end of a beautiful weekend

Just a few spring chores left. We've gotten the front garden in, new bees are situated with more to come, the new laying hens are here and the cows have already let them out of their coop once, and the vegetable garden is almost there.

Last night the temps were expected to be freezing, so took a cardboard box out ot the garden and plucked out flowering plants - I'll stick them back in the ground at lunchtime today, and put all the houseplants and potted flowers back outside too. We haven't come this far with all the expense and work to lose my gardens - not for lack of effort anyway.

The last chores are the cows stall and the front chicken coop. We need to cull the flock of hens we've had for the last three years because they aren't laying anymore. But we don't really want to kill them, so we've been putting it off. The time has come though, because we'll need the coop to be cleaned up and dried out before the meat birds come in another week or so.

Not sure when we'll get these two major chores done - I guess it will be Bob and I working on them at night after work. We both have busy work days now. I just want to make sure to get a walk in at noontime each day, since I'm planning to climb Mt. Mansfield this fall.

We went to Fr. Demasi's funeral yesterday. He was our neighbor for a long time and the pastor of our tiny church. He baptized Bernie and gave first communion to all the kids. He still came to visit every Thursday after he retired to Bennington. I'd have to schedule work meetings around his time to drop by. He was like the Everready Bunny, still going and going at 91 years old, delivering food to people in the countryside. We will really miss our old friend.