(written on September 23rd and 29th 😶 from notes taken previously)
It was another late night, late morning combo, and before leaving for Haven Hill this morning, I spent a little time chatting with Mom.
Once on Haven Hill, I spent a while on the tractor mowing in an effort to lighten Jim’s load a bit. The Johnson grass was taller than the tractor, which made it a fair bit more challenging, but with the blades sharpened, it was a lot better than it otherwise would have been.
Then I went with Jim on some errands–a doctor’s appointment, Sam’s Club for lunch, and finally Lowe’s.
After we got back, we spent some time cleaning out the barn a bit (which created a decent-sized metal pile on the edge of the road there), raking up leaves and burning them, and making runs in the tractor to the dumpster with tractor buckets full of trash [if I’m remembering correctly that today was that day 😅].
Progress. 🎉
I remembered to take before pictures, but not after pictures, unfortunately, but it definitely looks a lot better. 🎉
I ate dinner at Jim and Steph’s place, chatted for a bit, and then headed back out to do some more mowing, mowing until after dark (and I think until the point that I was just about to run out of fuel).
Unfortunately, I had packed too many leaves into the burn barrel, so most of what was there wasn’t burned. It’s funny how just a little bit of compaction keeps the heat on top. You’d think that the fire would quickly make it to the bottom, catching the leaves below it on fire as the leaves above caught fire, but nope.
So I ended up spending a fair bit of time trying to get all the leaves burnt up, so I wasn’t leaving a fire hazard. If I’m remembering correctly, I ended up dumping out all the contents of the burn barrel onto the ground in an effort to get them to burn quicker. Unfortunately, what that meant was screws that I had raked up from the leaves next to the carriage Barn we’re now strewn on the ground in the driving pathway. 😬
And it was dark. 😅
Gratefully, there was enough gravel left over that as I would rake the leaves around, if there was a screw, I could hear it clink against the gravel, so then I could go look for it. I don’t remember how many I found, but it wasn’t just a couple.
With none of the hoses working, and being as late as it was, I didn’t really have a way to fill up water to just put everything out, so I kicked all of the leftovers around until they were flat on the ground, and then, since it was dark, I just wandered from spot to spot putting out anything that was glowing by stepping on it and scraping it into the ground.
Eventually, after lots and lots of effort, I managed to get all of the little embers out, so there was nothing left to start a fire with.
I was pretty filthy after a long day of hard work, so I was grateful that my mom let me grab a shower at her place. She also fed me a second dinner, and we chatted for a bit before I headed out to my van for the night.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
