Catching Up - May 9, 10, & 11, 2025 @goldenoakfarm

West of Steps – Star of Bethlehem

On Friday, I didn’t get much done. It was mostly my helper shopping and I put stuff away. The Azure Standard order came in and my hopes were dashed. I’d ordered 40# of frozen organic chicken carcasses for bone stock making. I’d hoped they would come as (8) 5 lb bags, or (5) 8# bags. Nope. A 40# block. But it just fit in the chicken cubby, so there’s that. It rained all day.

Saturday it rained all day and was in the low 50’s. The house got really cold, and as I’d just had the chimneys and stoves cleaned, I didn’t want to light a fire. So I got really cold during the day.

In the morning I spent a couple hours researching a new weedwacker. The type I was looking at is more properly called a brushcutter. My brother likes Stihls so I checked them out first. They all had too many bad reviews, carburetor issues mostly.

My husband had liked the Husqvarna brand, so I looked at those. The one thing my son requested was a harness to hold the machine when in use. This brand doesn’t have harnesses.

So I went to check out a local place and they didn’t have either brand, but they did have Echo. The last chainsaw my husband bought was an Echo, so I called to ask about them.

source

This one has a harness, the handlebar grips, can be changed out for a blade at the end, and was expensive. Sigh… But it had decent reviews so it looks like we will pick it up on Tuesday afternoon.

I was really cold and exhausted by the time I finished this and ended up on the couch under 2 quilts for the afternoon.

My brother went out and weedwacked the front pasture and the middle pasture.

On Sunday my oldest brother was coming up and he and my youngest brother were going to see if they could get the tractor running. They tried several things to no avail.

A friend of my younger brother’s was coming to lunch so I had a LOT of stuff to do before they arrived at 12:30PM.

I was up at 5AM to get the chicken in the crockpot. I went back to be for an hour or so, then got up and cleaned up the kitchen. The seedlings needed tending, so they were next. I had 3 lbs of asparagus to prep so I sat down and got that done. I found all the serving dishes and utensils and collected the silverware and gave it a quick polish. It sure is easier and quicker to do now my sister thoroughly polished it last autumn.

I got 2 loads of laundry washed and dried. One was the couch cover that had never been put on the couch properly. It takes about 20 – 30 minutes to get it on and tacked down. I got the table set, and took out the trash, recycle (2 trips), and compost. While I was going in and out the noisy back door, I decided to take all the stuff to the garden shed that had piled up in the laundry room. Then I did the catbox.

All the door banging, as it was about 10 trips in and out, got my brother up. He ran the vacuum around the first floor and then got started on his lemon squares. They were a favorite of my mom’s so he thought they would be a good dessert.

MacIntosh apple blossoms

I did a bunch of other jobs like set the table and get water chilling, found the salt and pepper shakers, and got set up to cook. I got to sit down for about ½ hour when my brother arrived. They went up to do the tractor as I said.

But they gave up and came back and we quickly cooked the batata and asparagus and I made chicken gravy. My brother’s friend arrived with applesauce she had made.

We soon had everything on the table and sat down to eat.

She took this photo of the 3 siblings and the dessert. She has a gluten issue so my brother put the topping in a pretty baking dish for her.

The helper trashing the couch

After we finished, she and I did a tour of the gardens while the guys cleaned up the mess and put the food away. I dug up some pink lily of the valley and Siberian squills and lesser celandine for my mom’s grave.

We headed out in 2 cars and took the River Road north to where the cemetery is.

My brother had brought annuals to plant and we’d filled a bucket with compost and brought a gallon of water. I did most of the planting while my younger brother and his friend roamed looking for her grandparents’ grave.

We were soon on the road home and went back down the River Road to the creamery where we got ice cream. My older brother and I got cones.

More attempts to fix the tractor…

They went up to try one more thing on the tractor before my older brother headed back home. It didn’t work. To fix this, one apparently has to split the tractor in half to get to the clutch.

Tom arrived with the milk order and to tell me about his father’s death on Friday night. It was a relatively peaceful death, at home, with family. The funeral is on Thursday, so my helper friend will lose those hours.

I was pretty exhausted and went to bed early after closing all the windows and pulling shades. It was to drop to 37F during the night.

My son brought me home tulips after his work on Sunday night, for Mother’s Day.

On Monday I am going with my old window washing friend to see the lilacs at Lilacland mid morning. I need to do laundry and clean up the remains of the meal disaster in the kitchen. I’d like to get outside and do something in the flowerbeds but I don’t know what kind of shape I will be in by afternoon.