This past Saturday my husband, Lynn, and I went to Ohio to do some outdoor work on my Dad's farm. (He passed away in June, and we eventually want to sell it--when the market is better). There is a huge yard around the house and barn that needed mowing. Also, there was lots of brush, scraggly bushes, weeds, etc up around all of the buildings. It looked a little overwhelming to me,but we just started, one building at a time.
I had just retired from my nursing career on Thursday. To celebrate, Lynn bought me 2 pair of work gloves--what a guy! In his defense, I had told him I would need some gloves to go work at the farm, so it wasn't quite like it seemed. It did make for some laughs, however.
The tree by the smaller building in the picture was a walnut tree, and all the walnuts had fallen on the ground. So my first job was to pick up all the walnuts, and then we cleared away all the brush and weeds from around that building. We started a fire in a depressed fire pit in the back yard, and ended up burning brush most of the day.
I started mowing yard, while Lynn was weed-eating, clearing brush etc. I mowed some of the yard by the house, and over half of the barnyard. Let me say, I wasn't quite used to such outdoor activity. Thus the title of this blog--embrace the sweat. That is a phrase I got from my sister Brenda; she has a broken leg and her physical therapist told her it was a good thing to embrace the sweat! Easy for her to say!
I really wish I had thought to take some "before" pictures of the buildings. Suffice it to say that it was quite a mess, and by the time we finished, the yard was mowed, and the barn and 2 other buildings were cleared of weeds and brush.
We started about 10:00 am and finished about 5:30 pm with about a 45 minute break for lunch. We headed to the Barn Restaurant to eat some supper. I bet they wondered at their clientelle--we looked pretty dirty and scruffy. They were gracious and didn't say anything so we had a good meal and then headed for home. What a day! These past 2 days I've had aches and pains from muscles that had forgotten how to work. Guess I'll have to give them regular exercise to keep them in shape--now that I'm "retired".
3 comments:
Is that your dad's name and the date he started his farm on the barn? If it is it would be nice to save it before you sell.
That is my dad's name and I'm not sure if that's the date he bought it. Thanks for the suggestion. Donna
It all looks really great. I remember those days of cleanup. My dad died in 1986, a couple yrs. after my mom, and it took my sister and me, our brother and his teen boys, the summer to clean up--he was a keeper of stuff. Now the lot is completely clean, house and barn, garage and another small bldg. gone. It's kind of eerie to go by an empty lot and know you had a life there for awhile. Sorry about your dad, I'm sure you miss him. Jan
Post a Comment