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Helen's Mulberry Lane Farm Journal
March 07, 2021
The Old Loda Grade School
The first thing we did after buying the old Loda Grade School (July/August 2019) was to start cleaning up the badly neglected seven acre property. A big tree in the front yard had lost several large branches many years ago making the front of the school look terrible. Our son Matthew took to cleaning that up. After that was done our son Tim starting take down the dead trees from the back of the school. The yard had grass about two feet tall, so all the dead trees and branches needed to get cleared out so we could mow.
The inside of the school was indescribable. Think a perfect set for a horror movie! I took a crew of my grandchildren and we started taking out wheel barrel loads to a large dumpster. We ended up filling three large commercial dumpsters by the time we were done! Then we started sweeping up dust, glass and dirt and other unmentionables that I think must have been there for one hundred years!
One of the sad things was the vandalism that damaged so many of the beautiful glass doors and windows in the school. There was glass all over the floors. We swept up shovel after shovel full.
While all of this was going on Gerald was setting up a sump pump in the basement and working on draining the water out of it. It turned out that the water pipes coming in from the town had a leak and the water couldn't drain out fast enough, which resulted in a foot of water being in the basement for many years! You can just imagine it.....the moldy smell....whew!
Next time, before and after shots of the basement of the old Loda Grade School. Stay tuned!
Gerald and Matthew repairing broken windows
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An end of an era in our household....Gerald and I are truly alone for the first time in forty plus years. Our calico cat ("Nameless" ~ a barn cat) died a few weeks back. She was nineteen years old. Her mother, a pretty calico, wandered onto our farm when Beka and Rachel were little girls and they adopted her. She had a few litters and many wandered away, but "Nameless" stayed. She had the most lovely coat of fur. It is weird going out the back door and not having her there.
First the kids leave home, and then all of their pets that they left with us, eventually leave too. It is just too quiet around here.
She loved to sleep under the blackberry plants.
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Blessings,
Helen
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