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Hi Everyone,
Last Sunday night was full of all kinds of surprises. Mom went down to the 1915 House we bought and was visiting with the other owners and they told her that they had found a huge sinkhole buried back in the woods and she took Mom back to see it. Mom took me to see it Monday night, but poor Papa had to wait until Thanksgiving Day before he got a chance to see it. While Papa and I were home Sunday night our neighbor called and asked if we had our winter grasses planted yet—Papa told him that he had started but that he still had a long ways to go. So Monday night our neighbor came over with his big tractor and big no till seed driller and spent two hours planting about 5 or 6 fields for us. That would have taken Papa many days to plant all those fields so it was a BIG blessing. Papa still has a few fields left to do and he did some of them Tuesday morning before the rains arrived on Wednesday.
Mom and I spent some time in the kitchen on Monday cleaning up—washing all the jars of green beans and pumpkins that we had canned so that we could get them put away. Then we spent the afternoon in the garden planting some onion plants. We weeded, composted, wood ashed, broadforked and tilthed the top triangle of the West Food Pyramid in “Martha’s Vineyard.” Then we got to planting. I had ordered 50 plants, and when we were done planting we still had 38 plants left. When I counted how many we got planted in the triangle it was around 70—so I guess they sent us 100 plants instead of 50, and I shall not complain.
Tuesday was one of those days that you had to be related to the energizer Bunny because we had to go and go and go, for the “To Do List” was so long. I was in the garden before 7:00 in the morning so that I could harvest the rest of the bok choy while it was still crisp with the morning coolness. Then I came back and set up the milking equipment and went inside for breakfast. Then we got the cows milked and before we finished milking a friend came over to pick up his Thanksgiving turkey. We hadn’t had a chance to visit for a long time so we spent a few hours talking and catching up and doing a little bit of dreaming of how we could work together in the future. What grand plans we have up our sleeves! When he left I had to bottle the kefir and Mom went to work in the courtyard. It needed to be weeded and have a fresh layer of woodchips added to it. Her goal was to have it all done by the end of the day—for her sister was coming for Thanksgiving and the courtyard must be in tip top shape. After the kefir I ran out to the garden with the left over onions and cleaned out some of the spent bok choy and weeded the bed and planted the remaining 38 onions. Then I came inside and made yogurt and ate lunch. Then it was time for the Tuesday afternoon egg party. When the egg party was done I headed for the house and spent the rest of the day vacuuming the house. I was totally exhausted by the time I was done—but there was still dinner to cook, bathrooms to clean, rooms to dust, and orders and receipts to figure out. I did dinner and the orders, while Mom dusted—the bathrooms had to wait until another day.
Wednesday morning found me cleaning bathrooms first thing and then back in the garden before 7:00 in the morning so that I could harvest the collards for the JAX orders. I was supposed to harvest them Tuesday afternoon—but there was no time. Then once the milking was done and the orders were all packed—with everyone’s Thanksgiving turkeys too, I headed back to the garden. I had one wish for the green beans—to be able to eat fresh green beans for Thanksgiving. To my delight they were saving their last picking just for Thanksgiving. So I picked the last of the green beans—though the plants are still full of oversized green beans that I might let dry for seeds (that is if I do not need there garden bed anytime soon). Then I grabbed a big bucket and put 3 half gallon jars in it and filled them with water and I picked flowers to my hearts delight. My Aunt Patti and Uncle Jimmie were coming down from Tennessee to spend Thanksgiving with us and I just had to have fresh flowers in the kitchen windows and a floral arrangement in their room. I have the joy of picking the flowers and then I turn them over to Mom and she has the fun of making the floral arrangements. My Aunt and Uncle arrived around 4:30 that night, and Papa got back from deliveries around 7:30.
