Haul tanbark and bank up around the house to insure a warm cellar.
Cellar windows should be kept open through the day, and closed after
the nights begin to freeze, as late in the season as possible. See
that dry walks are prepared from the house to all the out-houses. Do
not be stingy of your materials; make the paths high and rounding, so
as to insure dryness, especially about the barn. See that stones,
gravel, or timber are laid so as to be out of the way of cattle’s
feet, and just in the way of your own. We have seen swamp-barn-yards,
before going into which a prudent man would choose to make his will.
Mud on the shoes from roads and fields is all well enough; but mud
from one’s own yards, shows that the owner has not fixed up as he
ought to have done.
If your stables are old, examine the floor; or some night may let a
horse through, to come out lame for life. If you have a dirt floor,
see that it is carefully laid, and remember that if it be inclined
either way, it should be _from_ the rack and not _toward_ it. Let your
wagons, carts, plows, etc., be repaired during the fall and winter,
and not be left till spring. See that your shingles are all sound on
the house, barn, and shed. The leak which you have allowed to drop,
drop, drop all summer has at last taken off a yard or two of plaster,
and it is time now to put on a shingle or two. There is another leak
or two that _must_ be stopped. That pocket of yours which has let out
dime after dime for liquor, the hole getting bigger and bigger every
year, now is the time to sow _it_ up, or it will rip _you_ up. A
pocket is a small place, to be sure, but we have seen barns, cattle,
and acre after acre slip through a hole in it which, at first, was
only large enough to let sixpence through.
See that all your tools have a safe and dry standing-place; hoes,
rakes, scythes, sickles, yokes, spades, shovels, chains, pins,
harrows, plows, carts, and sleds, axes, mattocks, hammers, and
everything, but your geese and ducks, should be kept from wet and
snow.
If you have no stables for your cattle, you should have good sheds
provided, opening to the south. Even when cattle are allowed to run
through the stock-fields, there ought to be in some warm place an
ample shed to which they can resort during wet and cold weather; and
one sufficiently snug can be made without calling in the carpenter or
buying lumber.