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Hi Everyone,

               I had BIG plans for last week . . . and things started off on the right track—but the unexpected happened and things didn’t exactly go as planned. That is how last week went in a nutshell. O, did you want to hear the details? Well then, where shall I begin? At the very beginning—for it is a very good place to start!

MONDAY morning . . . when the toilet was flushed in my parents bathroom the handle broke off—with the screw still inside. Mom spent forever before milking trying to get the screw out—but to no avail. Then she spent forever getting the whole handle apparatus off. When we were finished milking the cows Mom decided to make a quick trip to the plumbing place to get a new handle. As soon as she got back Papa was scheduled to go to Jacksonville to pick up some milk jugs. I headed to the garden. My goal for the week was to weed and pull up the nonproductive vegetable plants (broccoli, bolted lettuce, and mustard greens) so that I could get the beds prepared to plant some of the spring garden before Friday arrived. That day went perfect for me—I spent the whole day in the garden! Removing the broccoli was a little tricky because I had a row of small lettuce growing in front of the towering broccoli plants. If I just pulled up the plants I would uproot all the lettuce. So I decided to cut the broccoli plants off of the root balls and then use a twist tiller (a metal stick with a handle on one end and four claw tines on the other end) to twist the roots out of the ground. The method worked perfectly—but I had to have Steve hold the plants while I cut them or they would have toppled over on the lettuce and the forget-me-nots. We took the broccoli plants to the beef cows to enjoy—and enjoy they did. I used the same technic to pull up the mustard plants—because they were anchored in the ground very strongly. I also pulled off the old collard leaves—tidied up the plants. Then Steve and I took the mustard greens and the collards to the chickens to enjoy. It was 1:30 when we decided to break for lunch. Papa was fixing an old mineral feeder—the bull keeps dumping the new mineral feeder upside down. Mom was still not home. She had forgotten to take the cell phone with her—so we had no idea where she was. She had only gone to town on a 30 minute errand. When I checked emails though I saw a receipt from Jiffy Lube—she had gotten an oil change! It was close to 2:00 when Mom finally got home. She told us that by the time she reached town the van was overheating so she pulled into Jiffy Lube to get them to check it out—but there were 20 cars in front of her. Three hours later she made it back home. We ate lunch but it was too late for Papa to go to Jacksonville to get the jugs (it is a four hour round trip for him). The company used to deliver, but when they had vehicle issues they dropped the service. It is way too expensive to have a pallet of jugs shipped to us—but also extremely inconvenient to have to go pick them up. Thankfully we only have to do it about once a month. So after lunch Papa went back to working on the mineral feeder and Steve, Mom and I went back to the garden to weed. Since Papa now had to go to Jacksonville on Tuesday it was decided that he should go to town on Monday to get the ice for Wednesday’s delivery. Papa decided to get his work done outside first, and go after dinner—but there was an unexpected problem. We had no $1 bills and we found this out at 7:00 at night—after the bank was closed. UGH! I ran over to the milk house to see just how desperate the jug situation was and came back an announced that we had enough jugs so that Papa could get ice on Tuesday and the jugs on Thursday.

Tuesday was the first day of spring—but the weather had taken a turn for the worse in my opinion and the temps were in the 30’s that morning. We got the cows milked and then I bottled the kefir while Mom jumped on the lawn mower. The grass might not be growing very fast—but the spring weeds sure are! Papa spent his day tearing apart the golf-cart. It died about a month ago, but with all the extra odds and ends that needed to be done in order to get ready for the first Farm to Table Dinner and the first Farm Tour Friday, he hadn’t had a chance to break it down and find out what was the problem. Steve and I headed back to the garden to weed until lunch time. Then I made some yogurt and joined the egg packaging party. At 3:00 I headed inside to gather the veggie list and then Steve and I headed to the garden to harvest collards, kale, and lettuce. I had just stepped out of the garden tunnel when I heard Mom hollering. I looked everywhere for her—but couldn’t see her anywhere. I headed to the other end of the garden to harvest the asparagus. Then Steve heard Mom calling for help—and he saw her. Goose had gotten ahold of Mom (geese love to attack Mom), and she was calling for someone to come and get him off of her. Steve grabbed him up and put him in time out (his hoop house). After we dropped the veggies off in the cooler I headed back out to the field where Mom was. She was staking out where our new garden was going to be. For years we have battled invasive weeds in parts of the garden—and people keep telling us to just move the garden. Ha! Ha! I would say. Then a few months ago as we were sharing our “New Year’s” dreams (mine was events), Mom shared that she wanted to move the garden. We had been given two garden tunnels last year (actually one 100 ft. long one, but we decided to make two 50 ft. tunnels out of it). The garden area where we planned to put them was on a slope, had a huge oak tree that needed to come down, and was over grown with Florida betony and nutgrass. So Mom decided that the best thing to do was to find a new area on the farm where we could put all four tunnels in a row. Moving the existing two will be helpful also because in order to add roll up sides to them we have to take them down—and since the last hurricane pulled them out of the ground some they had to come down anyway in order to fix them. My brother-in-law talked us out of our first caterpillar tunnel—and since it needs repairs it is a good time to say good-bye to it and get a new one to set up in the new garden area. We will still have “Martha’s Vineyard” to grow our grapevines and the “Food Pyramids” inside the vineyard to grow some outside row crops with a huge border of flowers. Not too sure what will happen to the old garden tunnel areas—I will miss the lush growing soil the most. As to the raised bed area—it really needs an overhaul. Ever since cat claw vine, goldenrod, betony, nutgrass, and elderberry took over it a few years ago I have wanted to take a bulldozer to it. Mom was never in agreement—until this year. The goal is not to destroy all of it, but to turn the areas that we cannot keep up with into lawn and a fruit orchard—where we can keep it mowed. There is lots of planning to do in order to make things simpler—and easily managed. It will all take time to accomplish, but for starters the goal is to have the tunnels up by fall. Originally Mom wanted to put them in the front pasture—but as we looked at it we realized that all the ground slopped to a low spot there. Then she set her eyes on the back pasture that has a huge pretty level section. It is also protected on three sides from the winds and the colder temperatures—it is one of the last areas to frost. In the middle of the summer when the evenings are hot the trees will give it some shade. Mom was afraid to share her dream for fear we would not be on board—but Papa and I have both been on board, and Papa is pushing hard to help us accomplish our goal. It is always nice when Papa helps to make our dreams come true. One thing is for sure—the tunnels will definitely help keep the deer out of the gardens. We have the Cottage Garden (a raised bed garden that houses fruit trees, herbs, and flowers); The Courtyard (the flower garden at the house); Martha’s Vineyard (the grape vineyard patterned after one of Martha Washington’s garden designs); and The Food Pyramids (the triangular garden beds inside Martha’s Vineyard where we grow big blocks of veggies). Now we shall have four garden tunnels in a row where we will grow vegetables, herbs and flowers for sale. Maybe we shall have to call them “The Market Gardens”.

It was at that point that my week stopped going as planned—for I came down with a head cold. Talk about stopping you in your tracks! I started getting sick Tuesday night. I took it easy Wednesday, and by that night I felt fine . . . but it was the calm before the storm, for Thursday morning there was no doubt that I was sick. Every day after got worse, and I had less and less energy. My whole goal was to have lettuce, summer squashes, and cucumber seeds planted in the garden; and cantaloupe, roselle hibiscus, basil, and peppers planted in the greenhouse all by Thursday night. When Thursday rolled around all I could do was “think” about doing—for I only felt like doing paperwork for most of the day. Come 2:30 I felt well enough to do something outside and it was a toss-up between planting in the garden or the greenhouse. Since Steve was available to help I chose the garden. He was able to do most of the heavy work for me—broadforking and composting. I finished weeding two of the beds and then Steve topped them with composted chicken manure. Then he had to go move the heifers to a new field and his day was over. Thankfully I didn’t have much left to do by then. I finished broadforking the last two beds—about 25 ft. worth, and then I tilthed the beds to mix the soil and the compost, and to make the soil light and fluffy. Next I rolled the gridder down the rows in order to mark where to plant the seeds. In the bottom of one of the Food Pyramids in Martha’s Vineyard I planted lemon squash—a yellow summer squash that grows the shape and size of a lemon (the best tasting yellow squash I know of). My seeds are from 2020—so hopefully they sprout, but if not I have time to order new seeds. Then in the West Tunnel I planted another seed bed of romaine lettuce, a bed of mini romaine lettuces (red and green), and a bed of acorn squash. I have no zucchini seeds and no cucumber seeds. I have picked out the varieties that I want to grow—just have to get them ordered. I like the long slender cucumbers, and I am still trying to find my favorite zucchini. The common Black Beauty zucchini is known to attract more squash bugs than other zucchini—so I do not want to grow them. A few years ago we tried tromboncino—an Italian zucchini, but it really wasn’t my favorite to eat. Last year we grew Dark Star—and the plants grew lush and HUGE, but we got very little zucchini (probably because I planted them too close together). This year I want to try Pascola—a hybrid from Hoss Tools. I do not plan on saving the seeds, so I am not concerned that it is not an heirloom (open-pollinated). Hybrid is nothing more than crossing two of the same thing to get something better. Plant breeders cross breed compatible types of plants to create a plant with the best features of both parents. It is like breeding red zinnias with white zinnias to get a red and white striped zinnia—but the seeds from the red and white zinnia will not produce red and white zinnias. With animals it is like taking a Katahdin sheep and breeding it with a Dorper sheep to get a sheep that has the hardy traits of Katahdin sheep with the excellent meat quality of Dorper sheep. It is not GMO—just natural cross-pollinating or cross-breeding.

Anyway, I was grateful to be able to get planted what I did get planted (acorn squash, lettuce, and lemon squash). I thought that maybe Friday after we processed chickens or Saturday afternoon I would be able to plant in the greenhouse—but that was not to be. I woke up still sick on Friday, and we determined that it would not be nice to share my germs with the family that comes and helps us process chickens. I got the cows milked and then I set up some in the poultry kitchen before everyone arrived—I wanted to help where I could. Then I had the “Day off” as I looked at it. My mind swirled with things that I could do. I could play the piano, fold laundry, wash and package the duck eggs, plant in the greenhouse, call the computer tech—OR I could sew. I don’t get a lot of time to sew, and for years I have not been able to successfully sew for Mom because I do not have a pattern that fits her. Well, she got two new jumpers last year that fit her nicely, and I have thought forever about making a pattern from those jumpers—but I haven’t had any time. So of course sewing was on the top of my list of things to do on my “Day off.” I did decide that I had better call the computer tech first though. They had been calling us for months saying that there was a problem—but we just didn’t have time to take care of it. I spent about an hour with the computer guy on and off—and was able to get some laundry folded while I waited. In the end I was not happy with the computer tech. Years ago when someone had hacked our Amazon account, credit card, and email we were given this company to help secure our computer. Pay them a few $100 and they take care of everything for you—for life. A few years went by and we had some computer issues and we called them up and they said that those issues were not covered—so we pay more money to cover that. Then this time they told me that someone was hacking into our computer and that they had deleted our security software—that we had paid this company for a few years back. Instead of just being able to reinstall it, the guy told me that we would have to repurchase it for $1000—but it was only good for 5 years. I could do $800 for 3 years, or $300 for 1 year. By this time I was getting suspicious that this guy was pulling the wool over my eyes. I told him that I didn’t have one penny to spend with him—so he just cleaned the computer up (which I have no idea what that means) but hoped that I would call him back and purchase the security software. By this time my day was passing by me too fast—and all I wanted to do was go upstairs and sew. I didn’t care about anything else—I was going to sew! I grabbed Mom’s jumper and headed upstairs. There I found some scrap material, but first I traced the jumper onto some paper to make a pattern. It is a three tiered jumper—and the only negative about it is that you have to gather three “skirt” sections instead of just one. Everyone missed me in the poultry kitchen, but thankfully there were only 40 chickens to process and 8 of those chickens to cut up. They started around noon and were done by 2:30. It was shortly after 4:00, before Mom was “missing” me and she called up the stairs for me to come down. She asked me what I was doing and I told her that I was sewing and that I only had about five minutes left before I was done. Mom said that I could go finish, so I ran back upstairs happy for the chance to finish my secret project. Yep, Mom had no idea what I was up to. When I came back downstairs Mom was on the phone which gave me the chance to sneak back to her room and find a shirt that would look real good with her new jumper. While I did find a scrap piece of material—it was actually very pretty and made a nice jumper that I thought Mom would be able to wear. Mom was excited to see the jumper and eagerly tried it on—but alas it was too small. Ugh! At least I know how to adjust the pattern—and there was extra of that same material so that I can make a new top. First though, I will find a real piece of scrap and try the new pattern on it before I cut out a new top out of the left over material.

I didn’t feel like doing much of anything on Saturday, so after we got the cows milked, the kefir bottled, the veggies harvested for the Gainesville delivery, and the order packed and the receipts made—I took it easy the rest of the day. I did manage to cook a good dinner. Thursday morning I took a package of turkey meat out of the freezer. It was labeled “For Turkey Sausage”—but since Mom has been terrified of using the meat grinder we never made sausage with it. I thought that it was a package of turkey breasts so I decided to go ahead and thaw it out and cook the turkey breasts and we could eat some for dinner and then slice the rest for sandwich meat. When I came in at 5:00 from planting the garden Thursday evening I found that the meat was still frozen—I wasn’t too concerned for I really didn’t feel like cooking a big dinner. So I made a batch of homemade mac-n-cheese using Tinkyada brown rice noodles, our milk, and some raw cheddar cheese (you put all the ingredients raw in a casserole dish and then bake it in the oven). I added some grass-fed beef hotdogs to the mac-n-cheese and then once it was in the oven I headed for a much needed shower. Then all I had to do was heat up a jar of green beans and dinner was done. Friday night rolled around and at 4:30 I headed to the kitchen to cook that now thawed turkey “breast.” To my dismay though—that was not what was in the bag exactly. Yes there were some breasts—but there were also some pieces of thighs and some pieces of this and that. Mom was not in favor of cooking any of it—so pancakes and fried eggs became the menu for dinner that night. When Saturday rolled around I knew that turkey was not to be on the menu—and it had better be something scrumptious. We had recently gotten our cow back from the butcher and I knew that there was some 1 ½ inch thick steaks in there—so I grabbed a pack of rib-eyes. Usually we cut our steak at 1 inch, but I was encouraged to cut these thicker and o what a difference it made. The new oven cooks the fat to perfection too! Then I had recently found four large Russet baking potatoes—so I rubbed two of them down with olive oil and salt and popped them in the oven for a few hours (I cooked a white sweet potato the same way for Mom because she cannot eat white Irish potatoes). Then we made a salad from lettuce and carrots in our garden and Mom made some stuffed eggs. Yep—dinner was an absolutely scrumptious success!

My head cold hasn’t vacated me yet, but it is a little better. Hopefully this week will go better. My goal for tomorrow is to get those seeds planted in the greenhouse.

Serving you with Gladness,

Tiare