Thanksgiving morning we got up at 5:00 so that we could get the milking done early and have more time to visit. Plus Penny and Steve would be coming in at 8:00 so that they could bottle the milk and wash the equipment before they headed over to their family for Thanksgiving dinner. My Uncle helped Papa do his chores, and my Aunt got to love all over our newest little calf-Heidi, while we milked. So once the milking was done then we came inside and fixed a big breakfast of oatmeal, eggs, toast, milk and chicken broth (some people drink coffee, we drink broth). Once breakfast was over it was time to get the turkey in the oven. While I was preparing the turkey and the dishes were being done my brothers popped in. Charles and David were heading over to a friend’s house and just before they passed our road Charles told David that Aunt Patti and Uncle Jimmie were at Mom’s. David thought that we were gone for Thanksgiving so he hadn’t planned on coming over. With the new info he made a detour and they ended up spending the whole day with us. Once the turkey was in the oven we all headed down to the 1915 house and gave them a tour of the house before we headed into the woods to see the sinkhole. It is a good 30 feet deep and wide. It is pretty old for the trees are all grown up inside it. There is no water in the bottom and the sides are made of lime rock. I am antsy to get down in the bottom of it, and to my dismay I missed my first opportunity. Papa has always been dubbed the Mountain Goat—he used to work in the phosphate mines and would have to climb up and down in the pits where they were digging. While most men crawled up and down, Papa walked just as good on the sides of the pits as he did on flat ground. So I was not surprised when Papa found his way down the sides of the sinkhole and walked around in it and came back up the other side. If I had been right behind him Mom would have let me go with him—but I was on the other side of the sinkhole when he headed down and Mom wasn’t about to let me head down by myself. I will get another chance someday—and maybe I will video the experience. Once we got back from our adventures it was time to cook the pumpkin pie and the apple crisp. Then Mom headed out to the garden to get some fresh lettuce and we snapped the green beans. I had recently learned how to cook sweet potatoes and apples in the Instant pot and so I put some of our sweet potatoes in there to cook. We sat down to eat around 4:00 and everyone commented on just how fresh everything tasted. The green beans were harvested the day before, the lettuce just an hour before, and the sweet potatoes had been curing for about three weeks. We processed the turkey the Friday before and made jello with the Roselle hibiscus tea that we had canned from last year’s harvest. We also had mashed potatoes from potatoes that we had grown and canned. The pumpkin pie was even from our own pumpkins. It is pretty interesting when you think of all the time and energy put in to making a Thanksgiving meal—and I do not mean the cooking. We planted the white potatoes in February and harvested them in May. The pumpkins were planted in April and harvested in August. The sweet potatoes were planted in June and harvested in November. We planted the green beans in September and harvested them all of November. We got the turkeys in July and took care of them every day until the week before Thanksgiving when they had one bad day. The lettuce was started in the garden about two months ago and was just barely ready for eating by Thanksgiving. So yes, a lot of time and planning goes into growing your own Thanksgiving meal. I once heard that before our modern chicken that matures in eight weeks if you wanted Fried Chicken for the 4th of July you had to have your chicken setting on her eggs by January 1st. It took six months for a chicken to get big enough to be a fryer. Today people just go to the grocery store and pick up the food off the shelves—but there is so much more joy when you grow it yourself, and the food tastes better and fresher too!
We milked bright and early again on Friday so that we could have lots of visiting time before my Aunt and Uncle had to head back home. We took a tour of the garden and we sat on the back porch visiting for hours. They ended up leaving around 3:30. We thought that we would go to the garden to work for an hour, but by the time we got some other things done there was no time left so we worked in the house instead—that is until Mom and I had to go separate the calves for the night because Papa was still doing errands in town.
Saturday we thankfully didn’t have to get up so early, which was nice. Once the milking was done Mom packed the Gainesville order while I dusted and cleaned bathrooms—because my dear friend Lydia was coming to visit me for a few days for my birthday. When I was done cleaning I headed to the garden to prepare three beds so that I could transplant some lettuce and cabbage from the greenhouse to the garden tunnel. One bed was full of spent zinnia plants that needed to be pulled up. Then the three beds were weedier than I thought they would be—so instead of weeding, top dressing with compost, broadforking, tilthing and transplanting—I only got the three beds weeded in the two hours that I had. I wanted to quit by 3:00 so that I could have a little bit of down time before Lydia arrived. We had dinner almost cooked by the time Lydia arrived—Turkey Pot pie, fresh salad, and some jello. After dinner Lydia played the violin and I played the piano—we had to make sure we got some time to play our instruments together. Usually Lydia gets to spend a whole week with me around my birthday and in the summer, but she just started a new job so we are excited that she at least gets to spend two days with me. So now I must close this journal and go spend some time with my friend.
I hope that you all had a lovely Thanksgiving.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare