May activities

Hi neighbors. The month of May is near and we all know what that means. Busy!

There is spring cleaning in the house which includes cleaning out the garage to locate the patio furniture and cleaning out the sheds and planning for the first of the season’s yard sale. With all that stuff you cleaned out of your closets, storage bins, sheds and garage just sitting around in the way you should have plenty to have a garage sale.

Don’t forget to have your children help out. Since this school year is over in May, all those clothes are ready to be offered in the yard sale. Let them set up their own area to sell their own things and earn a little extra money to buy new summer clothes.

After the house, garage and sheds are cleaned out, have a family meeting to decide where and how to store the things you want to keep; but don’t use often. Camping equipment needs some special attention to have it fresh and ready for a spontaneous weekend camping outing.

Christmas decorations, and those boxes of stuff for other holidays need to be stored in well-identified boxes or totes and placed out of the way in a storage shed or in the garage.

May is also the month to spruce up the yard, porch and patio for all those outdoor parties. Time to repaint the outdoor furniture, buy new pillows and cushions for lawn chairs, check out the huge table umbrella for holes before the first backyard picnic.

If you have a swimming pool it’s time to clean it, fill it up and make certain it’s safe and ready for the first swimmers. Don’t forget to make certain everyone has well-fitting swim gear as needed.

It’s also time to plant your flowers and vegetables. Sit everyone down and make certain you all agree on your landscaping wants and needs before the shovels and hoes start tearing up the turf.

If you usually put out a large vegetable garden you already know what to do. If this is your first year to have a garden to grow foods to can or freeze, it might be a good idea to check with the experts before you get too involved.

I’ll offer my sympathies to all those who order chicks for autumn butchering. All that cheeping drives me to distraction. I will agree the chicks are cute as can be but don’t enter into this activity without guidance from someone with experience in every step of the way.

It’s that time of year to paint the house and to wash the screens and windows and maybe the porch as well.

After the yard sale, there should be room enough to store the laundered blankets, coats, jackets, scarves, gloves, etc. till next fall. Under the bed storage is a great place for blankets and comforters or bedspreads, particularly in guest rooms where even in mid-summer some guests may need a light blanket with the air conditioner running.

And if you are on a farm — oh my — the work is twice as much on a farm in the spring as it is in town. Where the town folks may plant flowers or a small vegetable garden, the farmers plant acres of crops. Spring is the time for all the little ones to be born: calves, piglets, chicks, ducks, foals, kids and any other type of animal farmers keep on the farm these days.

It’s just the time of year where everyone needs to buckle down and get three times the amount of work done within the same 24 hours each day always has.

That applies to just about everyone I suppose, but maybe not so much to we of the so-called Boomer generation. No, it seems we like to spend more time in quiet reflection and observation. Oh, and giving directions to younger folk, yes. Boomers like to boom that’s for certain. So get up early and get started with all that needs doing. I’ll make the coffee.