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Hi Everyone,
Today is Resurrection Sunday—it is when we celebrate the fact that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ rose from the dead. The dead—why did he die? He died for you and me that we might find forgiveness for our sins and have a relationship with The Almighty God! We can sing of our Blessed Redeemer because not only did he die for our sins, He also rose again and lives forever more. We do not worship a dead God, our God is ALIVE!
Up Calv’ry’s mountain, one dreadful morn,
Walked Christ my Savior, weary and worn;
Facing for sinners death on the cross,
That He might save them from endless loss.
Refrain:
Blessed Redeemer! Precious Redeemer!
Seems now I see Him on Calvary’s tree;
Wounded and bleeding, for sinners pleading,
Blind and unheeding—dying for me!
“Father forgive them!” thus did He pray,
E’en while His lifeblood flowed fast away;
Praying for sinners while in such woe—
No one but Jesus ever loved so.
Oh, how I love Him, Savior and Friend,
How can my praises ever find end!
Through years unnumbered on heaven’s shore,
My tongue shall praise Him forevermore.
Last Monday started out with a little adventure. Saturday night when Papa was locking up the ducks and Goose, Goose took hold of Papa’s finger and bit it pretty good. Papa was not happy. Goose has also come to enjoy terrorizing Mom. You have to really love a goose to tolerate their pesky side—but when Goose decides to become a little too friendly in a negative way with company we realized that it was not safe to have Goose roaming freely in the yard. So Papa declared that it was time to move Goose to the pond where he could live with our other two geese and another male duck. So as soon as we were done with breakfast Monday morning Papa, Mom and I headed out back to the duck house where Goose was living at night time. I went in and gathered up Goose and then got in the back of the golf-cart and Papa drove us down to the pond. I had to hold on to Goose pretty tight and keep my head pushed up against his neck so as to prevent him from biting me. Right before we reached the pond Goose squirmed and my leg got hot and wet—he had pooped on me! So much for wearing that outfit all day, it went to the wash as soon as we got back to the house, because goose poo is pretty nasty. Once we reached the pond I let Goose go and he ran right over to the other two geese and the male duck and they all waddled down into the pond. My biggest fear was that Goose would not be able to swim—for he had never had a pond to swim in before and I wasn’t sure if his feathers would have the oil coating on them to prevent him from sinking. Goose took to swimming like a pro—he was swimming all over chasing the duck this way and that way, checking everyone out. Once we realized that he would be just fine we headed back up to the house to do the breakfast dishes (Mom) and start milking the cows (me). As I was starting to scoop out the alfalfa for the milk cows I heard a loud honking—it was Goose. I thought, “I knew he was loud, but I didn’t know he was that loud to be heard all the way to the house from the milking parlor.” Then I turned and looked and saw Goose was in the front field—not at the pond. Then to my horror Aliyah was also in the front field and she wasn’t too happy that Goose was in the field with her chickens. The chase was on—and so were the screams as Steve and I both ran toward the front gate yelling, “Aliyah, NO!” Aliyah soon caught on that what she was doing was a no-no and she took off away from Goose, dove under the hotwire, across the lane, under the other hotwire and into the field with Yasha where she sat down beside Yasha and looked at us as if to say, “I was doing nothing wrong. I wasn’t over there; I have been here all a long.” Goose decided to run into the dog hoop house for safety. Steve was able to catch him up and we were just going to take him back to his backyard buddies the wandering ducks—but Papa wasn’t giving up too easily. He told us to take Goose back to the pond and this time to put the hotwire netting across the lane so that Goose couldn’t get out of the pond field. Later when Steve let out the wandering ducks, Donald—Goose’s duck buddy, came waddling up to the house quacking looking everywhere for Goose. We felt so sorry for him, because he and Goose have been buddies for years. Everywhere that Goose goes, Donald goes—pretty much side by side. Then we moved Goose and Donald in with the wandering farm ducks and Donald found him a girlfriend—Daisy. Wherever Goose was—Donald and Daisy were sure to be close beside. Come Tuesday morning Papa and Mom decided to take Donald down to the pond to be with Goose. He was so happy to see his long lost friend. They walked arm in arm together around the field for a little while. Mom thought that since Donald was at the pond with Goose that they would be happy—so we didn’t need to put the hotwire netting back up across the lane. WRONG!! They didn’t even make it up to the house before Goose and Duck were coming up the lane. Papa and Mom chased them back, and put up the netting. About an hour later Donald had found a “back door” out of the pond field that was just big enough for him and he slipped through and came back to the house where he patiently waited for his girls to be let out. Donald decided that he would rather be the “King” of all seven female ducks—and he has been perfectly content without Goose. It took a few days—but Goose has become content at the pond with his girls. Once I saw him up at the front yard fence honking, but the next time I looked he was back at the pond. We no longer have to keep the netting across the lane. The two bachelors have found them some girls and they are quite happy.
Tuesday you would have thought that we were running a CSA. It was the biggest vegetable harvest we have ever had for sale. There was cabbage, lettuce, carrots, collards, Swiss chard, green onions, and kale. As soon as I was done milking I headed to the garden to harvest the carrots. Then Steve, Mom and I cut off the tops and rinsed them off and laid them out to dry. I wanted to start harvesting some of the other vegetables, but Mom said that I didn’t have time and suggested that I work on the labels. So for the next half hour I printed labels and put names on labels. Then it was time to finish the yogurt, eat lunch and join the egg packaging party. At 3:00 I headed inside to gather all the veggie orders and then Steve and I headed to the garden to harvest. We took three big tubs with us and they were soon full with lettuce and cabbage. We took them up to the milk house where Mom then took over closing up the bags and putting labels on them. Steve and I headed back to the garden to harvest the collards, kale, onions and Swiss chard. We filled the three tubs once again. Usually our garden harvests fills one or two tubs—this time we filled three of them twice. It took us an hour and a half to harvest all the veggies. Then Mom sealed, labeled, and sorted the veggies into groups. I cleaned up the onions—which took forever! Harvesting was truly an all-day affair. It was really exciting though to walk in the milk house and see it turned into a vegetable packing station and see every inch of it covered with bags of vegetables.
Thursday morning Papa went to feed the sheep and after he dumped the soaked alfalfa pellets in the trough I heard him say, “Where are the rest of the sheep? Is this all the sheep we have?” I looked and sure enough only half the troughs were surrounded by sheep—as Papa said he wasn’t getting mobbed by them. We went looking for the rest of the sheep and found them hiding behind the Poultry compost barn eating all the tall weeds. They had finished eating all the winter grasses in their field and had run through the wire into a section of the garden that used to be the orchard. There were plenty of weeds in there and they were having a feast. Papa got their attention and then they all ran down to eat what food the others had left them.
Later that afternoon Steve and I headed to the garden to plant a small row of Yukon potatoes and to transplant some celery. My sister Nichole had some left over potatoes from her planting, so she gave them to us. The funny part was that when I planted our potatoes I also had about 12 potatoes left over and I shared them with a friend. Now we were given 10 more potatoes—but they were a different kind. I had planted Red Pontiac potatoes—and these were the Yukon Gold. I have never grown them before so I am interested in seeing how well they do. The celery I had started last fall. My first planting didn’t sprout—so I bought new seeds. Then I liberally sprinkled them in a seed tray—and all the seeds sprouted. I waited and waited for them to grow to about 3 or 4 inches—but months went by and they looked no different, just a thick carpet of 2 inch high celery. I finally decided that I had better give them a chance to grow in the garden. So we prepped an area and I transplanted out 36—out of about 100. They are doing really nice—meaning they are still standing up straight. Now I just hope that they will grow tall and make good eating stalks before it gets too hot and they check out for the summer.
Mom has spent some of her time last week working on a sign. Two Christmases ago a customer family gave us a metal sign that has a farm scene that says: Shepherd’s Hill Farm. It is really nice. Mom worked on getting the wooden design that she wanted to hang the sign on, and then Papa helped her screw all the wood together. It is pretty big—and now we have to figure out where is the best place to hang it. We want it to be seen—but not ran over.
Friday afternoon Papa said that it was time to get started on our new Market Garden project. Before we can erect the garden tunnels we need to kill off the grass where they will be going. So we spent the afternoon marking the four corners of the whole area where the four tunnels will sit. Then we strung wire around the four corner posts to mark the border. Once we had our “frame” we covered the ground with black plastic. Then we gathered everything heavy we could think off to hold down the plastic. The main piece of plastic is 32 feet wide by 105 feet long—it was a challenge to spread out. Papa used old telephone poles to hold it down. The wind still finds ways to get under the plastic, so we will probably end up throwing dirt on the edges all the way around. The first stage is done now. Next we work on the road and fences. Then in a couple of months we should be able to start construction. I hope to keep you posted with the progress on our YouTube channel—and you can check out the first little short here.
Saturday was very interesting—and didn’t exactly go as planned. We had some friends coming over in the afternoon to get some kefir, and they wanted to see “Martha’s Vineyard” (part of our garden). Well it just so happened that last Monday Steve and I had weeded two walkways and got them prepped for woodchips—so Mom and I wanted to get them filled with woodchips before our company arrived. We got our cows milked and then Mom started on the woodchips while I packaged the Gainesville order. Thankfully I had gotten up at 6:00 that morning and headed straight outside (before anyone else had awakened) and set up the milking equipment and bottled the kefir. I got done just in time for breakfast. Then right before I started milking I ran out to the garden to harvest the few veggies that I had orders for. Having those two things done was a blessing so that all I had to do was pack. Then after we got Papa off to Gainesville I joined Mom and we both filled 12 five gallon buckets with woodchips and took them out to the garden and dumped them, then came back up to the yard to get 12 more buckets of woodchips. I think that we did this three or four times before I told Mom I needed a water break. We had about six more feet left to do. When I came inside I saw that Papa has just called—it was 3:00 in the afternoon. I called him back and he told me that he was having troubles. He had made it to the first drop in Alachua, but the van over heated so bad that he was not able to make it to the second drop in Gainesville. He had spent the last hour calling home to have us to come get him. Oops! We seldom spend a Saturday outside, and the one day that both of us are outside Papa desperately needed us. There was no way to finish the woodchips—for Mom had to go to Papa’s rescue, and I had to man the phone. I called customers (well tried to, no one answered) to tell them that Papa was stuck in Alachua and if they wanted their order they could go meet him there. Some did call me back and in the end I think that only about three people were not able to get their order. By the time that Mom got to Papa, the van had cooled off enough for Papa to drive the van home—plus he had been able to fill the radiator back up with water.
Here in the home front I had a customer/friend show up to pick up her order—but we sat around talking forever before that happened. Then about 5:00 the friends that we were expecting showed up. They were later than they had expected to be, and with Mom and Papa gone they were just going to get their kefir and leave. We were saying “Good-bye” when Mom and Papa drove up the driveway—perfect timing. Mom was glad that they had been delayed, because she didn’t want to miss their visit. They are new to farming and they raise chickens but were having some problems with a fox. So Papa took everyone out to the chicken hoop houses to show them how to string hotwire around the houses. Then we drove around the farm and saw the new Murray grey/South Poll calves. We finally made it the garden and it was 7:00 by the time we made it back to the house. Mom invited them to stay for dinner—and I was glad that a big chicken was cooking in the oven. I grabbed some lettuce from the garden and Mom had pulled a few carrots—so we made a salad. The rest of dinner was easy peasy for all I had to do was open up jars of home canned potatoes and green beans and then a jar of pears canned in apple juice for dessert. It was after 10:00 before our company left, and while we worked on the dishes, Papa headed out to finish up the evening chores. It was a late night—but we so enjoyed our visit.
If I do not close soon—this will be a late night too, and not only for me and my editor Mom, but for all those who stay up to read my journal before they go to bed. So night, night—and sweet dreams.
BTW—we will be spending some of next week preparing for our Pizza Dinner Date night next Friday night. If you haven’t signed up yet, and you want to come—it is not too late, we still have seats available. You can purchase tickets here.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare