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Hi Everyone,
I am so glad that there is a verse in the Bible that reads, “As thy days, so shall thy strength be.” Sometimes our days around here are so full that we wonder how we will ever have the strength to make it through the day. It is then that you cry out to God to fulfill His promise in your life—and He does!
Divide and Conquer
Lately we have had four extra people helping us out on the farm Monday through Wednesday. Many hands truly make light work—but it also means that you can divide and conquer. Steve and Papa start their days out feeding the chickens, ducks, and geese. Then Papa moves the two big chicken tractors, sheep and cows to new pastures. The rest of us can be found in the milking parlor milking the cows. Some days Leslie might be in the milk house bottling the kefir, and most mornings you can find Carry watering the chicks. Of course everyone has to take time to love on the new puppy—whose name is finally settled to be Yasha. After two weeks, I was tired of calling her “puppy”, and we could not agree on any other name. I love the meaning of Yasha (to make safe), and it really doesn’t sound that bad after all. After the milking was done on Monday we decided to divide and conquer. Mom headed for the lawn mower, Moises washed up the milking equipment, and Steve, Leslie, Carry and I worked on turning our fresh milk into cream and skim milk—which was then set out to turn into curds and whey. Once the milk was creamed, then Carry and Leslie washed up all the creaming equipment and Steve and I moved the chickens that we had processed the week before from the chest freezers in the Poultry Kitchen to the walk-in freezer in the milk house. One day we hope to have a walk-in freezer in the Poultry Kitchen. Then it was lunch time. After lunch we divided again. This time Mom headed back to the lawn mower, Steve and Leslie had an egg party, while Carry and I had a weed party. I have printed out a map of the garden, and we are coloring in the beds as we get them weeded—want to come help weed so that we can color it in faster? At 3:30 Carry headed inside to join the egg party, and shortly after we got a delivery of milk jugs. I was glad for the break, for I was in need of some lemonade. When I was ready to head back to the garden, Mom came up and said that everyone was needed in the garden to rake up and pick up the grass that she had mowed, and to clean up all the tools out of the garden—before it rained. When we came in it was going on 4:30 and Mom and I headed to the bank, while everyone else cleaned up from the egg party before they headed home. We had to make it to the bank before it closed, get some cat food at Tractor Supply, and then head over to Emily’s for some more pears from her pear trees. Her children were more than happy to climb those pear trees and toss us down some big pears—or shake them out of the tree so we could pick them off the ground. I will say that pear trees—unlike fig trees, are made for climbing! We got home around 6:45, and it was time to cook dinner.
Tuesday morning Leslie bottled the kefir while we milked the cows. Then Leslie and Steve bottled the milk and Mom went back to mowing. Carry and I headed to the garden to weed. Once the milk was bottled, then Steve and Leslie joined us in the garden. We weeded until a little after noon, when we came in to make lunch so that we could get started on the pears as soon as lunch was over. Mom finished mowing right before lunch, so after we ate, while we girls cleaned up the kitchen and got started on the pears, Mom and Steve picked up the grass out of the yard. Then it was all hands on deck. We peeled pears, cored pears, cubed pears, and sauced them in the blender before we dumped them in a stockpot with some lemon juice. We got started around 1:30, and at 3:30 we were in the thick of it when my new piano student showed up. They continued their work, and I taught piano lessons. When the pot was full they divided it between all our crock-pots so that we could cook the pears down and make pear butter—but there were still a lot of pears left. I had finished teaching, and had taken the children out to play with Yasha. Then since they are also customers, they picked up an order. When I got back inside Mom quickly sent me upstairs to find some more canning jars—for she was going to can the rest of the pears in half apple juice and half water. So the rest of the pears were peeled, cut in half and cored. Then Mom cooked them for two minutes in the juice mixture and put them in the jars and water bathed them for 20 minutes. We were done by 5:00, and we were very grateful for all the helping hands that we had.
