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Hi Everyone,
Just when I was a hoping that the worst of winter was past the weather man comes along and tells me that it is fixing to get really cold. I am a Florida girl and would not mind one bit if winter was not a part of my vocabulary. Anything below 50 is too cold for me—and day time temps should be above 65. When the temps get cold all I want to do is hibernate—but that is not possible when there are cows to milk, and it is very hard to stay warm when you are sitting still. Thankfully the temps are only supposed to be in the 20’s—last year we had teens.
Cold weather isn’t the only thing that we have to deal with here on the farm—heavy winds and rain seem to have taken up a few days last week, and they plan on occupying a few more days next week. While the rain helps the winter grasses to be green and growing, the rain also makes it a little hard to work in the garden or work on some necessary building projects. Before the rains arrived Monday I had a list of veggies that I needed to get planted in the garden. The turmeric and the ginger had been harvested the week before, and I needed to get the beds replanted. So I grabbed sixty pieces of ginger and sixty of the turmeric mother roots. Once I got the ginger and turmeric all planted in the raised bed section of the garden, then I headed over to “Martha’s Vineyard” and Steve helped to prep one of the beds for the yellow onion starts that I had grown from seed in the greenhouse. Steve covered it with some compost then I broadforked it in and ran over it with the tilther. Mom was working on a section in the flower border and she needed a load of chestnut leaves. So we made her a deal—she could transplant the onion starts while Steve and I headed up to the chestnuts to rake up some leaves. We were racing against the storm clouds that were rolling in fast. Mom almost had all the onions planted by the time we got back. Steve and I dumped the tarp full of leaves in Mom’s little garden section and then Steve topped it with the buckets of cow manure from the milking parlor. By then it was starting to rain a little so while Steve and Mom cleaned up all the tools I finished planting the onion starts. Steve called it a day and went home and we went inside for lunch. The rest of the day was definitely gray and gloomy with little rain showers off and on. I didn’t get everything planted that I wanted to plant so as soon as lunch was over I headed back outside—rain or no rain. The sweet onions that we had harvested last summer were not lasting very well. I had tried to store them in sand in the cooler—but that didn’t prevent them from sprouting. I didn’t want to waste the onions so I decided to plant them—other people had done it, and since I was not able to plant any sweet onion starts this season this was my chance to grow some sweet onions. It probably took me an hour to trim down the onion bulbs to just the sprouts and the roots. Some onions had only one sprout and some had three or four. In the end I was able to plant 57 onion sprouts. I cannot wait to see how they do—one thing for sure the sprouts have turned from pale yellow to green now that they have had some sunlight. Once the onions were planted then I planted a few short rows of salad turnips and I had finally accomplished all the planting that I had hoped to get done that day.
Tuesday didn’t just roll in—it blew in. It may have started with some nice warm southern breezes, but the winds got stronger and stronger and we actually ended up with stronger gusts than we had during Hurricane Idalia. High 20’s were the normal wind speed, but we did see the wind reach 33 mph once. Our lean-to on the barn does not have its permanent walls yet—and the wind was wreaking havoc on the tarps that were being used for temporary walls. Therefore, some reinforcements were necessary. Out in the garden the East Tunnel was attempting to fly away once again. It sure does get the brunt of all the wind storms. This time the channels just slid up the pipes and the plastic billowed in the wind—but thankfully nothing broke or tore or came out of the ground. Outside work was not on the agenda for that day. There was kefir to bottle, yogurt to make, and eggs to package. Mom and Papa did head to town to run a few errands, but the rain prevented them from getting ice to pack the orders for the deliveries—so Papa had to go back to town on Wednesday.
Wednesday was such a strange day since Papa didn’t make deliveries. Part of the day was a normal Wednesday—but the rest was very different. It was strange to not have to pack orders as soon as we were done milking, and then my piano student was sick so I didn’t even have piano lessons to teach. I did manage to make a batch of kombucha. Papa needed dinner early because he had to go to a meeting that night. I did the evening chores like I always do on Wednesday nights—but this time I had to also lock up the chickens and let out Aliya along with locking up the ducks and separating the calves.
