268
Hi Everyone,
Summer is a coming in—and we are enjoying every bit of it. No more freezing my fingers off while I milk the cows. There’s plenty of sunshine headin’ my way….and now that we have had rain, everything is "satisfactch'll". So grab a large glass of cold lemonade and curl up in a cool spot, and relax a little while and come along with me as I take you to a land where the milk cows roam, where the sheep and the lambs romp and play. Where the air is so pure and the zephyrs so free, and the breezes so balmy and light—that I would not exchange my home on the farm for all of the cities so bright.
Monday was Memorial Day—and needless to say, we spent it in the garden, even though it was 105 degrees most of the afternoon. One of our customers from Gainesville, who attended the Garden Tour, was so inspired to garden that she wants to come to the farm as often as she can to help us in the garden. She says that helping us in our garden inspires her to do more in her garden. She wanted to get here real early, but ideas and reality do not always mix. Therefore, it was about 11:00 by the time she and a friend arrived to buy a ram. Once the ram was chosen and purchased, her friend went home, and she stayed to “play” in the garden. We pulled weeds until about 1:00, then we broke for lunch—lamb burgers, with fresh cucumbers and cooked zucchini and onions. After we ate we headed back to the garden. Yes, the weather station said that it was over 100, but there really was a cool breeze, it was not humid, and for the most part, we pulled weeds under the large oak tree. When a few beds were totally weeded, Steve and I headed to the chestnut orchard to gather some more of those blessed leaves that make great mulch—I am finally excited about having chestnut trees! I was shocked to see that it was 4:40. When we got back we announced to Mom and Cecilia that it was 5:00 and time to stop. When you are having fun—you do not want to stop. The bad thing is that I can work and work, but as soon as I stop, I crash. Then I am supposed to find the energy to cook dinner. J
While Monday was hot, we were still able to work outside. Tuesday was a different story though. The humidity had arrived, the sky had a hazy look all day, and the heat was intense. We were glad to spend our afternoon having an egg party in the air-conditioned milk house. Before lunch though, Steve and I went to the garden for about 40 minutes. Steve weeded the walkways, while I harvested some herbs. When I got back inside I placed them on the dehydrator. At 6:00 that night my weather station said that it was 110 degrees outside. Then we noticed all around us the sky was getting grayer by the minute. Was it really fixing to rain? Mom went to close the onion house window and the brooder house windows and door. Papa got back from gathering the eggs just in time. As he walked into the garage, the heavens let loose—BIG TIME!!!! In ten minutes we got half an inch of rain and the temperature went from 110 to 79. You could almost watch the grasses getting greener. It only rained for ten minutes, then it quit. Later that evening as Papa headed out to lock up the critters for the night, it began to rain again. It was still raining when we went to bed, and we got almost an inch of rain. Totally we got 1.40 inches of rain. It was so nice—we couldn’t help but Praise the Lord for his mercy, things were getting to dry.
Wednesday found the Crane boy’s exercising their muscles and servant hearts here on the farm. They helped Steve do his morning chores, and then they took a batch of chicks out to pasture. Abby had a new calf, but her little heifer likes to hide. Therefore, they had an old-fashioned scavenger hunt—but without a map. After checking here, there, and yonder, they finally found her. Then it was time to filter the milk, pack the order for Jacksonville, and gather the day’s eggs. At noon I had piano lessons to teach. Later that afternoon my friend Lydia came over for a visit. We had a good time together catching up, and we even got to walk through the garden to see how well the plants are growing and producing that she helped plant back in April. When Lydia helped me put those seeds in the ground, it was all dirt and see through trellises. Now the trellises are green, and have butternut squash and spaghetti squash hanging from the trellises. The other trellises are turning green with bean vines that are growing higher and higher every day. The cucumbers are producing nicely, and the green beans are done. With summer coming in—the weeds are taking over. The pumpkins are taking over their bed too. I have three types of pumpkins growing in a 20 ft. by 63 ft. bed. Steve has been running the tiller every week around the plants to keep the weeds at bay. This week he will not be able to get the tiller in there, because the vines have gone from one end to the other. The garden is all a bloom with cosmos, sunflowers and zinnias—none of which I planted this year. If you let your flowers go to seed, they will reproduce for you next year—and the next, and the next.
There are seasons for everything in life. Work, play, relax, and sleep. There are also many types of work: sit sown, stand up, muscle work, brain work, outdoor, indoor. Thursday, Friday and Saturday were a mixture of different types of work. After we got the milking done Thursday morning, I decided that it was time to do my part of the new website—the write ups for some of the pages. So I spent a lot of time at the computer creating content. Then we had three bulls that I needed to market on Craigslist, but I needed pictures of them. So, after lunch I grabbed the camera and headed out to pasture to take some snapshots of a two week old bull, a five month old bull and a fourteen month old bull. Once I got the pictures on the computer, it was kind of neat to see how much a cow changes from birth to over a year. By the time I was ready to cook dinner—I was tired of sitting at the computer. After dinner though I had to do some more computer work as we went through the “who’s paid” and “who hasn’t paid”. I did manage to find some time though to lie on the sofa and do some reading.
Friday was not computer day—it was stand up in the kitchen all afternoon day. After we milked the cows in the morning, I headed to the garden to turn off the sprinklers. While I was there, I harvested some cucumbers and the first lemon squash of the season. I found that one of the lemon squash plants that we had begun to tie up to the trellis had grown so much that it fell over. I went to the garden shed and grabbed the string and the knife, and headed back to trellises. After I tied up all the lemon squash plants, I started to tie up some of the butternut squash—until Mom called me in to fix lunch. When lunch was over, I made yogurt and then I began removing the dried herbs from the dehydrator and packaging them. The plantain and comfrey were crumbled and put in pint jars. They will be used to make my Soothing Salve this year. For the first time ever I get to make my Soothing Salve from herbs that we grew on our farm—plantain, comfrey and chickweed. After the plantain and comfrey were labeled and placed in the herb closet, I started the long process of removing the leaves from the stems of the rosemary, winter savory, sage, thyme, parsley and oregano. That took a few hours. Then I packed them into little glass jars. Mom was busy outside removing grass and weeds beside our sidewalk and porch—in our little courtyard. She was preparing the ground to plant the rose and clematis that I bought her for Mother’s Day. After dinner I did find myself doing some computer work as I put together the Gainesville orders and made the receipts.
Come Saturday, May had left us, and June had arrived. May proved to be our drought month like always, but believe it or not, we actually got more rain in May than we did in April—it just got so hot that things really began to suffer. Hopefully June brings back our rains. My “To Do List” was forever long—but if I got nothing done besides practicing my piano, I didn’t care. Needless to say, things didn’t go as planned—but I did manage to get my piano practiced, even if it was after dinner. There was milking to do, kefir to bottle, the Gainesville order to pack, and ---------------plants to water, laundry to fold, clothes to iron, all of May’s farm receipts to log into the computer, herb jars to label, and it was June 1st, therefore it was time to change the spring décor in the dining room to summer décor. After the milk house chores were all done, I began to work on logging receipts into the computer. I got them half way done when Mom said that she wanted to go to Hobby Lobby to shop for summer décor. So off to town we went. We wanted to cover our tablecloths with some clear vinyl, but after the lady had all twelve feet rolled out, Mom realized that she couldn’t handle the smell of the vinyl. There went our idea for an easy to clean decorated table. So we decided to use the tablecloths that we already had, but we wanted a few decorations to hang from pegs on our primitive shelf, and we needed a centerpiece for the table. We found some cute little wooden patriotic decorations and some red, white and blue primitive looking garland. Then Mom found a wire basket with three white porcelain pots inside it. Mom wanted to find some red geraniums to plant in the pots. So we headed to Lowe’s, and they had no geraniums. Then we headed to Walmart, and there in a back corner, under some big plants, were four little geraniums at a discount price. Success! We bought three of them, and headed home. We stripped the dining table of the spring décor, put it in the laundry, and placed a white tablecloth on the table and topped it with a smaller red and white plaid tablecloth. Mom planted the geraniums, and decorated the shelf with all the goodies. I hung some primitive patriotic garlands that we already had, over the door ways. Then I hung Papa’s old Navy hat over one doorway where my Grandfather’s flag hangs. We then watered the plants, and it was time for dinner. Everything else would just have to wait until another day.
Last week we had two new calves born—one on Monday and one on Saturday. Both were little heifers. Our milk cows Abby and Ana had them. Abby and Ana both carry A2/A2 genes, and since our bull is A2/A2 then these two new heifers are both A2/A2. We have a goal to have all A2 cows by the end of the year. Most of our herd is A2/A2, and right now we are only milking two A1/A2 cows, that we know of. We have three cows that have never been tested, and we plan on getting those tested this week. We have never pursued buying A2/A2 cows—the Lord just blessed us with them. Now that we have two new A2 heifers, they need names. Abby’s other girl is named Gail, for we like to name our calves names that help us remember who their Momma is. Ana already has an Analee and an Anita. Trying to come up with names this time isn’t very easy. To complicate matters, their names cannot sound too much alike because our cows come when we call them by name. If you have an Ellie Mae and a Daisy Mae—they might both come just by hearing the “Mae”. Anybody have any ideas?
I hope you all have a great week—we will be busy in the garden, the kitchen, the milk house and the Poultry kitchen as we have more chickens to process this Friday.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare