and had the critters falling into our paint buckets!
  The kennel is easier to clean now, just wipe down the walls to disperse the muddy footprints from the dogs jumping up to look out their windows.  But, it has made me think about other improvements we can make to the building.
  The fencing is almost ten years old now and is misshapen in spots with a few holes where the dogs have pushed against it.  I've started looking at vinyl fencing, which would also be easy to clean, should be easy to install and hopefully more lasting than the chain link.  I'm wondering how durable and safe it would be against puppy teeth, though.
  That project would be costly so I have some time to explore the options.  Our spring project will be improving the drainage around the west side of the kennel and replacing/adding pea gravel.  That will require some digging and moving of dirt to level the runs and keep the gravel from shifting.  It also will require me to build up some muscles by spring--time to lay off the Christmas cookies and start working out!