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Hi Everyone,
Last week the sun shined, the rain poured, the grass turned greener, and the pecans trees fully clothed themselves in a flush of new spring leaves. I am so enjoying the beauty of spring this year.
The week before ended with our van over heating so on Monday we took our van down the road to our neighborhood mechanic. Thankfully he was able to find that the water pump was busted and he got it replaced in a timely manner and we didn’t have to rent a U-Haul to haul our farm products to Jacksonville on Wednesday. In between running back and forth to the mechanics house I was answering order emails, making kombucha, and a batch of yogurt. Mom hid herself away in the barn to stain the last picnic table. What a blessing to have all six tables completely put together, sanded and stained. Mom has been so faithful and determined to get them accomplished. Each picnic table takes an hour to assemble, another hour to sand it, and three long back breaking hours to stain it. Nobody had the patience that Mom had to squarely put the tables’ together, sand them smooth, and meticulously stain them. Mom stained them with a paint brush, and I kept telling her to just get a big woolly mitt and smear it all over it. Truth be told, I am not a painter by any means.
Since we would be processing chickens on Tuesday, Steve and I harvested the cabbage, lettuce and the rest of the carrots on Monday. The carrots are so orange and sweet, and this is the most beautiful batch of lettuce I think that I have ever grown. The Pirat butterhead is so soft, and the Pablo Batavian is so crisp and colorful. They make a very pleasing salad—pleasant to the eyes and appealing to the taste. I love gardening—but I still have so much to learn. I may know to plant spinach around the middle of October, garlic at the end, onions at Thanksgiving, sugar snap peas at the New Year, potatoes on Valentine’s Day, the spring garden after the middle of March, and sweet potatoes around Memorial Day—but how do you keep an endless supply of lettuce? I am known to plant about a 100 one month, and then another 100 the next month—but it is too much at one time. How to plant enough here and enough there is still confusing to me. Succession planting is not something I am good at. I can plant a 20 foot long row of something now—and then have no space to plant more later. Some things it doesn’t matter on—you plant collards, kale, Swiss chard, and mustard greens once—and they produce over and over and over all season. Carrots, lettuce, cabbage, and broccoli should all be planted a little this week, and a little more a few weeks later, and so on—so that you have a continual supply. Maybe when we get the new Market Garden tunnels up I will learn these technics.
Yep, we processed chickens on Tuesday—something we have never done before. They were due to process the week before, but they were not big enough. So we postponed it a week—but that Friday was our April Date Night-Pizza Dinner. So we decided to do it on Thursday—but one of our little helpers was turning 11 that day, and we didn’t want to mess up her Birthday plans. We deliver on Wednesday, so that left Monday and Tuesday. I thought that it would be best to harvest on Monday, and then process the chickens on Tuesday and then package the eggs afterward—that way our helpers didn’t have to come to the farm two days in a row. It sure made for one long day though. Papa and Mom headed outside at 6:30 to collect the chickens. I printed the labels and then I started to set up the milking equipment. When Mom came up she said that she was going in to cook breakfast and I asked her where Papa was (because he usually fixes breakfast and Mom usually helps me set up). Mom said that Papa was giving the chickens some water and then he had to take the garbage out. Mom had gotten confused for she usually collects chickens on Fridays and our garbage goes out on Friday’s so since she had gathered the chickens that morning—surely Papa had to take out the garbage. I laughed and told her that it was Tuesday. Mom still ended up fixing breakfast so that Papa could sharpen the knives. After breakfast we all did our morning chores—which for Mom and I was to milk the cows. Then I had to bottle the kefir and at 11:30 we headed to the Poultry Kitchen to set up for butchering. It took us until 2:15 to get all 40 chickens processed, 12 of them cut up and all of them packaged. It was 2:20 by the time we were setting up to package eggs—just 20 minutes later than we normally would be on a Tuesday. Once the eggs were packaged I can honestly say that we were all done. Mom and Papa had to go pick up the van from the mechanic, and I had to get all the vegetable labels ready. I was very grateful for a sit down job—even if it was only for about 30 minutes. Once the labels were ready I headed over to the Milk House to label the veggies. When Mom got home she helped me sort them all out into orders. Then it was time for dinner—and then I had to put together the orders and make receipts.
Wednesday was one RAINY day! The rains came down and the floods came up—but thankfully no more than ankle deep in some places. We got a little over an inch of rain—but the majority of it came down pretty heavy while we were milking the cows. When we first went outside it was not raining—so Mom sent Papa and Steve straight out to the pasture to get their chores done out there. Therefore, I had to set up the milking parlor and Mom and I had to get our own bags of alfalfa. Steve got back up to the house before it started to rain and, Papa got back shortly after. It was raining by now—but not too hard. I finished my cows first, and we were all standing around waiting for Mom to finish her last two cows. Then the winds picked up and Steve and I stepped inside my feed room and Papa stepped inside Mom’s feed room. We were managing to stay dry. Then the wind and the rain got real fierce and I looked at Mom and saw that she was doing her best to shelter the milking claws from the rain. I left my “dry zone” and ran to the outside of the parlor and pulled the tarp curtain shut to block the rain from Mom. In the process I got completely drenched. It was definitely a “two outfit” day.
We had three very pressing chores to do on Thursday—and it all had to do with preparing for the April Date Night Pizza Dinner. We had to make gelato, wash all the dishes, and wash the veggies. Sounds simple enough—but life was not cooperating. While we were milking my brother-in-law came over with a problem. They were 30 minutes late in leaving for a fair that they were working at—because the hotwire that separates his farm animals from our farm animals was not hot. The neighbors had cleared some trees and busted our hotwire. My brother-in-law didn’t have time to fix the fence, so the decision was made to let his animals have the whole six acre field—we didn’t have any animals in there. Problem solved—or so we thought. When we were done milking we found two of the heifers (Sundrop and Dolly) that we had just put in with the bull—in the front yard. Thankfully we were able to shoo them back into the pastures with ease. At this time Papa was coming up on the tractor and stopped to tell us that we needed to go rescue my sister’s Jersey heifer (one year old) from our beef bull Jabez. The beef cows ended up being in the six acre field after all. Mom and I thought that they were in the chestnut field—but one of the calves wouldn’t go through the gate so Papa had left it open. I guess they all decided to leave the chestnuts and check out the new heifer. Mom and Papa headed up to separate Willow (my sister’s heifer) from our beef herd. While they were doing that I started a batch of yogurt and then I ran out to the garden to harvest a few onions and some kale. Then I grabbed a ladder and a long handled rake and climbed up beside the Ponderosa lemon tree to grab down a few of the remaining lemons that were a good 12 feet or so up in the tree. I needed them to make the lemon gelato. When I got back to the house I finished up the yogurt and then I grabbed the salad spinner, the kale and the spinach and began to head over to the sink in the Poultry Kitchen where I could have access to a four compartment sink for washing, but as soon as I walked outside I was met by a customer who had come to pick up some chickens. We hadn’t visited with her in a long time—because she usually picks up in Gainesville, though she used to live close enough to come to the farm. We had a good visit—but instead of heading to wash the vegetables when she left I had to go with Mom to get Willow out of the chestnuts and brought to the other end of our 65 acres to put her in with our heifers so that the bull couldn’t get to her. Brett was to show up at 2:00 in order to pick up the farm produce and meat that he would need to top the pizzas. It was 1:30 and I still had to wash up the veggies. I was hoping to get the gelato made before 2:00—but life doesn’t always go as planned. The veggies got washed and then we ate lunch. Brett arrived and we talked about the dinner plans and then we took some time to see the garden—something I had promised to show him the next time he came. It was funny to think that he had never had the chance to see our garden. Once Brett left, Mom headed over to the Poultry kitchens big sink to wash the dishes and I set up shop in the kitchen—so that I could make my first batch ever of gelato. We had made fruit gelato before—but we had no fresh fruit and there was none in season. Rules for the dinners are that the menu is based off of fruits and vegetables that are in season and if possible produced on our farm. As we researched different gelato flavors we realized that one of the most popular gelatos in Italy was the lemon flavor—and lemons were something we had! The next step was to find a recipe—and I wanted the simplest and the easiest recipe that I could find. Some had too many ingredients, some used cornstarch, some were complicated—and then there was one that used whole milk, lemon peel, lemon juice, egg yolks, and sugar (but I used maple sugar). With recipe in hand I headed to the kitchen—but my next problem was how many batches of the recipe should I make? I wanted to have enough, and I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t making more than would fit in our ice cream maker. I probably spent an hour comparing recipes and calculating measurements before I was finally satisfied and felt comfortable enough to start cooking. An hour later I was one happy camper as the recipe came together very nicely and the flavor was scrumptious. Now I had to chill the custard and since it was now after 5:00 at night we realized that the gelato would have to be made on Friday.
Friday was the big day—and thankfully we felt pretty well prepared so the day really wasn’t stressful. We got the cows milked and then I had to put together some orders. It was lunch time then and I just wanted to go pick flowers—for the last dinner I pushed the flowers off until the last minute, and that last minute was almost lost when the rain came down heavy. As soon as the rain stopped I flew to the garden to grab some daffodils and a few weeds. I was not delaying the picking of flowers any longer so as soon as lunch was over I grabbed some canning jars with some floral frog lids and headed to the garden—my secret garden that is. The zinnias that I planted are only about two inches tall—but the Poultry barn compost yard has blossomed into a lush garden. We have no chickens in there right now so all the weeds, flowers and vegetable seeds have had a chance to sprout. To my delight there are a few tomato plants (I have no idea what flavor), a few pumpkin plants (I have no idea what flavor), and a bunch of zinnias in bloom. There is also an array of different kinds of weeds and grains—which make great fillers for floral arrangements. Once the flowers, grains and weeds were all picked I dropped them off with Mom to arrange and then I headed over to wash up the lettuce for the dinners salad. I had some butterhead lettuce, some red and green Batavian lettuce and some dark red romaine lettuce. Blended together with some fresh garden onion and some grated carrot they made a dazzling salad.
Brett, Jenni and their helper Zac arrived around 3:00. It was time to start getting things set up. The decision was made to set up their tent and the pizza oven in front of the picnic tables so that everyone could watch them make the pizzas. Papa finally got the gelato made in the ice cream maker and we went ahead and plated it in the bowls and put them in the freezer for quick serving later. Then the tables needed to be set—but first they needed to be washed off from all the pollen. Then Mom and I covered the tables with some red checked oil cloth tablecloths. Then while Mom set the tables, Zac and I headed to the garden to get an onion for the salad, some apple mint to garnish the mocktail, and some borage flowers to garnish the gelato. By 6:00 everything was ready and the guests were arriving. The meal started off with a fresh from the garden salad topped with homemade Italian Salad dressing. Then the pizzas started to arrive. We told everyone that it was a three course meal—salad, pizza, and gelato. We didn’t realize that the pizza would be a five course meal in and of itself. They cooked five different pizzas—but brought one at a time to the tables. Spinach & Artichoke was the first pizza—and may I say that they were truly hot out of the oven. Then while we ate on that pizza they made a Kalamarg pizza—their take on the classic Margherita pizza. That one was followed by a Tuscan pizza that had marinated and grilled chicken thighs (from our farm) and roasted peppers and our fresh spinach. A Ragu pizza was next—tomatoes and our grass-fed beef. The last pizza was a blend of four cheeses and for this even they made the mozzarella and the ricotta themselves. Then they went from table to table asking everyone which pizza they wanted more of. They all tasted great, and what a treat it was to eat a pizza that was made with sprouted wheat, fresh veggies, local cheeses, and our meats. Once everyone had eaten their share of pizza we brought out the gelato—which everyone loved. One person who attended the dinner has been a customer of ours for years and every time he came he asked if we had any ice cream for sale. Years ago we actually did a few times—but he was hopeful a lot more times. His eyes lit up when I gave him some gelato and he asked, “Is this Shepherd’s Hill Farm gelato?” He savored every spoonful! People lingered around until about 9:00 and then we started clean up. Faithful Zac had already found his way to the kitchen and had half of the dishes washed before I got there. What a blessing! It was close to 11:00 when we finally climbed into bed. It was a wonderful night though. If you missed out and are hoping to attend one of our dinners we are having another one May 18—check out our “Farm to Table Dinner-May we Serve you with Gladness” here.
Saturday we milked the cows, packed the orders for the Gainesville delivery, relaxed and put away all the dishes from the dinner. It is now almost 11:00 and I must say Goodnight,
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare