On Thursday, with the truck running again, my cleaning helper and I set out for the stable to clean out the lofts. There is one on either side of the truck. We’d already made 1 trip, having done the one on the left first. The second one was smaller as there was still hay up there. We finished in 2 hours.
The hay pile is pretty big now, but it won’t cover as many beds as you’d think. Loose hay must be put down far more thickly to allow for when it packs down. We saved the intact leaves of hay we found and they are stacked at the end. We can put one of those down as they are and it will last the season if it is at least 4” thick.
We decided to start tackling the New Herb garden. I started the west end of Row 1 and she tackled Row 2. As the gardens pretty much of a mess, we didn’t get very far along our rows in the 2 hours we were out there. There are areas we will go faster at, and some that will take a while to clean out.
When I came in from the gardens at noontime, I’d hoped for an hour’s rest. But there was a message on the phone that the electrical inspector was finally coming out to do his final inspection at 1. I had to get a shower, wrap a present, eat lunch and get my photos before he came. I got it all done and sat down to wait for him.
At 1:10 the lights flickered and this weird humming noise filled the air. They went out. Then came back on and the weird humming noise started up. Then they went out for good. The noise stopped. I thought, oh, great! Can the inspector do the inspection with no power?
He never arrived until 1:45 and he said he could do it. He checked his stuff and suggested I might want to do something else with the breaker for the freezers, as it had tripped with no load. I hope to do just that! So he signed off and now I can get the final inspection by the building inspector. After 3 years, I will have completed this part, I hope. So I called the building inspector and let him know he could come.
My body worker came at 2PM and we planned an outing for April 30th. It’s a Saturday so we will hit what tag sales we can find and she had found a map of a pottery tour for that weekend. So we are going to hit a few of those places too.
My son walked to work and discovered that a tree had fallen on the lines and ignited down by the little bridge to our road. He said the damage was extensive and they also did tree cutting.
The excavator guy called and said he can’t start until at least mid May. That messes everything up as the contractor leaves on June 21st for the summer in Maine. He won’t be back until after Labor Day. Originally I had asked the excavator to do the work in early April, to avoid this problem. We aren’t sure just what we are going to do now.
The sun disappeared and it got dark in the house while I was cooking supper. I lit a kerosene lamp for light as we still had no power. My stove is gas and doesn’t need power. The power came on about 6:45PM.
Each evening when I go up to do the cats, the tulips have closed up for the day. The grass is growing very rapidly so I am glad we got the raking done. I will have to start mowing again soon.
On Friday it’s the usual chaos: morning chores, milk order made and called in before 8AM when my 2 helpers arrive, feeding seedlings and checking them, then outside to start moving the plants from the end of the shed to the Small garden.
My grandchild and her mom come around 1 PM for a visit and the building inspector called back and said he’d be out at 4PM on Friday. So another busy day of chaos on Friday.