For the Memorial on Sunday, the big tent will go here in the middle pasture. I’d asked the hayman to hay but with the hurricane coming at the end of the week, he couldn’t do it. A neighbor had said she would, but backed out. So I was scrambling for someone with a big enough tractor to mow the small area.
Then it occurred to me the neighbors with the 10 acre piece had a Kubota but hadn’t used it for a long time. I called to see if they still had it and they did. But it hadn’t been driven in at least 1½ years.
So I got a hold of Tom and we decided to see if we could get it running. We headed over on Monday afternoon. The battery wasn’t completely dead, but couldn’t turn over the engine. With multiple consults to Tom’s phone, we finally found the battery. It didn’t look good, both sides were bulging. But we brought it home and put it on the charger for a couple hours.
Tom did some remote working for his job while I set about cleaning all the family photos to go back up on the wall. My intern is coming on Wednesday and putting up pictures and things is scheduled.
After 2 hours, the battery was only half charged and didn’t look like it was going to finish. So we started trying to figure out where to get a battery that was charged. It finally dawned on us my blue tractor had one…
So we went back over and hooked it up. With more consulting of the phone, we figured out how to get the diesel tractor started. It seemed to be running fine after that, so we brought it back to the farm.
It took several passes to chop up the tall grass, but it did it just fine. Tom wants this tractor! It’s actually for sale, as the neighbors are an older couple and looking to move to a smaller place. But Tom must convince his wife first. So we will see…
The apples are ripening and Tom’s looking forward to making cider with them. That won’t happen for a couple more weeks. I'm hoping to make an event out of it.
On Monday morning I had 2 helpers come out. One took the weedwacker and cleaned up the road end of the driveway and across the front. Then he got the poison ivy off the signature oak tree. He will come back later in the week and finish the weedwacking to the barn and around the barn.
The other helper started cleaning out the perimeter of the New Herb garden. I spent the morning calling people to see if they were coming and what they were bringing for the potluck. Several more are coming. Then I went out to finish the New Herb perimeter as the helper had to go.
He left mid morning but came back in later afternoon and weeded the walkways in the New Herb garden.
It kept raining as small storms came through and he finally left. He said he’d be back to help some more later on.
New Herb garden, Row 7, garlic chives
I hope he comes back on Tuesday and maybe the 2 of us can get the Big garden cleaned up.