Feed the Birds - December 12, 2025 @goldenoakfarm

On Friday morning I was up at 5:30AM and got my post up. I had checked on the stock in the night and added a good amount of water to both roasters. I had to add a good amount more when I got up and throughout the morning. There was a lot of condensation on the back porch door but the double glazed windows were clear.

My helper friend arrived at 8AM and he set about watering all the house plants. In the sewing room upstairs, he found one clivia with a bud. When I went up to get a photo, I found the other one was just starting a bud.

Once he’d finished the watering, we sat down for a cup of tea as it was his birthday. He’d tried to fly his little drone when he arrived, but even the small amount of wind was too much for it. He was hoping to fly it out here, but this place is a wind tunnel. We will see…

It was a very cold and windy day on Friday.

My helper friend ran the vacuum around while I put snowflakes on the back porch door.

He had picked up two 40 lbs bags of bird seed and some thistle seed on Tuesday. He brought that to the shed and we collected all the feeders and baffles and some buckets of seed and brought it inside.

I found one of the feeders needed to be repaired again, but we were able to fill and hang all the others, plus 4 suet feeders. It will take a day or so before they start flocking around.

He finished the vacuuming, even did the second floor, and then had to leave. I made some lunch and got ready to go to my event. I turned the stock off at 1PM and opened the windows on the porch to cool it down.

I got to the Senior center a bit early and they had a fire playing on the screen. It was well done and looked warming, even if it wasn’t.

I always check out the Bring and Take table and someone had brought this beautiful hand crocheted table cloth. I snapped that right up! Some of the other ladies commented on how nice it was and how the younger generations had no interest in these beautiful things.

The event was about hard cider making in the 17th thro 19th centuries. He also talked about the varieties of apples and how some apples will never breed true. This meant learning to graft the variety to another root stock to have it come true.

He explained why the use of hard cider declined (prohibition, etc) resulting in a steep decline in the varieties of apples (3900 in Massachusetts alone in the 1800’s) and how few varieties were well known now.

He got to talking about maps made for homesteads and farms back then. They often showed the shapes of the trees of different varieties. He had a map from 1873 of my town. That was so far back there was no indication of my farm area or of the house of my friend sitting next to me, even though her house is 100 years old.

I was pretty tired from my busy morning and it was all I could do to stay awake. Afterwards the Senior van took me to the library to get my book on the Lady Long Rider.

When I got home my new charger and cord for my husband’s old Apple 6s Plus phone had arrived. So I sat down and played being a vegetable until it was time to light the candles and get the stoves going.

I made supper and sat being a vegetable until 9PM. I finally got to bed at 9:30PM but couldn’t get to sleep. I was up until 1AM. I put more water in the stock and went to bed.

On Saturday I have to skim and strain the stock and package it for the freezer once it has cooled all the way down. I need to work on making Christmas presents, clean the kitchen, put up the rest of the snowflakes in the laundry room, and I should work on my homework for the Transition Planning class. But with not much sleep I don’t know how far I will get.