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Day 16: Dog day


I cooked a meatloaf today. And it was a mess. First I forgot to include the bread crumbs, which was fortunate because we didn't have any breadcrumbs anyway. So the meatloaf really was just a supersized burger patty, though I did make a pretty good glaze, if I do say so myself. Plus I made mashed potatoes to go with it, and that is a perfect combination.

What I'm doing today

Vaccinating - Yesterday, I accidentally discovered that my dog's rabies vaccine was about to expire--um--yesterday. The only thing worse than a COVID-19 outbreak is a COVID-19 outbreak with a rabies infection in the house. It is almost raccoon season after all. Fortunately I was able to get an appointment early this morning to get the dog re-upped on his vaccine. Now, because of the outbreak, the procedures for taking your dog to the vet are a little different these days. For starters, you stay in the car and a vet tech will come retrieve your animal. During the examination, the doctor will call you so that you can listen in. And then payment and future scheduling is done on the phone. When all is said and done, the tech will return your pet to your car. Presumably the vet office put these new procedures in place to protect the health of their staff, their patients, and their customers. It's a great idea in theory, but if so much as one tech deviates from the procedure, then it all falls apart. Every tech I saw had a mask and gloves, which is good. However nearly all of them were wearing their masks improperly--on their chins, on their foreheads, etc. On top of that they weren't very good at following the six-foot rule. Come on, people, this shouldn't be that hard.



Securing the border - I was outside playing with the kids this morning and had a look around the yard. Most of the perimeter of the backyard is landscaped with gravel with a metal rail that separates from the gravel from the grassy area. Last summer I completely reseeded the yard, and thanks to some untimely windstorms last summer, I also accidentally reseeded the gravel area. Well, I got tired of looking at it today, so I started cleaning it up. And fortunately I had a lot of help! We only had time to do about a ten-foot stretch because of an impending snowstorn, but progress is progress. We first raked away all of the gravel along the edge of the border and pulled up all of the weeds and grass down to the roots. We then laid and tacked weed barrier down. After sifting and cleaning the gravel we put it back, raked it level, and tamped it down. It looks a lot better, and now the kids keep bugging me about when we're going to do the rest of the border. Maybe after the blizzard.

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