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Hi Everyone,
We haven’t had much rain since September. October is always expected to be a dry month, but November is supposed to start with more rain so that the winter grasses that we plant do not sprout and then shrivel up and die because of lack of water. Papa has worked hard since the beginning of November to plant oats and barley so that the milk cows have green grass to eat during the winter months. The grasses were sprouting—but then we barely got over an inch and a half of rain in November. The grasses were beginning to not look very promising—and that is not very encouraging when brown grass doesn’t make milk and your only hope for more milk in the winter is green grass. Our Bahia grass turned brown a few weeks back after we got a very heavy frost, and of course the milk supply dropped immediately. Then we had a turn of events this week—we had warmer weather, and warmer weather this time of the year creates lots of heavy fog. The fog was so thick that you couldn’t see the cows out in the pastures—and you definitely couldn’t see the neighbor’s property. The fog was so heavy that it misted like rain—saturating everything in sight. The water even dripped off the roofs and collected in buckets below, and the fog even creeped into the milking parlor soaking the railing and leaving puddles of water in the feed troughs. The most interesting part about the fog was that it even registered as rain on my Weather Station—for in a few days the rain gauge read .03 inches of rain. It reminded me of the verse in the Bible that said God watered the earth by a mist that went up from the earth—that was before it ever rained. So, for three days last week all the land around here was watered by a heavy fog. Then on Wednesday things changed—it rained! We got an inch and a half of rain in less than an hour, which resulted in some flooding. Papa was braving the elements as he made deliveries to Jacksonville, and Mom and I were safe and dry in the house—but once the storm had passed Mom and I had to head outside to lock up the ducks for the night and to separate the calves so that we would have milk in the morning (I was a little concerned that it wouldn’t stop raining before it got dark, and then we wouldn’t be able to separate the calves—but thankfully it stopped well before dark set in). When we headed outside I donned my rubber rain boots, and Mom decided that it was a wise idea so she donned her boots too—my reasoning was that I had no idea what we would meet. The drive lane was well puddled, but it wasn’t until we arrived at the panel pens that our boots came in handy. We have to set up metal panels across the lane so that the calves are directed into the panel pens—and don’t go running all over the farm, but the lane in front of the gate was one big puddle. I was glad for my rubber knee boots, even though the puddles were just ankle deep. Once we got the panel pens set up we headed down field to round up the calves—but we were not prepared for the mess in the cows’ field. The hay racks just happened to be in the lowest part of the field where the road water runs off and creates a little pond. Oops! In order to round up the calves, we had to wade through the water that was over our ankles. Thankfully the calves rounded up very easily, because we couldn’t walk too fast in the water. When Papa got home from Jacksonville, and after dinner, he had to go out in the dark and move the hay rack up to higher and dryer ground. We managed to get a little more rain early this morning—and it looks like the fields are starting to turn green. Maybe we shall have winter grasses after all!
This week has been very busy, and we have had lots of help to get things accomplished. Back in the summer I ordered hundreds of daffodil bulbs—and I got a call last week saying that they would be shipping them this week. I knew where I wanted to plant them—but the bed was full of weeds and hopefully sweet potatoes. On Monday a family came to help, and after we finished milking the cows then we all headed to the garden. We pulled weeds, and pulled weeds, and pulled weeds—big weeds that leave you looking like a porcupine when you are all done. Then we dug for sweet potatoes—but we only found three the size of a man’s finger. I do not know why we all of a sudden cannot grow sweet potatoes, but we haven’t had a decent crop in about six years. They either don’t produce, or if they do produce they get infested by maggots or eaten by rats. I am ready to line up a bunch of black tubs and grow sweet potatoes in them—the horseradish is thriving in the black tub where I planted it. Our company left at 1:00 and I found myself on the exhausted side of life and spent my afternoon doing some computer work. Mom and Papa worked on the woodshed. Later that day I did make it back out to the garden to harvest the last of the bok choy for the season. It really did well this year—but I planted more than we could eat or sell before it bolted. Therefore, the chickens had a feast.
Tuesday morning a large dumpster arrived because our garden is overrun with invasive weeds and Mom’s solution was to ship those weeds and as many of their seeds off of the property. We have two weeks to gather all the weeds—Spanish needle, pig weed, elderberry, dog fennel, goldenrod, and anything else that we can eradicate from the garden and surrounding areas. We spend our mornings pulling up the weeds and stacking them in mounds, and then Steve spends his afternoons throwing them in the dumpster. Usually we pack invasive weeds in empty feed sacks—but there are just too many weeds for that. On Thursday another family came to spend two hours with us in the garden and her teenage sons and Steve got a chance to flex their muscles as they dug up vast amounts of elderberry trees. Yes, I know, elderberry is very good medicinally—but the plant is ruining our garden by taking over beds and turning them into jungles. Our once beautiful fish pond surrounded by yellow and pink canna lilies became a forest of elderberry trees. We dug up all the canna lilies, and then we let the men folk tackle the trees. We were amazed at the sizes and the masses of roots that those trees had produced. It is really nice to see the garden taking shape—we can see the roses once again, and it won’t be long before I can actually get to the dirt and plant the winter herbs.
When we were done in the garden on Thursday I was ready for a nap—but a good lunch revived me. While Mom and Papa worked on the woodshed roof, I headed to town to run a few errands. It was 5:15 by the time I got home and Mom and Papa were almost finished putting the metal roof on the woodshed. Since they were trying to finish before dark that meant that I had to separate the calves by myself. I quickly put dinner in the oven and then I headed out to do a few of the evening chores (lock up the ducks and separate the calves). Darkness was falling quickly though, so I didn’t take time to get any feed. Thankfully the ducks went to bed easily, and then I had to set up the panels for the calves. It was getting darker by the minute, so I flew in the golf-cart down to the cow field—yes, manure was even flying off the wheels and one hit me in the eye. I sped on and as I reached the cow field I was overcome with sudden alarm—the cows were in a new field (since the last one had flooded), and it was a very big field and the calves wouldn’t know how to exit the field. Since the cows are on hay, they are not rotated to new fields everyday—because there is no “new” grass to eat, nor do we want hay in all of our fields. The calves knew the routine in the old field and it had become very easy for one person to separate them—but everything was new that night. I entered the field praying, “Lord, this is an impossible mission. There is absolutely no way one person can get these calves out of here, and I only have a few minutes before it is totally dark. I am on an impossible mission—but God; I know that you can make the impossible, possible!” The grass in that field was very thick—and hard to walk through. As I got closer to the hay racks and where the cows were, the grass got thicker and taller (some kind of native grasses that grow three or more feet tall in large clumps—but had solidly covered a portion of our fields). Walking through there is not the time to think about snakes, and did I mention that there were chicken bath holes to fall in and two foot tall ant mounds to trip over—and it was almost dark! The calves were scattered all over, and so it took some running here, there and everywhere to get them all together in a herd. Then to my dismay they ran toward the end of the field that was near where the exit gate of the other field was—but it wasn’t open. I also knew that at some point the dry ground would give way to standing water—but it was getting dark. Thankfully I managed to get them to turn and headed toward the open gate. I began to hit my stick on the ground in front of me in hopes to find the water before I stepped in it—but it was the splashing of the calves hooves in the water that notified me first, and I was able to go around the water instead. I wasn’t sure how deep it was, and at one point I was afraid that the calves were going to turn around and head back the other way—but they didn’t. I then began to realize that I only had nine calves instead of eleven. The most logical thing to do would be to be satisfied with the nine—but we were so low on milk that I didn’t dare leave any behind, especially since I didn’t know which calves were missing and a few of them drink their mama dry and then a few more of the cows dry too! In order to go back for the other two, I was taking a BIG chance of losing all of them. If the nine scattered back into the field it would be too dark to retrieve any of them. I ran the nine out of the field, around the pond, and up the lane a little ways—and then I ran back to the field, where I met Amy on her way out looking for her calf. I turned Amy around and shooed her back into the field, and when she started mooing for her calf I told her to be quiet for I didn’t need a mama cow calling those calves back to the field. I soon found the other two calves and ran them all over the field, and as they got closer to the opening I could hear the other calves mooing on the other side of the pond—they were coming back! The last two calves ran out of the field and I ran to grab the wires to close the field up. Just as I hopped into the golf-cart the other calves came around the pond—but to my delight they were too late, and I had all eleven calves. It was very dark by then, and Mom had sent Papa down to help me—but the calves passed him on his way toward me, and there was nothing left for him to do but ride up with me. I was very thankful that the Lord had worked the impossible!
Friday morning we milked the cows, and then Papa and Mom put the flashing on the woodshed roof and I weeded in the courtyard. My spring cut-flowers didn’t sprout as well as I hoped, so instead of long rows of flowers to cut for sale, I think that we shall have little bunches of flowers here and there in the courtyard instead. We usually do not get lunch until we finish whatever we are working on—unless it is an all-day project. The flashing on the roof took until 2:00 to finish—so lunch was very late that day. After lunch I told Mom that I was too tired to do anything, so I was going to do some computer work. Then she told me that she was going shopping for some greenery and winter décor ideas at Hobby Lobby. I couldn’t be left out of the fun, so I headed to town with her. We found that 98% of the winter floral and greenery had already been sold out, but we did find a few items.
Our goal for Saturday was to exchange our fall décor for our winter décor. We did manage to get all the fall décor packed up—but not put away. Then we needed to rearrange the cupboards so that we could get a set of plates in them—which gave us a perfect excuse to get rid of things that we do not use or need, and to wash out the cupboards. When Papa left for the Gainesville delivery we had started to put the dining room table back together—but when he got home the table still was not done, and everything in 75% of the cupboards in the kitchen were emptied onto the counters. There was not one space left to put another thing. Just as we started putting everything back, one of the pegs that holds up a shelf broke off. Therefore, we had to empty two shelves back off so that we could get the broken peg out and a new peg put in. An hour later, we had accomplished nothing but to create a bigger whole in the wood. Mom tried to drill out the broken plastic peg, but it wouldn’t work. We decided to cut a piece of wood to work as a support instead. It was 6:30 before I could finally start dinner. After dinner Mom cut Papa’s hair, and I added a few winter touches to the dining room table because it looked so bare. We didn’t get any winter décor up, but at least the table has a little winter cheer. Hopefully we shall get to finish decorating this week—and since it is getting so late in the month thankfully we decorate for winter instead of just for Christmas. We shall get to enjoy the décor until March—if we can just get it up.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare