Saturday started off nicely. A woman and her young boys had volunteered and they showed up with the whole family. They helped me push the pasture coop forward and I spent a little time answering questions about chickens.
It was to be the last warm day, so I asked them to do the washing of things, so the things could be put away for the winter. They started off with the cold frame covers and the boys had a great time with the sprayer. They were ages 5 and 7, I think.
I had set up to start weeding and cleaning up the New Herb garden, Row 1. Something, I think a rabbit, had made a huge hole in the walkway. So I commissioned the littlest boy to collect rocks and fill it in, using a stick to pack them. Then he got to select a rock from the big pile to put on top. His mom helped him with all this.
The father and older boy had finished the covers and I asked them to clean up the lawn chairs too. They were approaching done when 2 young women arrived to move wood.
The family finished the chairs and had about ½ hour left to work, so I sent them up to the barn to collect the pigtail posts from around the snake fence. They had dug up one of the rosemary plants to take home and the littlest wanted a bouquet from all the flowers, so he had a good time collecting that.
The mother and daughter team were hard workers and soon had the truck loaded with the remains of the biggest pile. I moved the truck and they unloaded it and stacked it.
While they were doing that our family friend Tom arrived with the milk order. I asked him to help me level the washer. When my husband built the house, he had sloped the floor so if there was a leak in the laundry room, the water would go to the drain in the middle of the floor. This makes leveling, umm, interesting…
In the middle of doing this, I had to go move the truck back to the wood pile. It took us at least ½ hour to get the washer stable and leveled and hooked up.
Having been up since 3:30AM, I was really starting to fade. I went outside, put away all the clean things, cleaned up all my gardening stuff from the New Herb garden and waited for the women to need the truck moved. I’d managed to get ½ of Row 1 done… They had managed to get the whole last pile on the truck!
The woodpile in the pasture was gone! They got it unloaded and stacked and we have ¾ of the shed full, more than enough for this year. I sent them home with a dozen pullet eggs and contact info for Tom, who will have the chickens and need to be able to sell eggs.
This is one of the very bold chipmunks that live in the front yard. I wasn’t more than 3’ away when I took this; he just stayed there like that looking at me.
Dennis was in the haybox, no sign of Lily, when I went up to put their food away. They will both be in it in the morning, as another hard freeze is coming tonight.
After sunset as I came back from chores…
Sunday I go with Tony to get all his materials for the floor and to get the paint for the living room and dining room, and for the pantry. Maybe I will get the upstairs put to rights, so I can do laundry on Monday.