Big rose flower after several hard frosts
On Sunday morning I was up at 4AM (new time) having forgotten to turn the clocks back. Sigh… I got my post up, ate some breakfast and started on bills/budget. The statements had posted so I spent all too much time balancing the checkbook.
At 8:45AM (having adjusted most of the clocks) I got ready and went outside to start cleaning up leaves. Tom had said he’d be here around 9AM to work on bird houses.
I’d found my brother’s leaf blower and charged all the batteries I could find.
There weren’t as many leaves by the East Shed garden so I thought that would be an easy clean up. Wrong! The leaf blower could not even move the pile at the end. I ended up shuffling with my feet to move them over the bank. It could move individual leaves but made no headway on the pile. As for blowing the leaves out of the flowerbed, it simply made the mess worse. So that idea was quickly abandoned after I’d run one battery dry and part of another.
I had already decided to move these leaves on the east side of the house by stuffing them into totes. I’d already moved 3 or 4 totes worth when Tom arrived at 9:30AM pulling a trailer.
It seems he’d decided to bring his father’s Gator out with him. I was so glad he did, because I could get 4 totes in the back and just go forwards and back between the bank where I dumped them and the current garden I was cleaning up.
Before he got started on the birdhouses, I asked him to help me fold up the netting so I could put it away. Finally that job is finished.
I’d gotten the birdhouse collection out for him. There were 3 more he had to take down, 2 in the front pasture and one by the Big garden.
I’d gotten most of the leaves away from the house on the north and east side. Then I got the ones along the west and north side of the Small garden. It took me 3½ hours to do this even with the Gator’s help. I was wiped out.
He looked them over and decided what ones needed repair and then got the good ones soaking in a bleach solution. Then he set about repairing them.
His main goal was to get one ready to go back in the front pasture and to repair the little one that was by the Big garden, both for the bluebirds who were still around.
He got several repaired and started on the bluebird house. He ended up nearly rebuilding the whole thing, including the front with a smaller hole. It got cedar shake roofing too.
Then he got the 2 hung back up and cleaned up all the mess he’d made.
I’d laid out 2 garden hoses in the sun in hopes of draining them and putting them away. With Tom’s help we got that done plus the hot water hose he’d used for the birdhouse bath. I still have 3 hoses to go…
Tiny bird’s nest I found in the leaves
He left about 2PM and I headed to bed. But I was too achy to stay there so I went to read on the couch.
My son lit both stoves at 4PM(!!) and I eventually got some supper and was in bed by 7PM, new time.
On Monday I have laundry to do, the kitchen to clean up, try to get some time on the treadmill and start doing PT, and work on bills/budget. I have an event at the Senior center in the afternoon. It’s to be cloudy all day, so I’ll have to keep the stove going. Rain forecast for the evening.