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Hi Everyone,

               Computers have not been my best friend since high school—I was creative with the Apple IIe computer I had at home, but those floppy disks in my computer class and I did not get along. The worst fight I ever had with my Mama was over my computer class. I had done my homework, but when I turned in the floppy disk to the teacher she couldn’t open it and told me I had to do the whole lesson over. I was furious, and when Mama told me that I just needed to try harder I lost it. Things were always disappearing from my computer—and over the years I have learned that it isn’t always my fault. Once I sat at the computer watching as our emails disappeared before my eyes. We found out that someone had hacked our computer and was having fun deleting our emails and spending money on our credit card through our Amazon account. I still enjoy creating on computers—making cards, helping Mama with some craft that she needs a print out for, and writing my journal. Doing business on the computer is another story though, and we try our best to keep it all very simple. Orders are sent by email, and then transferred by hand to a spreadsheet, and from there I make receipts. People have tried to get us to do on-line ordering—and we tried in once and it was the worst nightmare ever. After a few weeks we went back to emails! No headache and very personable. Trouble happened this time when Mama noticed a $999.00 charge on our credit card from QuickBooks (the program we use to make/print/email receipts and keep track of our expenses on the farm). We use probably a sixteenth of a fraction of what QuickBooks can do, but that is all we need—so to pay $1000 for it we were not impressed. I called the company up last Monday and told them that if I was going to pay $1000 I wanted more bells and whistles—like I wanted automatic back up on the cloud. The salesman informed me that we would be better off with QuickBooks Essentials an online version. Now stupidity is doing the same thing over again expecting a different result—so it is fair to say that I was being stupid, for back in 2021 we signed up for QuickBooks Essentials and before the night was over we quickly cancelled because it didn’t have a calendar. I told the salesman I needed a calendar and I told him everything that we use QuickBooks for and he assured me that this was the best program for us—and it was $300 cheaper than the desktop version. Problem number one was when the salesman signed me up I gave him the wrong email address—and he wouldn’t let me change it. Therefore, an account was made that we could not access because I didn’t have a password for it. Instead of fixing the problem he hung up and sent me to the migrating team to transfer our desktop files to our online account—but we couldn’t access it. I spent three and a half hours on the phone fixing the problem and getting the new account set up—thankfully it was with a very nice, perfect English speaking lady from the Philippines. We had a good laugh when she realized that it was 6:15 Monday evening here, and it was 6:15 Tuesday morning at her place. She told me that I was speaking into my future. Come Tuesday night I started making receipts for the Jacksonville deliveries on Wednesday and it took me forever to find the “sales receipt” tab. It was not set up like the desktop version and it took me twice as long to make them. There was also no way to verify that I had made a receipt for everyone and marked “email” on each receipt. I thought I found the test button for sending the emails—but the next day I started getting emails asking about the strange new email. Oops! The emails were sent before I was done punching in all the weights and amounts. Then I had to go back through each email (all 41 of them) and remark them to be emailed. I also noticed that the email presentation was pretty sloppy in my opinion—it looked totally unprofessional. Then to my horror people started emailing me asking why their bill said “Balance Due: $0”. I learned that you are supposed to make Invoices, then go back when the person pays and make a Sales receipt—we do not have time for that. I like the desktop method better. On Wednesday afternoon I had a one hour phone call with a QuickBooks instructor on how to use QuickBooks online. He helped me find certain things that we use, but Essentials still didn’t have a calendar. The breaking point came when I was told that it didn’t break up the sales taxes for us so that we could file our sales tax each month—if I wanted that feature I would have to move to the Advanced option and it would cost us over $3000 a year. All of a sudden $1000 didn’t sound so bad after all. So on Thursday afternoon I spent another two hours with a few nice ladies from the Philippines as we cancelled our online subscription, got our money refunded, and updated our desktop to the newest version—and because we are a small business that doesn’t use very many features they gave us a 10% discount, and said that we can call them every year for a discount. Nice! We decided that $899 was not so bad when it gave us simplicity, know how, the ability to make receipts even when the internet is down, and I can make Sales Receipts instead of Invoices—because I want to. Needless to say I think that I spent close to eight hours on the phone and computer driving myself crazy. I told those nice Pilipino ladies that I gave them credit for dealing with computer problems all day—I would rather milk my cows, catch manure, be peed on, get dirty, and have my hands so dried out that they feel like chicken feet than spend all day on a computer.

               I did get to spend one day in the garden last week—Thursday. Micah called in sick, but I was grateful that Papa was able to be my right hand man for the day because it was time to harvest the sweet potatoes that Jesse and I had planted in rows of deep wood chips early summer. I was really excited to see how they were doing. I had checked them on Tuesday and saw some nice size ones—and I also saw that the rats were starting to find them. So it was high time to dig them up. We (I did some, but Papa did the rest) pulled off the vines and fed them to the Jersey milk cows. Then we dug up the potatoes. Some were nice baking sizes—but some were pretty large. One was bigger than a foot long. Most of the woodchips had turned to beautiful compost, and I am trying to figure out what I plant in it next. Maybe spinach!

               Friday was our last chicken processing day for the year. The chickens did very well this year, and therefore we didn’t have to raise them as long—the freezer filled up quicker than we thought it would because the chickens were stronger and 90% of them lived until Graduation day, where the last few years we lost close to 50% every time. Our chicken help quit last spring, and we have processed a few times by ourselves—turning a four hour job into an eight hour job. Thankfully there were times when people volunteered to come and help and it was greatly appreciated. Being our last day for processing, and since we have Grandpa living with us now we thought that it would be nice if the family who used to help us could please come and help for the last time so that we could get done early—and they thankfully agreed. Friday morning Papa and I headed out to gather the chickens around 6:45, and once they were all gathered the number was 63. When we got back inside though there was an email awaiting us with some bad news—everyone in the family who was supposed to come and help us was sick. Ugh! We would have to butcher by ourselves. We tried to think of someone that we could call to come and help—but really couldn’t think of anyone. I have to admit it was most depressing. I began to question why all the things I want to do in life require help from other people. Couldn’t I just find something to do that doesn’t depend on others to help? Isn’t it wrong to need others to do what you enjoy doing in life—doing what you feel like you have been called by God to do? Then I remembered that when God made the sun, moon and stars He said that it was good. When God made the plants He said that it was good. When he created the birds and the fish He said that it was good, and when he made the animals that roamed the earth He said that it was good---BUT, when God made man he said that it was not good that man should be alone and he created woman. So yes, we need each other in order to be successful in life. I recently heard the story of Hershey chocolate. The man was poor—but he had ideas. He had to have someone else fund him every time—and he flunked at it quite a few times. When he finally succeeded with the perfect chocolate his business would have gone nowhere had it not been for customers and workers—he needed a community. Recently we have been watching a series and I found myself quite envious of the “community” that they shared. Then someone died and some moved away—and I thought how real that is. We used to have a big community of friends and helpers—but over time some have died and others have moved on. The show didn’t stop with every one leaving though—new people moved in. People come into our life for a season—some long term and some short term, but all for a season. Community has ebbs and flows, it is always changing, but the good news is that Jesus never changes; He is always the same which causes me to be able to sing . . .

There’s within my heart a melody Jesus whispers sweet and low,
“Fear not, I am with thee, peace, be still,” In all of life’s ebb and flow.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Sweetest Name I know,

Fills my every longing, Keeps me singing as I go.

God knows what we need, and He knows just when we need it. We finished processing those 63 chickens around 4:00 Friday afternoon—but they still needed to be packaged and cut up. We began the process of packaging, and it wasn’t long before we realized that this was the smallest batch of chickens we had ever processed—somehow the feeding went wrong. Since they were all so small I decided that we should just package all of them whole for they were too small to cut up. This decision was a big time saver. Around 5:00 Mama told me to head inside to cook dinner—we didn’t want Grandpa to wait too long for dinner and it couldn’t be pizza. Just as I was heading inside, my sister Nichole showed up to visit—and she was able to help Mama finish packaging the chickens while I cooked chili for dinner and nectarine cobbler for dessert. She was a lifesaver! Thanks sis! After dinner Papa went out to do the evening chores and I started cleaning up in the Poultry kitchen. Papa joined me later and we got everything cleaned up. Mama stayed inside with Grandpa—he needed some “community” too, for he had spent most of the day by himself and we could tell the difference in his communication skills. I was told to day at church that a man’s mother was told that if she continued to live by herself and never got out to communicate with others that she would develop dementia. The more time we spend talking with Grandpa the better he communicates in full sentences. The less talking he does, the poorer he communicates. Community—yes, we need each other, we were not created to live our lives for ourselves or by ourselves.

Serving you with Gladness,

Tiare