The Wild, Wild East
Steve could not come to work on Wednesday, because his other boss was on vacation and needed him to run the campground. Thankfully it was already scheduled for the Crane young men to be here and fill in for Steve. They fed the heifers, the Poultry Barn birds (chickens, ducks, and goose), moved the pens for the meat chickens and fed and watered them, and took care of the brooder house chicks. Then before they had an egg packaging party, they were sent out to be cowboys. One of our heifers, Emma, is finally big enough to hang out with the bull. We had swapped our bulls around the day before. Flag is possibly in retirement, and Dijon has stepped up to the plate. Since the heifers and the cows were only separated by one fence, it was the perfect time to add Emma to the herd. The problem is that Emma has never been handled before—so getting her to leave her buddies was not an easy chore. They accomplished their goal, but as one of them said, “Being a cowboy on foot isn’t very easy.” Yes, there are times when you wish you had a horse. Years ago when it was just Mom, me and my two sisters running the farm, we rounded up many cattle. We dreamed of cowboys often! While we chased many cows on foot, we also chased our share in the golf-cart. For all you golfers, I bet you never dreamed of putting the pedal to the metal and chasing off after a stubborn cow at break neck speed, and turning on a dime—on two wheels at times. I can honestly say we have been there, and done that. My sister has even jumped out of the flying golf-cart to catch a sheep that needed help—but refused to be caught so that we could help her. Wild Adventures may be a theme park in Georgia, but we have our own wild adventures right here on the farm. Once the Crane boys were done being cowboys, they got to take a breather and package some eggs before they put the milk cows back out to pasture, cleaned up the milking parlor, bottled the milk, and packed the Jacksonville order. Then they gathered the eggs for the day and headed home.
There are days, and there are DAYS!
Thursday was one of those DAYS—and to top it all off, it was Mom and Dad’s 45th Wedding Anniversary. At 7:15 the phone rang to tell us that our turkeys had finally made it to our local Post Office—24 hours late! Then at 7:45 the neighbor girls called to say that they couldn’t make it to work. Moises had told us on Tuesday that he would not be able to come to work on Thursday. So—here we were just the three of us to run the whole farm all day. At 8:00 Mom headed to town to go to the bank, buy some groceries and pick up the turkeys. Papa headed out to pasture to feed and move all the animals. I set up the milking equipment, hung the laundry on the clothesline, and did the breakfast dishes. We usually start milking at 9:00—but it was 10:00 when I was ready to head to the milking parlor (and Mom wasn’t home yet). When I got to the parlor I found that the wire had not been closed to keep the cows in the milking parlor waiting area. So I brought in four milkers—because we have four stalls, and I headed down the lane to bring the cows back. The wasted walk ended up not being so wasted for I was able to find a poisonous weed on the other side of the fence. Lantana can kill a cow in 24 hours. I was glad that I found the weed, before a cow found it. When I got back to the parlor I found that Decci had drank my bucket of soapy water, and Amy had pushed the rubber mat out from under her and was breaking the boards more. My parlor is rotting, but we need knowledge and money to fix it. We want to replace the wood floor with a concrete floor—but we do not know how to do that. I shewed the cows out of the parlor, and headed to the barn to find a piece of plywood to make the floor flat again. I got back with that, but realized that one board was so broken that I needed another 2 x 6 to fill in the gap. So I went back to the barn to find some scrap wood.
Never would have been better than Late
I had just finished “fixing” my milk stall, and was trying to get Sunshine to come in to be milked—when Mom got home and said that most of the turkeys were dead, or almost there. The Post Office had delayed their delivery by 24 hours. We did our best to get the remaining turkeys warm, fed and watered—but in the end it was to no avail. Thankfully the hatchery is resending this week, and has requested that they not be shipped through Tallahassee were it took them 24 hours to travel the last two hours. We had originally ordered 35—hoping to have 20 for Thanksgiving Turkeys. They are sending us 46 to replace them—and we shall see how many the Lord has in mind for us to raise.
A Slippery Situation
It was 10:40 when Mom and I could finally start milking the cows. This ended up being to our advantage—because by then Papa had finished all his chores and could help us with the cows. It was 12:00 when we finished milking. Then Mom and Papa bottled the milk while I started cleaning up all the equipment. When they were finished, Papa took over washing the milk tanks and Mom and I worked on the milk claws, hoses, and parts. Everything was spic and span by 1:30 and we were ready for lunch. Wednesday afternoon during a rain storm I received an email that said my box of groceries had been delivered. I checked the front porch, milking parlor, feed room, Poultry kitchen, and the Gravely—but couldn’t find it anywhere. We were going to call the company on Thursday, but we decided to check the mailbox first. So, after we finished in the milk house Papa headed out to check the mail—and there was our box of groceries. The problem was that it had gotten a little damaged and wet, so the delivery company had wrapped it in a plastic bag. While we were very hungry for lunch—it would be another hour before we could accomplish that. Mom opened the box, and found that the lid on the bottle of liquid dish soap had fallen off the container—and everything was covered in soap. Have you ever been grateful for those foil seals on the food products that you buy? Too often I have found them annoying, but Thursday they were the biggest blessing ever. Had it not been for those foil seals, our sunflower butter would have been full of soap. As it was the outside of the bottle and under the lid was well coated. The container of Himalayan salt was pretty soapy also. We were able to get the container dry—so that we could dump the salt out into our salt jar. We thought that we would never get rid of all the soap! We finally got lunch, and then we relaxed for the rest of the afternoon. I set up my ironing board, and ironed while we caught up with some fellow farmers on YouTube.
Wedding Bliss
Papa would have loved to take Mom out to eat for their anniversary, but she was too tired. So we had chicken, acorn squash and okra. Then while I worked on some emails, they sat on the sofa looking through their wedding album. There is one thing that I learned about being married for 45 years—while one couldn’t remember their first kiss, neither could remember their first date. They couldn’t remember what they ate at their wedding reception, but they could remember that they had breakfast in their hotel room—and they had waffles! They couldn’t believe how much they had changed over the years, and wished that they had taken a picture together every year on their anniversary to see how they changed year by year. They realized that hired photographers are very important at a wedding—for friends don’t think to make sure that they get a picture of your best friend at your wedding, or your grand-parents. So, it goes to show that in the long run it doesn’t matter what you did or where you went—but that you love each other day by day.
Hospitality—Sharing God’s Blessings with Others
Friday evening we had company roll in from the beach in Jacksonville. They were driving a camper—and had brought their four year old great-granddaughter to experience a little bit of farm life. We could supply electricity and water—but they had everything else. There wasn’t much to do that night, because it rained. Saturday though was a different story. There was a puppy (Yasha) to walk on a leash, a calf to bottle feed, cows to see being milked, a tour of the farm on the Gravely, and some weeds to pull in the garden—plus lots of time to talk and just wander around and enjoy the fresh country air. They left around 1:00, and my brother-in-law showed up with my niece (Makenna) and my nephew (Josiah). Makenna wasn’t out of the vehicle very long before I told her to go check out the pen in the back yard. You never know what you will find in them—baby ducks, lambs, calves, and this time a puppy. I told her that she could let Yasha out, and the pup and children were happy playmates. Yasha has never played fetch, and Makenna couldn’t figure out why when she threw a ball and Yasha went after it, she didn’t bring it back to Makenna. Instead, Yasha was making a collection of doggie bones and tennis balls under the ferns on the side of the house. Then Yasha got hot, and I helped her get into a tub of water. Then the children thought that the tennis balls needed a bath, and that the dog needed a bath—and do I need to say anymore? The three of them had a blast playing together.
Finishing Up the Week
When everyone left, I put the farm receipts on the computer and balanced the month’s spreadsheet and Quick Books. Then Mom and I bottled the kombucha and I worked on some more ironing—just four shirts left. Around 5:30 I started on dinner—lamb leg steaks, broccoli with a cheese sauce and orange glazed beets. After dinner I spent some time playing the piano, and then we did the dishes. Before we retired for the night, Mom and I spent a little bit of time on the front porch enjoying the beautiful cool and breezy weather.
I hope that you have a great week—I know that we have a busy one ahead of us. Hopefully the turkeys and the chicks arrive healthy and strong.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare