On Sunday morning, after a decent night’s sleep, I was up at 5AM. I got the chores done, the house closed up against the sun and heat, and went out to mow.
I did up by the barn first then came down to the yard and got the push mowing down. My brother got the crockpot ribs started and came out to put in the new starter we’d picked up Saturday evening. I finished mowing about 10:30 after a 7:30 start.
The starter repair was totally uneventful (Yay!) and he even found a leaking antifreeze hose and was able to fix it by tightening the hose clamp. The truck started right up. So I moved it up by the wood chips, ready to be loaded.
A shower and lunch and a online search for filters for the rider mower (6 for $30 on e-bay, free shipping, free returns, I got 3 sets!) and I was ready for the milk run trip.
The ride up was lovely, except my brother would not stop for tags sales! Sigh… We got our milk, got snacks, and headed back to deliver milk. We’d passed an old house with a tag sale and I convinced him to stop for it.
I didn’t find much but it was a big surprise. My brother had remarked he’d been driving by this old house, going derelict, for the last 20 years and it was too bad no one would fix it up.
It’s the Williams house in Goshen, MA. It was kept in the family that built it in 1779 until 1999 when it was abandoned with all contents left in place.
My brother and I were able to tour it inside and it was totally fascinating. We grew up in very old houses so we appreciated the little details we saw. We were even given a tour of the cellar with a very odd brick structure.
It had a base about 4’ and rose to the cellar ceiling in an inverted pyramid shape that was about 8’ square. It was under the old summer kitchen, but there was no longer and sort of cooking/heating structure in that room. What there was is a 6’ square patch in the ceiling of the summer kitchen above the structure in the cellar. They have no idea what the cellar structure could have been.
They plan to have the house checked over for historical details and information in the next couple weeks. It’s to become a sort of museum or educational place in the distant future. It will be fascinating to see what they do with it, as it has a general store, a post office, a tavern, and the living spaces for the family. It was also 3 structures, 2 of which were moved to the site. But they don’t know which ones were moved or when they were built. They hope the report will tell them.
One of the farms on the way to the dairy farm used to put up scarecrow displays that were really cool. Then about 4 - 5 years ago they stopped. I was delighted to see a scarecrow in the front yard on Sunday.
We got the milk delivered, and went home to our ribs. My brother made buttered cabbage to go with it and we had a great supper. He wanted to make something with rhubarb and I had old strawberries in the freezer, so he made strawberry rhubarb sauce after supper.
On Monday, Memorial Day, he’s taking me shopping early and then heading to work at the creamery. I may move mulch if I’m not too tired. But I also have someone coming to help get some of the windows washed, finally, at 12:30 so we will see.