Thursday we had a volunteer come over for the day to help us out in any way she could. First off Papa took her with him to feed the sheep. With all the little lambs skipping and jumping around it is a real treat to go to the sheep field. Papa and I managed to get a video of it Saturday afternoon and you can see all the lambs and their mama’s being fed on our newest YouTube video “Time to Eat!”
After she fed the lambs then she washed up the duck eggs—for ducks don’t know how to keep their eggs clean. Then she came and helped us in the milking parlor as we milked the cows. Then we all pitched in to get the orders packed and Papa on his way to Jacksonville. After lunch she went with me to the garden to cover the turmeric beds and the ginger bed with compost (the rich black stuff that Clayton and I made last year from the chestnut leaves and cow manure). Then we covered the turmeric beds with all the dead turmeric leaves. The ginger didn’t leave any dead leaves behind so we cut the tops off all the Bubba ginger and covered the culinary ginger bed with those leaves and stalks. Hopefully we got them all covered thick enough so that the skunks don’t dig through and the straying chickens doesn’t scratch through to the dirt. We then headed to the milk house where Mom and Steve were doing some organizing in the walk-in cooler and freezer. Steve headed home at 4:00 and Mom headed inside. Mrs. B and I then headed out to do the evening chores. We had the ducks to lock up, the eggs to gather, the dogs to feed and love on, and the calves to separate. All went smoothly—until I remembered that the cows were supposed to spend the night in a green grass field so that they could sleep where there wasn’t so much manure. I looked at the two fields across the lane from the winter sacrifice field where they spend their days eating hay. (A sacrifice field is a field where we can feed the cows hay and not worry about cleaning up the hay mess.) Anyway, I noticed that one field was very thick with green grass—and if I put the cows in there for the night they would probably bloat and we could end up with some dead cows by morning (too much winter green is dangerous for a cow’s health). The field next to it was shorter grass—so I figured that it would be okay. We managed to let two cows out before Mom yelled from the house that I had the wrong field. I quickly grabbed the rope gate, but while I was trying to tighten it up another cow stepped over the rope and joined the first two. Thankfully the bull was respectful enough to just stare at me and back off as I told him “no” and while I continued to get the rope gate hung tight. Mom told me that the cows were supposed to go in the first field where there was only circles of sprouted chicken feed all over the two acres—not enough to make anyone sick from too much green. So I went to the other end of the field and opened the wires to let the cows into the first field. Mrs. B went after the three cows that were in the lush green field and shooed them out. Thankfully they wanted to be with the other cows not realizing that they had it better than the rest of the herd—for the grass truly wasn’t greener over there. We had a lovely day and the help was so appreciated.
Friday was another rainy day. We needed more milk jugs and the company that we get our jugs from no longer delivers—which means that at least once a month Papa has to make a trip to Jacksonville over by the airport to pick up about nine bags of milk jugs. He was supposed to go last Monday—but the weather was to pretty since there were things to do on the farm. The weather was too bad for travel on Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday were totally out of the question, which left Friday since we were not sure that we would have enough jugs to last for Papa to go this Monday. Low and behold Friday was another rainy day—but thankfully without the heavy winds so Papa was able to make his second trip to Jacksonville that week. While he was gone Mom and I cleaned up some in the milking parlor and in the house. Then I will have to admit that the rainy, gloomy, gray sky day got the best of us and we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing.
I woke up early Saturday morning and headed next door in the dark to set up the milking equipment and bottle the kefir. Saturday’s are usually my one day to sleep in until 7:00, but Saturday’s can also be so busy that it can be difficult to find time to bottle the kefir and I may not get the chance to help Steve out by washing the kefir jars. So it is always helpful when I can get it done before breakfast. Milking wasn’t that fun for me Saturday for it was COLD and I just couldn’t get warm while we were milking the cows—I had grabbed the wrong coat and the wrong shoes. I couldn’t wait to get done and go wash the kefir dishes in a sink of nice hot water. My brothers came over for a visit for a few hours and while they were here my sister Nichole and her husband showed up to ask some gardening questions. We all had some good visiting time.
I hope that you all manage to stay warm this week.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare