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Hi Everyone,
Today is the first day of the week, the first day of the month, and the first day of a new year! Yes, 2022 has come to a close and 2023 is just beginning. Last night as the sun was setting on 2022 Mom and I looked out the window at the fog rolling in and Mom happened to look over toward the sheep field and noticed two little lambs. The first set of twins was born and lambing season had officially begun. I grabbed the camera and Mom and I headed out to check on them. The sun had to set a little more so that the flash would work—because the first two pictures that I took were just black. The wee little lambs were already up and running and there was no chance to check them out—so we have no idea if they are girls or boys, or one of each. This much I can say, “They are cute and white.” While new birth was found on the last day of 2022, we lost the Matriarch of the flock on the first day of 2023. Smokey was the “leader of the pack.” When we wanted the sheep to come, all we had to do was call Smokey and she would come and all the other sheep would follow wondering what they were going to miss out on. Smokey was born about eleven years ago. She was found one smoky day. Her mother had abandoned her and we raised her as a bottle baby. I do believe that Smokey was a lamb when my friend Minnie and her younger siblings came to visit for a week. Her younger sister Sarah would go up to the sheep field in the morning and bring Smokey back up to the house for the day. Smokey would follow her everywhere that she went—even in the house (for nothing sounds cuter than little lamb hooves prancing on the wood floors). Smokey has always come up to be petted, and when visitors come to the farm and want to pet a sheep—it was Smokey who would allow them to get close enough to pet her (all the others would run away). I guess we shall need to raise another bottle lamb this year to replace Smokey—for every flock needs a leader.
As the last week of 2022 slipped by, we found ourselves with a few interesting trials. Monday and Tuesday we were blessed to be able to spend some time in the garden weeding. The days were still cold—but there was nice warmth inside the garden tunnels. We worked at weeding under the broccoli plants. The freezing temps had turned some of their leaves white and yellow, but I was refraining from trimming them up until the freezing weather had passed. Christmas morning it was 15 degrees outside and the next morning it was 17 degrees. The next few days it was in the 20’s, but by Friday we were back into the 50’s. That is exactly why we live in Florida—short bursts of winter weather, followed by days of balmy beauty. We had hoped to harvest the cabbage before the freezing weather arrived, but we ran out of time and energy. It wasn’t until Friday that I was actually able to set aside some time to head to the garden and harvest the cabbage—which to my delight had survived the freezes. I took the camera with me and decided to do a little video on “What 15 degrees did to the Garden!” Then I spent Saturday afternoon editing all the clips into a video and posted it on YouTube. Really and truly everything faired really well. The vegetables that would have been hurt the most were inside the garden tunnel which gave them an extra bit of protection. The greens survived really well, but the broccoli was hit the hardest. The broccoli was not killed, just set back a little—same with the onions. Many things were just sent into dormancy and will reappear next spring. Last year I walked around the garden marking what all survived 25 degrees, this year it was 15 degrees. Thankfully we were able to harvest all the lemons off of the Ponderosa Lemon tree, but the Meyers lemons were not ripe yet. As the freeze got harder and harder the lemons began to fall off the tree. They were very soft and mushy—they had frozen for sure. The leaves on the Ponderosa do not look as bad as the leaves on the Meyers tree. I am sure that the top was killed back, but the lower part that was close to the brick wall on the south of our house is still green. I am sure that there will be a massive pruning come spring.
Since it was the last week of the year there was some preparation that needed to be done to prepare for the New Year. Calendars and charts for anything and everything were needed to be printed. I needed a calving chart for 2023—and looking over the 2022 calving chart I learned that we had 25 calves born last year (13 bulls and 12 heifers). I needed a 2023 calendar for the milk house to mark down our workers hours and to keep track of how much milk we get every day. Then there was a 2023 Gardening Calendar so that I can keep track of planting times and have a place to keep records of what I plant. A Poultry calendar was needed to schedule when to bring in meat chicks, laying hen chicks, and turkeys. I needed a calendar to keep track of when the cows are bred, when they are due, when they calve, when they are weaned, or need dried off. I also had to schedule when last year’s calves need to be weaned—of which I found out that three of them need to be weaned tomorrow. I also needed to know when 2021’s heifers need to be brought into the milk herd so that they can hang out with Dijon the bull—of which two are ready to be introduced to Dijon tomorrow. As I looked back over the records from the past ten years it is amazing how many cows have come and gone and have very few calves that are born here actually get to stay and become our future milk cows. It seems that there is always someone looking for a new milk cow—but that is okay because we cannot keep every one of them.
Have you noticed that the days are getting longer? I sure did Wednesday night. I got a late start on doing the evening chores, and was grateful for the extra daylight. It was strange to do the Wednesday night chores by myself again. The last three Wednesday’s I have had help. The first two my friend Lydia was here and we did chores together—because on Wednesday’s Papa is gone making deliveries. Then the last Wednesday Clayton was not able to go with Papa on deliveries so he was here to do the chores—I did help him separate the calves and lock up the ducks, but he gathered the eggs, locked up the birds and fed the dogs by himself while I came back inside to cook dinner. There was no Lydia or Clayton last week so I did them by myself—but thankfully Steve always gathers the eggs on Wednesday’s before he heads home. I am also thankful that the calves are used to the separating routine and it goes pretty easy, and since the cows are more interested in eating hay than leaving the field I did not have to worry about shooing back any of the adult cows.
Water problems were on the top of the list of trials last week. Wednesday afternoon when I went to wash a load of laundry the water would not come into the washing machine. I turned the dials to this cycle and to that—but to no avail. Then I changed the dial from COLD to WARM and water came on—HOT water that is. Hmm! The water worked on HOT but not COLD, and WARM only produced hot water because the cold wasn’t flowing. I had to wait until Papa got home to clean out the hose and filter—but it didn’t fix the problem. I could wash laundry on HOT, but it wouldn’t begin the Rinse cycle because it used cold water. We figured out that we could hook the HOT water hose up to the COLD water spigot and we could wash in cold water, and then when the load hit the rinse cycle I would just turn it back to the wash cycle and let it run again. That worked pretty well for every load but the cow towels—they are dirty and grimy so I needed HOT water for them. So in order to start the load I would have to ask Papa to change the hose back from the COLD spigot to the HOT spigot. Then I would wash the load. When it got to the rinse cycle then I would have to find Papa so that he could change the hose back to the COLD spigot so that I could run the load through the wash cycle again—but in cold water instead of hot. The repair man cannot come to fix the problem until Tuesday—but thankfully I can still wash the laundry. The next water problem happened Thursday morning. Papa was out doing chores when he came across a leaky hose. When he tried to fix the leak the pipe broke off and we had a nonstop cold water geyser. Going to town was not on the agenda for the day, but that is where Papa ended up anyway. When Papa arrived back at home with his parts he then had to wait for Penny and Steve to finish washing all the milking equipment before he could turn off the water so he could fix the broken pipe. Then Saturday morning while we were getting dressed for the day the water turned off. Papa headed down to the well to see what the problem was and found the reset button was tripped. He pushed in the button and the well began to pump water again. He wasn’t back at the house very long before the water turned off again. Papa walked back down to the well and found the button tripped again—but this time it wouldn’t work once the button was pushed in. Papa called a plumbing friend and he mentioned the starter might be bad, but there was a problem—it was Saturday and New Year’s Eve and the plumbing store was closed. So we had to call a well drilling company and wait for them to contact the person on call. Thankfully during the short time that the water was running I had managed to fill the two soapy water buckets that are needed to keep our hands clean while milking the cows. It was around 11:00 before the water was fixed—and since we had to use a company and they replaced the whole contraption instead of fixing the broken part we had to pay a pretty penny to have water again. Thankfully we were able to get water again—before 2023.
Thursday afternoon—after the geyser was fixed—we headed to Jacksonville to pick up a 100ft caterpillar tunnel for the garden. One of our customers had bought one a few years ago and it didn’t work for them as they expected and they decided to give it away and asked if we were interested. We sure were! I had been wondering how to get a few more tunnels since I have learned how well things grow in them—we can extend the growing season in them as I learned last year when we planted green beans in October and harvested them in December. We also grew zinnias a little longer this year, and a few years ago I grew the potatoes in the tunnel and we didn’t have to worry about the frost killing them. We had hope to head over as soon as milking was done so that we could be back in time to do the evening chores before it got dark—but thanks to a geyser and a train that held us up for over 30 minutes we didn’t get home until close to 7:00. Mom started dinner and Papa and I headed out to see if we could separate the calves in the dark. You cannot use a flashlight because when you shine the light on the claves they see their shadow and run towards you instead of in the direction you need them to go. To our surprise it really went quite easy—even though Dijon the bull, and Decci who was looking for her calf that we had sold, decided to come out with the calves and go into their barn area. Thankfully Papa was able to just go in there and tell Dijon to get out and he went bucking and jumping back to the herd with Decci following.
