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Hi Everyone,
Well, winter officially arrived last week—and to my delight beautiful spring weather arrives for a while starting tomorrow. Yes, I did survive the cold snap—but it was a rough road. We spent Monday and Tuesday prepping for temps in the 20’s. The first thing we had to do was find a cozy spot to put the ginger, turmeric, and the sweet potatoes that we had harvested. The sweet potatoes were in a cage in the lean-to on the barn (but I was pretty sure that they would freeze in there), the ginger was on some paper feed sacks on the floor in the tool shed (and I knew that they were safe in there), and the turmeric was on the shelves in the greenhouse so that the dirt on them could dry out after we harvested them (and I knew that they would freeze in there). The goal was to move the sweet potatoes and the turmeric into the tool shed with the ginger—but the floors are covered with lumber and there was no room for them. In the back of the room leaning up against the wall was an old drying rack and my idea was to attach it to the wall giving us a shelf to put all the root crops on it. That took a little bit of time, but once it was done we moved the cage of sweet potatoes and the ginger up on the shelf. In order to move the turmeric to the shed I had to first sort out the bad turmeric from the good turmeric, and separate the turmeric fingers from the turmeric crown (mother). Thankfully the greenhouse had worked perfectly to dry the dirt on the roots and it practically just fell off while I worked with them. Much better than having to wash every root—which you do not want to do when you want to store them. It took me a few hours to prep the turmeric root—and I filled a five gallon bucket three quarters of the way full with edible turmeric roots.
While I was sorting through the turmeric Mom and Steve worked at getting the caterpillar garden tunnels prepped for freezing weather. The sides had been cut off, and in order to lock in some heat they had to be reattached.
On Tuesday the rains moved in and the last thing that we had to do to prep for the freezing was to move some of the citrus trees inside the back feed room in the milking parlor, and some alongside the edge of the milking parlor. The figs did fine, but the grapefruits wanted a little bit more protection so after the first freeze we moved them inside the poultry kitchen so that they were better protected. With the rains upon us and the temperatures dropping I was very grateful that there was a lot of inside work to be done. There was kefir to bottle, yogurt to make, eggs to package and orders and receipts to put together. I did have to milk the cows in the morning, and then there were veggies to harvest in the afternoon. The rest of the time I was gladly inside.
Since Papa was making deliveries in Jacksonville I had to do the evening chores Wednesday night. This time I had to lock up the chickens, because on Monday we had moved the new batch of chickens into the portable egg mobile and they needed encouragement to “go to bed” in their new house. When I first went outside to do the chores I checked in on the three week old broiler chicks. Keeping them warm has been a struggle. It is our first time raising chickens in the coldest part of winter—but because we lost about 400 chicks last year it put our inventory low and so in order to restock quicker than April, we decided to bring in 100 chicks the end of December, and we will be processing them the end of February. Anyway, as I said keeping them warm has been a struggle and to my dismay when I checked in on them their lights were out. When I went to turn them on I realized that they had no power. So I went and found the breaker box and flipped the brooder house breaker back on and went back and tried again to turn on the lights—still no power. Then I saw that the electrical outlet had a reset button and it was popped out. So I pushed it back in and the lights came on—except for one. I reached over to check it out and just as soon as I touched the heat lamp that was not working all the other lights flipped off. I realized that it must have a short, and so I went and called Papa to see if he could pick up another light on his way home. Instead he told me to get the heat lamp out of the garage that he uses to heat up his boots in the morning so he has warm boots for his cold feet. Once I got the chicks all settled with warm lights I headed on out to pasture to separate the calves from their mamas and to put the milk cows into a pasture with green winter grasses so they could spend the night in a clean pasture eating lush grass. Then I had to lock up the chickens and feed the dogs. When I got down pasture to the dogs I realized that I had forgotten their doggie biscuits. It was too late to go back to the house, so I hoped that I could find a few eggs in the chicken nesting boxes (Steve had gathered them earlier that day). To my delight I did manage to find two eggs and once I had the chickens locked up I went to give the dogs their goodnight treat before I left. Aliya and Yasha came and sat down so pretty at my feet looking up into my face with longing eyes. Aliya would hand me her paw to shake a few times and both wanted lots of loving. Then I reached them each an egg and they looked at me as if to say: “No, I want my cookie.” It took some coaxing but they finally took their eggs and headed off to enjoy their evening snack.
Thursday was cloudy and cold and I had no desire to do anything outside. I desperately needed to get some beds ready to plant some spring veggies—but Steve was busy washing the milking equipment and Mom was busy with other things and I had no desire to work in the cold by myself. To tell the truth I had no desire to do anything outside or inside—I was just too cold and all I wanted to do was hibernate. We had a family come over and empty out the chicken compost in our poultry barn and give us a lesson on making compost fertilizer in an IBC tote. Later that afternoon Mom and I headed to town to get the parts that we would need for the IBC tote—but we only found a few of them.
On Friday our volunteer Mrs. B was back and so was the rain and a little bit of warmer weather. After milking I bottled the kefir and then we headed to the garden to weed the plantain bed (not the fruit kind, the herbal weed kind). My plantain patch had next to disappeared so I needed to get the bed weeded, and then I will add some compost to it and then plant some more seeds. The weather was so beautiful that all we wanted to do was to continue weeding from bed to bed in the cottage garden—but we had an appointment with a catering business at 2:00 and we had to clean up and eat lunch before they got here. For years we have dreamed of doing farm to table dinners here on the farm but we didn’t know any chefs. Then a few years back we met Brett and Jenni who own and operate Kalacrow Wood Fired Pizza—but they do a lot more than pizza. We have been talking back and forth and this is the year that we hope to bring those dreams to a reality. So stay tuned—the first one is possibly right around the corner.
Saturday and Sunday were two more freezing cold days—and honestly the hardest part about them is milking the cows. You can build up heat walking around, feeding animals, moving animals weeding, etc.—but when you milk cows you are just sitting still. Yes, there are those times when you jump up to catch pee or poo, and you bring in another cow or let one out—but for the most part you are sitting still. We have hats, ear muffs, and long johns, warm socks, heavy jackets, layers upon layers so that it is almost impossible to move—but the body heat doesn’t last forever. Gloves come on and off—for you cannot milk a cow with gloves on. The water for washing hands goes from hot to cold, and by the time I reach my seventh and eighth cows my hands and feet are starting to get too cold. When I bring in Rosie (my last cow) I am anxious to be done and my hands are really cold by then. It seems that I can never clean up fast enough so that I can get back inside the warm house and thaw out. Soups are great for dinner and lunch and Saturday night I made a “pantry” soup that was so easy. I grabbed a frozen container of chicken and chicken broth, a jar of canned carrots, and a jar of canned celery and onions. Then I dumped them all in the pot and heated them up and added some noodles and fixed a salad and some nectarine cobbler to go with it. It was a nice warm meal for such a cold day.
Looking forward to “warmer” weather . . .
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare