Two back to back days of “garden gym” had taken its toll and I stayed home from exercise class on Wednesday morning. My intern had said her sister and son (Tom’s grandson) had wanted to come visit and bring a friend who was interested in what we had been doing on the farm.
I didn’t get up until nearly 6AM and got my post up finally. Then I got the kitchen cleaned up and got ready and they arrived just after 9:30AM. Their friend was a nice young man who they knew through their homeschooling years.
Because I had just been in the attic and now knew where the Tonka trucks were, I asked if the little one would be interested in some of them to play with while here.
So we looked at the list of what was in the boxes and determined #9 would be the one, if we could find it. When we all got up in the attic, the mom looked in the first box and found 3 smaller trucks that were a hit, so we took those downstairs.
Mesclun
They wanted a tour of the house so we did that then headed outside to look at the gardens. Then we went across the middle pasture, talking about pigs and rotational grazing.
At the barn I showed them the various ways we handled/managed the livestock and wildlife. I noticed the cold room door was open, and the window was open. So we went around the back of the barn and discovered the window was broken, and another one was open.
There was also a cut up tree there, so I guess another of the neighbor’s trees had fallen on the barn and broken the window. I just wish they had let me know the window was broken. We got the unbroken one closed tightly and headed back to the house. It was pretty chilly out and we were getting cold.
But before we left, the little one got to sit on his Grampy’s tractor which is in my barn.
My mom’s begonia
Back at the house we all sat around the masonry heater and warmed up. We talked about all kinds of things, food and how it’s grown or raised, our elderly relatives or those who have died, and many other things. They left around 11:30AM.
I made some lunch and rested until I had to get ready to go to the dentist. When I got back, my contractor arrived shortly after.
The washer is still doing its dying thing, so he took the timer out to check the gears in the timer.
He had already been to the barn and gotten the broken window down and covered the hole with a sheet of plywood. He’d repair the window frame and probably paint it and put in new glass.
Then we went outside to see where the siding had blown off the back side of the wood shed.
We walked by the door to the Tonka garage on our way out back and I mentioned I was waiting for the snow to melt so I could inventory the shed to make sure I had all I needed for spring planting.
He said he could chop the ice with an axe, so we got most of it cleared out and the door working. Hopefully it will melt by Friday and we can work there. He also said he had a door he’d gotten either from a job or the dump and it might work to replace this one. This one is in pretty bad shape.
I was pretty tired by the time he left and made supper and watched Gilmore Girls.
On Thursday I am being taken to the Smith College Bulb Show and none too soon. It closes on Sunday. It’s to be a cold, cloudy day, so I will be keeping the stove going.
I will be back by the time my helper friend arrives at noon. I’m thinking we will start inventorying the cellars as we will have 5 hours. He also has errands to run. We need to water houseplants and tend the seedlings. And if it’s not too cold, go out to the woodsheds and collect small kindling for the masonry heater.