For the last few years Papa has wanted a new truck—his is dented in from people running into it, or someone backing it into a tree; the tailgate doesn’t open smoothly—you almost have to kick it; the gauges didn’t always work; it wasn’t dependable to drive far from the farm; and lately it wouldn’t even start—which in the process of fixing that the whole dash was taken out and when they found out that parts were on back order the dash was put in the back seat. Once he forgot to tie down the diesel tank and when he turned a corner the tank slid into the back window and busted it. When he found out how much it would cost to fix the window he tried to tell Mom that the truck was totaled, but she would have none of it. Mom saw no reason to get a new truck when we mostly needed it for farm work and people were always banging it up. She dreamed of taking it to a mechanic and having everything fixed and making the truck look and run like new. Then the truck sat for a month and wouldn’t start and it became very difficult to get feed and hay for the animals and getting gas for the Gravely and lawn mower wasn’t too easy because you didn’t want to put the gas tanks in the van. I think that Papa actually drove the Gravely to the gas station once. Well, one day a few weeks ago Papa snuck up on the truck, after he had been charging the battery for a few days, and got in and turned the key and the truck actually started! He went and got some feed and then the next day it started again and he had me follow him to our mechanic down the road and asked him to fix the truck so that it would faithfully start. Then the next day was Wednesday and while Papa was making deliveries the mechanic called to talk to Papa—but Mom took care of the call. She told the mechanic to fix EVERYTHING on the truck—including the shocks. Yea, I forgot to mention that the truck had no shocks which made it pretty fun when you drove around the farm on the bumpy areas—you would bounce pretty good and had to be careful to not hit your head on the roof. It was kind of fun! A week later the mechanic called back and told Mom that the truck was fixed—and once again Papa was making deliveries. Mom went down to pick up the truck before Papa got home and hid the receipt. We could have waited until Thursday to tell Papa about the truck because it was dark when he got home and he never saw it—but I do not think that Mom could have held the secret that long. When Papa asked what the mechanic had done, Mom just told him that he had to take it for a test drive. So after dinner we went for a drive around the block. The dash was put back together and a new cluster had been found in a junk yard (because parts cannot be ordered easily) and all the gauges now work. The truck drives smoothly—no bouncing up and down. It starts when you turn the key, the radiator has been cleaned out of rust and re- filled with fluid. Papa was very pleased! On Friday Mom and Steve worked at cleaning out the inside of the truck and then Steve detailed it—which is what Steve used to do for a living. He washed it all out and then polished it all up. The truck looks really nice now. Papa even got excited and started giving the outside of the truck a bath—something it hasn’t had in a long time! There are still a few more things that need to be fixed, but the truck looks and runs well enough that Papa isn’t interested in a new truck anymore—he is satisfied with his new old one now.
We have a whole new year ahead of us and while we have no idea what the year will behold, we can rest in the fact that Jesus has promised never to leave us nor forsake us, and He will lead us all the way!
All The way my Savior Leads Me
By: Fanny Crosby, 1875
All the way my Savior leads me, What have I to ask beside?
Can I doubt His tender mercy, Who through life has been my Guide?
Heav’nly peace, divinest comfort, Here by faith in Him to dwell!
For I know, whate’er befall me, Jesus doeth all things well;
For I know, whate’er befall me, Jesus doeth all things well.
All the way my Savior leads me, Cheers each winding path I tread,
Gives me grace for every trial, Feeds me with the living Bread.
Though my weary steps may falter And my soul athirst may be,
Gushing from the Rock before me, Lo! A spring of joy I see;
Gushing from the Rock before me, Lo! A spring of joy I see.
All the way my Savior leads me, Oh, the fullness of His love!
Perfect rest to me is promised In my Father’s house above.
When my spirit, clothed immortal, Wings its flight to realms of day
This my song through endless ages: Jesus led me all the way;
This my song through endless ages: Jesus led me all the way.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare