1/2/2020
(Above: The painted pipeworks of the Master Blend freezer room.)
Active Summary: Today began with the usual regimen of calisthenics, writing, and riding through the beef pasture. This was ensued by Master Blend freezer room activities. The lattermost tasks – or task, rather – consisted solely of my priming the metal gate area located at the chamber’s northeast side. I originally believed the job was not going to take very long, but this was not the case due to the old metal’s being pitted and also because I needed to be wary of spattering the already-painted walls / trough. It ended up taking me from 8:08 AM to 11:57 AM to finishing priming, with the only break being a short ten minute jaunt to Madre’s workshop where I helped her lift, move, and flip a piece of plywood.
(6:32 PM Update:) This afternoon included many of the usual bovine activities – one of which was the observation of another calving cow. I also performed a little bit of harvesting for a dinner salad, and I helped Madre move another piece of plywood at her container workshop. Temperatures were even more pleasant than this morning, and I especially enjoyed my time in the garden at dusk.
TIL: I learned another painting-related lesson today; this bit of information is in regard to priming old, pitted metal. Typical brushstrokes do not work for such an activity due to the aforementioned pits being too deep for the bristles/paint to penetrate. Therefore, to ensure that primer does fill every nook and cranny, one must dab the paint on first. Another thought that occurred to me is that I could have instead utilized spray-on primer (and paint) for this project – the only additional requirement for such a strategy being that I would have been required to affix drop-cloths to every nearby surface.
Commentary: Today was a classic sunny winter’s day, starting out quite cool but proceeding to warm up to a point where the only garb necessary was a shirt and a pair of shorts. As for shenanigans of interest, painting was admittedly not one of them. I actually found myself almost falling asleep at some points*.
A matter of more excitement occurred yesterday night. One of our cows – a certain #223 – decided to calve, and whenever she calves she has a tendency to be quite rough with her newborns. What I mean is that her mothering hormones are in such effect that it puts her into a state of bovine hysteria. She is so protective of her calf that she beats it up, and so was the case last night. Fortunately, this time she pushed her offspring through a barbed-wire fence to the other side where she could no longer harm it. Padre and I ended up retrieving the newborn heifer from that location and placing it in a much more comfortable and sheltered pen where it stayed until morning. Shortly after dawn, Padre and I reintroduced the mother and daughter. Things are not particularly sunny in regard to their relationship yet, but that will likely rectify itself within the next couple or so days.
Despite being shoved through a barbwire fence late at night, 223’s youngling is alive and quite well. 
A sun dog – formally known as a parhelion – that Padre and I spotted above the beef pasture on our duskly ride. 
This is one of the first three snap-pea blooms that I found in the garden this evening. I was startled by its size (as large as the top segment of my thumb) and impressed by its form.
Final Note: Tomorrow I intend to clean Jacobhouse and make a journey to Oldhouse where I will be going through my final belongings and determining what little bit shall be making its way down into my new home. Also, I am going to water the garden because while writing this entry, I have noted a slight bit of droopiness in the massive leaves of the broccoli plants and a little bit of limpness in the northernmost portion of the arugula row. (Edit: No ‘final-belonging’ shenanigans tomorrow because it won’t work for Madre. Instead, I may begin painting over the pipes that I primed today in the freezer room.)
* Drowsiness that resulted in a patch of white somewhere atop my skull