More Garden Work - November 19, 2025 @goldenoakfarm

On Wednesday morning I was up at 5AM and got my post up. It was pretty cold again. I got the kitchen cleaned up and then got laundry started. The mulch guy arrived at 8:45AM and we unloaded 20 more bales.

I sat down for a while and then got up and washed the silk scarf and ironed it.

These photos showed how it changed through the process.

I decided to hang it in the living room on the west wall. It would be safe from the sun and I could see it regularly.

Once that was done and the mess cleaned up, I sat down until lunch time.

I started to mulch at noon but soon reached the part I had to clean out. It was a relatively good day, no wind, so I sat down and got the rest of the garden cleaned out, ready to mulch.

I still had some energy so I started putting down the new hay. I managed to get just over ⅔ of the garden mulched by 2:45PM.

I had gotten the Gator to hold the totes of debris, so I loaded all my stuff on it to put away. Once that was done, I decided to leave the Gator at the house in case the contractor thought it would be useful for moving the smokehouse stove.

This little stove had sat here covered for years. The blocks it is on had slowly sunk into the ground. I had asked the contractor to fix them. He thought it would be better to put it in the barn.

He arrived just after 3PM and was delighted to have the Gator to move the stove. It’s so little he was able to lift it into the back of the Gator. Up at the barn, we had to move the chick brooder and small chicken house out of the way so we could put the stove on blocks in the back of the store room. Then we covered it with a plastic bag again.

While we were at the barn we went hunting for the electric chainsaw my husband used to cut carcasses apart. We finally found it in the old cow stall, still carefully wrapped in the tote. We’d also found the meatsaw in case the chainsaw didn’t work.

I wanted to make the mess of cutting the carcasses behind the Tonka garage. I didn’t have an idea about what to put the 40# block on. The contractor suggested using the cement blocks and putting one of the huge rock slabs on them for a table. We covered the slab with a plastic bag and he hauled the #40 block up from the freezer in the cellar.

But we couldn’t get the chainsaw to start. Turns out the outlet in the garden shed has a problem. But I was able to plug into an outlet on the outside of the house and we were in business.

I held the biggest bowl under the slab to catch the small blocks he cut away. The chainsaw worked perfectly.

He cleaned up the stones and blocks and cord while I weighed each block and vacuum sealed it. I wrote the weight on each one. He carried them down to the freezer for me.

They were bought in May this year and are finally in a size I can handle so I can start making chicken bone stock after Thanksgiving. I was so exhausted and hurting, I had to sit down when I finished vacuum sealing.

He had some time left so he tackled putting up the inside clothesline. I had gotten decorative hooks to hold the line end, but they weren’t suitable. They could hold 30# pulling down, but not out. So he took them home and will fashion them into a suitable design. But at least the retractor is no longer sitting on my dryer as it’s been for the last 5 years.

I got some supper, the stoves going, shades pulled, and a shower and was in bed by 8:30PM. I had kept the laundry going all day and put the last load in when I went to bed.

On Thursday I have to go to the co-op really early to get my sister’s stuff for her advent box. Then I have to get it wrapped, all 25 tiny packages no bigger than 1” x1.25”. Hopefully my helper will get it mailed today so she will have it by December 1. I also have to clean that chainsaw and meatsaw and finish the laundry.

My helper friend will be here in the afternoon and we are going to start the dusting of the first floor. He also has house plants to water and some errands. That ought to finish me off.