Almost - February 14, 2025 @goldenoakfarm

Dawn is at 6:45AM now!

When I pulled the shades up in the dining room well before 7AM on Friday morning it was just dawn.

I moved my way around the house and this is what I saw when I pulled up the west shades in the living room. Beautiful moonset.

There weren’t very many birds at the feeders but there were 6!! squirrels. Three were under the feeders and the other 3 over by the Small garden chasing each other around.

I got the kitchen cleaned up and stripped down and was doing the milk order when my helper friend came in. He’d forgotten to get the bird seed and I’d forgotten to call him to remind him. Sigh… blind leading the blind around here sometimes…

I got dressed and started washing things up while he got the vacuum out and started on the walls and ceilings. These items (above) and some by the sink needed cleaning of one type or another. The last thing I did was to scrub my disreputable garden hat and set it to dry in the laundry room.

He had finished with scrubbing spots off the ceiling while I dusted and polished the small furniture.

Next we took the Berkey apart to clean. It was then I realized I didn’t have the recommended scrubbing pads for the filters. So he went off to the store for those and I started dusting, polishing, and cleaning pictures, then hanging them back up.

Because they hang on a wall with a door that’s opened and shut a dozen times a day (to the pantry), the pictures are often tilted. I had gotten some glue dots that weren’t supposed to damage wallpaper for the corners of the frames. But they do, so when I took down the pictures, I had several repairs to make to the paper.

I was careful putting them back so they were, I hoped, straight when I pushed them against the glue dots.

I had finished all the pictures by the time he got back, so we finished cleaning the Berkey and refilled it.

I got the rest of the stuff put back in place.

So the kitchen is almost finished. I just have to strip and re-wax the floor on Saturday. I was so exhausted when we finished. I had my helper friend make me a cheese omelet for lunch and then he left.

I planned to spend the afternoon resting on the couch watching Gilmore Girls.

It had been a sunny day and very windy. It got worse with wind as the day wore on.

I ordered a dinner for Valentine’s Day and ate it early, around 5PM. I got my evening chores of shades and stoves done and was in bed by 8PM.

On Saturday it will be an early start as I have to move everything out of the kitchen so I can do the floor. It will take all day to do, as I plan to put 2 coats of wax down. We have a big storm coming in with snow all night, and then rain all day on Sunday. Another slushy mess…