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Hi Everyone,
I just finished eating my Sunday night snack---eggs and toast, with a glass a cold raw cow’s milk. The piece of toast came out of a loaf of Millet Bread, the glass of milk came from our own dairy cows—but I do not know which ones. The eggs are a different story though. I know exactly which chicken they came from. They were green eggs—and since we do not eat pork, I could not eat green eggs and ham. J Anyway, the chicken that lays those green eggs is an Easter Egger—Araucana/Americana-strain. She is very colorful with shades of reds and blacks, and her legs are green. You may ask, if we own over 400 laying chickens, how I can possibly know which eggs come from Ariel. A few years ago we bought a mixed batch of chickens—Easter eggers, Delaware, Barred Rock, Silver-Laced Wyandotte, Buff Orpington, and some Speckled Sussex. The main duty of these birds was to turn our weeds and food scraps into compost. Those birds did an excellent job—and are still doing an excellent job some three or four years later. We almost recycled them into the stew pot last summer. We had decided to raise our new laying hens in the poultry barn, but we still needed the eggs from the chickens that were living in there. Since you cannot add young chickens to old chickens without the old chickens killing the new chickens, we moved the old chickens into a hoop house out in the pastures, and let the young ones have the Poultry Barn and compost yard, but they refused to work. They were young teenagers who just wanted to hang out. So once they were grown and laying eggs, we moved them into the mobile chicken tractor that follows the cows and sheep around the pastures. Then we went and brought the ancient hens home---for making compost is their forte. As I was saying…….Ariel was one of about six Easter Eggers that we got with that first batch. There was something about them –the other chickens didn’t like them. Once they got big enough, Ariel learned how to fly. We would go to lock the chickens up at night, and Ariel would be running around with the turkeys on the outside of the Compost yard. We would shoo her back in, and the next night she would be right back out with the turkeys. We soon found out that the other chickens were picking on her, and so she was flying the coop to get away. We decided to let her live with the turkeys—and she is as happy as can be. She runs to greet you when you go out to the Poultry barn, and sometimes she will even let you pick her up. Right now she has two other friends living with her—a Delaware named Mrs. White, (who joined the ranks due to an enlarged foot after some string got wrapped around it…she is better now), and a Red Sex-link named Henny Pen (who for some reason landed on the bottom of the totem pole and ended up being scalped…she is better now too). They lay brown eggs, but it is still easy to tell their eggs apart also. Ariel lays green eggs, Mrs. White lays a slender light tan egg, and Henny Pen lays brown eggs. Therefore, while we do have around 400 laying hens—I can still enjoy the satisfaction of knowing who laid some of the eggs that I eat.
Whenever I write my journals I always begin each day with—after we milked the cows. Then I go on to tell about the rest of the day. This week I realized that I cross off three hours of every day with five little words, and I thought that it was high time to tell all about those three hours of my everyday life. Now that we no longer have a hired milkman, Mom and I milk the cows together every day of the week—that is all seven days. I am thankful that we only milk once a day now. There was a time that we milked twice a day, but we quit ten years ago after Mom had the flu for six months on and off, and my sisters were tired of milking cows all by themselves—all day long. They would spend 4 hours in the morning milking, and then another three in the afternoon. Milking once a day has been a great improvement on our daily schedule. Monday thru Friday I start my day in the milk house at 8:00 in the morning. Saturday we start around 8:30 and Sunday it is 5:30—because we have to leave for church by 9:00. I start my day out putting together a 74 piece puzzle. Do you like to put puzzles together? I know that children do, and they always have fun making the pieces match. We milk four cows at a time, so there are four milk tanks with all their parts. We have two different kinds of milk claws---one set looks like a quadropus (like an octopus, but it only has four legs). It has a clear round head, with four legs that hook up to the teats of the cow. The other set has a large yellow head with big eyes, and I call them hornets. They look like them, and because of the sharp metal parts they sometimes bite like a hornet. There are four pulsators that the air runs through that make the milk claws pulsate and milk the milk out of the cow. Those pulsators are attached to a rubber apparatus that looks like a little black army tank—I promise that I could have fun with a little boy. We just might conquer the world before we head out to milk the cows. Those little army tanks are made from five separate parts—one being a little rubber star. Then there are the electric eels that connect the lids to the claws—the air hoses and the milk hoses. Like a fish out of water, they are quite harmless, but put them in the wash sink and they come alive. When you are least expecting it they shower you with water like an elephant spraying you with his trunk—in other words you sometimes grab them the wrong way and empty all the water that is inside them right down the front of you. It takes about twenty minutes to assemble all the parts, and another ten minutes to gather the milking towels, buckets of soapy water, the iodine teat cups, and making sure that the milk house is nice and tidy. In the meantime, Moises is cleaning up the milking parlor and filling the feed cans with alfalfa and sunflower meal. Then he takes all the equipment and supplies out to the milking parlor and brings in the cows. Mom is usually inside doing the breakfast dishes, or outside feeding the six bottle lambs. Anywhere from 8:45 to 9:00, Mom and I head to the milking parlor to milk the cows. Right now we are milking about 15 cows, but we are feeding around 22. We have three cows due to calve around Easter—Penelope, Carolina, and Honey. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes to milk each cow, and we each milk two at a time. Everyone knows that dogs know their names, and usually come when called—but did you know that a cow can know their name to, and come when called. Some cows wait at the wire, and are always first. Others wait back behind everyone. Flag, the bull, insists on being first. I was not too fond of the idea of the breeding bull coming into the milking parlor to eat—but he does just fine, and is quite gentle. Sunshine and Lucy always want to be second, but Mom milks them and they usually have to wait for her arrival. My first cow is always Abby. I milk her in the left stall, for she has a kicking fit on the right side (yes, cows can be temperamental too). Rosepetal on the other hand only likes the right stall, and will leave if her stall is not open. Analee comes in and quickly heads to Mom’s right stall, and if it is full she does the hokey-pokey turning herself around until she finds an open stall. When she is done being milked, you had best not be standing behind her—for she flies out backward. Carolina is about to pop (have a calf), and she waddles in slowly and exits slowly. Decci is the new heifer and she is so well trained that we are amazed. When you call her she comes hopping and skipping for she is so happy---and she will go into any stall that is open. Ellie Mae is our cow that knows her name real well—but is also so impatient that if you call another cow and that one will not come, then Ellie Mae comes running, and you had best let her in or she will plow you over. Our milking routine is quite simple. We bring our cow in to the stall, and tie her in so that she cannot leave us. We teat dip each teat with soapy water, and use a clean towel for each cow to wash off the teats. Then we hook up the milk claws and let them milk the cows for us. When the milk stops coming out, then we remove the claws, milk out by hand to make sure the cow is empty, and then we teat dip them with iodine. Some cows are eager to come in, and eager to go out—they just want the feed. Others come in happily, but are not too eager to leave—they hope that you will give them more food. June and Sunshine are two of those who want more feed, and they start dancing around until they get more. They have figured out that if they finish their food before we finish milking them, then they can have seconds. J Ellie Mae gets pesky when she finishes eating and starts putting her dirty lips on my head covering and dumping my water bottle on the ground. She is actually telling me one of two things—I want seconds, or I have to go to the bathroom. The first is solved easily, but the second can cause a disaster. If we catch it in time, we can catch it in a bucket before it hits the ground. If we miss it—well we could be covered in cow poop quickly. You never know how a morning will go when we milk—it is always an adventure. When we finish milking the cows, we then head into the milk house to bottle the milk and Moises spends the next 2 hours washing up all the equipment.
Most days last week after we finished milking we headed to the garden to weed to prepare for planting the spring garden this Thursday and to prepare for a farm tour on Saturday. Monday was a rainy day so we spent most of our day packaging eggs. Thursday afternoon we separated out last year’s ram lambs, and took them to the butcher Friday morning. Last year we took about 19 ram lambs to the butcher, but this year we only had 9. They were really nice looking though. I guess that most of the lambs were ewes last year. We should have lamb available for our customers to have some for their Easter Dinner.
Saturday was spent playing catch up. We got all the laundry folded and put away, and I finally got the kombucha made. My brother David came over for a visit, and Papa made deliveries to Gainesville. Then he ran errands and bought supplies for the Poultry Kitchen—which opens this Friday when we butcher the first batch of chickens for the year. There is still much to do to prepare for that day. Papa has been busy digging ditches for the drainage to the Poultry Kitchen—when he hasn’t been running errands buying hay and feed, going to the bank, getting ice, or making deliveries. The concrete floor still needs to be sealed, but that cannot be done until the walls and the floor are washed down, which cannot be done until the drain field is finished. Mom and I have been tackling weeds—some easy and some invasive. We still have the trellises to put up, but find it a little to exhausting to do ourselves. Yes, spring is here, and the “To Do List” is forever long, and very time sensitive. We shall see what gets accomplished, and what doesn’t. I am dreaming big though!
I hope you have a wonderful week, and by the way…..if you want a sneak peek at our new website, you can go to www.shepherdshillfarmflorida.com . There are a few pages that are not finished yet, but it is up and running. Let us know what you think!
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare