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Hi Everyone,
Another week has come and gone, and as I look over my notes from each day last week I am reminded that it was a very full week—and thankfully I was feeling much better.
The beginning of the summer we bought two GreenStalk vertical garden planters—for the main reason of having a way to grow strawberries off the ground. During the summer we planted one with strawberry runners from our strawberry plants that we had grown in the clay strawberry pot in the greenhouse last winter. The other GreenStalk was filled with some strawberry plants, but the rest of the layers were filled with herbs and flowers. It was the first year that I had parsley all summer long—the key was growing them on the porch in the shade. October is the month for planting strawberry plugs, and the strawberry plants were covered with runners. We spent Monday cleaning up the GreenStalk that was on the porch (many of the plants had gone to seed or were dying—could it be because we had forgotten to water them?) We also moved it over to the concrete around the milk house where the other one was. The strawberry plants that were in the sun were growing much healthier and stronger than the ones that were on the back porch in the shade. We then added fresh soil and potted the runners in the empty spaces. Each GreenStalk holds 42 plants—one of them we filled up and the other GreenStalk has one tray of herbs and then we ran out of dirt before we could fill up the last two trays. Once we get more dirt we shall have a total of 78 strawberry plants growing in a four foot square area.
Tuesday morning as I started to set up in the milking parlor I happened to notice that at the top of the hooks that hold my milk claws was a swarm of about 20 wasps—their nest wasn’t too far away and it was housing about 50 wasps. They had never bothered us, but I did not feel comfortable having to take the claws on and off those hooks—I was afraid that I would agitate them too much. We sent Steve out to pasture to get Papa and we loaded up a spray bottle with lots of Dawn Dish soap and water. When Papa arrived he took the spray bottle and aimed and pulled the trigger over and over and over and over and over and over again and again and again and again! When he was done we had a lot of dead wasps—and we knocked down the nest. My parlor was now dripping with soapy water. Mom took the water hose to the area—and then it was raining soapy water. I had to climb up the pipes and use a rag to dry off as much of the wood and pipes as I could—and then we began milking. We didn’t manage to eradicate 100% of the wasps—for some showed back up the next day.
Once we finished milking on Tuesday I headed into the milk house to bottle the kefir. Then I was able to go to the garden to harvest some okra and cayenne peppers. When I got back inside it was time to make the yogurt, eat lunch, and join an egg packing party. Then my piano student arrived, I cooked dinner and put together the orders for the Jacksonville delivery the next day.
It has been dry for the last couple of weeks—which has been good for the hay and peanut farmers. The dirt road was beginning to get very dusty, so when the sky turned grey on Wednesday we did not moan the coming rain but rejoiced to see it come. It made for a nice cozy relaxing afternoon—but cozy afternoons do come to an end as the evening begins and there are chores to do. The heifers needed to be moved and the turkeys needed to be locked up for the night. We donned our raincoats, hopped into the truck and headed out to pasture. Since there are so many gates to open, we only drove half way out to the turkeys and heifers—we walked the rest of the way and it was only lightly raining. The turkeys went to bed easily and then Mom told me about a purple flower growing along the neighbor’s fence—on the other end of the fields (about 12 acres away). I wanted to see them, so we walked down there. The fence line was dotted with three to four feet tall plants that were covered in purple tubular flowers. When we got back inside I looked them up and found out that they were called Seminole False Foxglove. They are a host plant to the Common Buckeye Butterfly—and we saw some of their caterpillars munching away on the plants. Once we were done flower gazing then we walked back and set up the hot wires in order to move the heifers to new munching grounds. When you rotate your animals to fresh pasture everyday—the grass truly is greener on the other side of the fence.
We did not separate the calves Wednesday night—so that meant that I didn’t have to milk any cows on Thursday. I did have to feed them all though. Mom still had five cows to milk—but she did get a break from a few of them. With very little milk, we were able to make it to the garden by 11:00. Mom headed out to mow the field that the heifers had just come out of (when you mow down what they didn’t eat it allows the grass to grow back evenly and better tasting). Steve and I worked in the garden preparing the tunnels for the fall garden. On Saturday we had some customers come by who had just moved down from Minnesota in July. They were used to gardening and I asked them if they had a garden yet. They said no, but they hoped to have one next growing season. I told them that now is the best growing season Florida has. Starting in September you can grow cabbage, lettuce, broccoli, kale, collards, Swiss chard, carrots, and onions. Therefore we are most busy right now in the garden. The first thing Steve did was to pick up all the dried pea vines from off the rows. Then I quickly weeded the little bit of weeds and Steve top dressed the rows with our chicken compost. By the end of the day we had four rows composted, broadforked and leveled—and all the walkways between them wood chipped. We worked from 11:00 to 1:30, took a lunch break and then returned to the garden until 4:30. A shower was first on the agenda, then I had to cook dinner, and then I got to spend the evening relaxing with a book.
I had no cows to milk again on Friday morning and I spent my morning dumping feed in a trough, bringing in a cow and then running over to the greenhouse to pot up, clean up and prepare to plant. Then when the cow backed out of her stall I would run back and dump in more food, bring in another cow and run back to the green house. When the milking was all over I headed to the garden to transplant 64 collard plants into the freshly prepared rows with mom. Then I spent the rest of the day in the green house planting flower seeds for next year’s cut flower garden. There will be snapdragons, poppies, forget-me nots (if they don’t forget to sprout), rudbeckia and more.
Papa spent his afternoon in Georgia—well not exactly for he never left the farm. Mom had found a leaky water line and Papa had to fix it. That required digging a two foot deep hole about five feet wide—in solid orange gumbo clay. Papa said that it was just like modeling clay—it was orange enough and thick enough to make clay pots with. When the builders were starting on our house the people who were responsible to dig the footers walked off the job because of the “Georgia” gumbo orange clay. The contractor and his son had to take over the job. You couldn’t do it with a shovel, so they tried a back hoe—and they had to use a pick ax to get the clay out of the bucket of the back hoe. When we dug holes to put in our first orchard we teamed up in groups of two and had races to see who could dig their hole the fastest—because the clay was so bad. I must say that all those trees died, but we did manage to eat a few good plums before they bit the dust. Anyway, Papa spent his whole afternoon digging with a shovel and the tractor bucket. The line was fixed, and because of the leak we were able to put in a new water faucet in a place that desperately needed one. Papa had to use the pressure washer to clean up his tractor.
Since Papa was busy playing in the “mud”, Mom and I decided to do some of his chores (lock up the ducks, lock up the turkeys, and separate the calves). The ducks were easy, the turkeys weren’t too bad—but the calves were a different story. It was 5:00 and I had just put a chicken and some sweet potatoes in the Instant Pot to cook, and they would be ready by 6:00. It was 7:00 by the time we entered the house again—and I was glad that all we had to do was heat up some frozen broccoli, set the table and serve up. We completely expected to get back inside within 45 minutes—but NOOOOO those calves would not cooperate for nothing. We ran them from one end of 2 acres to the other at least fifteen times. Mom was breathing heavy and kept saying she couldn’t go no more. I suggested that we give up—but she asked if we needed to milk for our sales, and I had to admit that we did. We would get them all heading toward the lane—then one would bolt, and all the others would follow the leader. After an hour or more, Papa finally finished what he was doing and he came to help. After a few rounds around the pasture Papa decided that it was time to bring the whole herd—he is so smart! Once the whole herd was up to the panel pens then we just sent the mama’s back to the field and pushed the calves toward the pen. In the end we won, but it was not easy.
Saturday morning when Papa headed outside to do the chores he was met by Steve who told him that the calves were out in the yard. We finished our day with them being naughty, and began our day with them being naughty. They had busted their way out of a busted gate, and since the fence was down to fix the septic drain field—they got out into the yard. Thankfully it didn’t take much to encourage them to return and Papa strung up some hot wire netting to keep them out of the yard. Then when Papa headed out to pasture he found his new water spigot leaking—and he had to stop and fix it. All of this put us very late getting started milking. Before we finished we had two sets of customers show up, then just as we finished some guys showed up to buy our six month old bull calf Mr. Red (His mama Ana is not a happy camper today). It was time to wean him, and he was such a nice bull that we wanted to sell him to be a bull—we were glad that we were able to do that. Then I had to pack the order, harvest some bok choy for the order, and pick some flowers for a sick customer. Did I say that in the midst of all this I had left open a gate and Ellie Mae was out wondering around the yard?
That afternoon I ironed—it is very bad when your Papa starts pulling clothes out of the ironing pile and wearing them wrinkled because there are none hanging in his closet. Mom spent her afternoon making a bathroom curtain and a bed skirt for her bed. Then we found an old quilt in the closet and she was able to give her bed a new look. It won’t be long before she gets her room painted. It only took her 23 years to figure out how she wanted to decorate her bedroom.
I hope that you had a good week and are enjoying the fall season.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare