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Hi Everyone,

A Blessed Addition to the Farm

               Grandpa arrived on the farm last Sunday—so he has been with us a whole week. He is much stronger mentally and physically than we were expecting, although some things are a little challenging. We soon realized that he still has an air of independence—as he eagerly climbs stairs carrying his walker in front of him before you can even get to him to help, and once he raced Mama down the hallway to the bathroom while Mama called after him to please stop running while he just laughed and kept on. We also realized that while he has a hard time knowing just who everyone is—he only knows two of his children’s names, but he knows the birth order number of the other five—he can remember what he did today, yesterday, and last week (no short term memory loss here). He is very eager to interact with you whether talking, playing a game, sitting on the porch, going for a ride to town, going for a ride in the golf-cart to put the cows back, or to just sit and watch us work (milk cows, build a wall, hang a door, or clean up a mess—and if he is familiar with the task he will give you encouragement to get the job done right, as in sweep over here, don’t forget that corner, you missed some over there.

Eager Farm Help

               My Uncle Jerry and his wife Aunt Carol brought my Grandpa down from Illinois to live with us—and they stayed with us for a little over three days before they headed back home. Aunt Carol is the CEO for a group of doctors, and her life is spent inside. She says that when she gets home from work at night all she wants to do is go outside. So she was very excited to get to spend a few days on the farm—but she didn’t get to “play” all day every day for she still had to keep up with her meetings and emails. Monday she did get to join us in the milking parlor—and what fun she had dishing out the food and getting to know the cows. Everyone gets a kick out of the fact that the cows know their names and come when called and know just what stall to go in. Some cows are shy—and will not come in to be milked or eat when a stranger is around (so it didn’t exactly work out for Aunt Carol to let cows in). Other cows are not shy—and they gladly came on in to eat when she opened the gate. Tuesday Aunt Carol had meetings until noon—so no milking that day. She had meetings scheduled for all morning on Wednesday and was hoping that her early morning meeting would be canceled. Her co-worker assured her that the meeting would happen like always, but that Aunt Carol could rest assured that since she was an hour ahead she could sleep in because the meeting would be at 8:30 for her instead of 7:30 like it was for everyone else. Aunt Carol wrote back, “But that is when we milk the cows!” Her co-worker wrote back, “Are you serious?” We all had a good laugh. Aunt Carol wasn’t worried about sleeping in; she was worried about missing out on milking the cows. While her 8:30 to 9:00 meeting was not cancelled, her 10:00 to noon meeting was cancelled so she got to come out and help with the milking after all.

               Not only did Aunt Carol help with the milking when she could, she also helped out with the evening chores. Sunday night she helped Papa and I separate the calves. Monday night I thought we were only going to help separate the calves and then come back inside, but I was informed that we were also helping to collect the eggs. It was getting dark so Papa held the flashlight in the chicken coop while Aunt Carol and I gathered the eggs. When it came to a chicken in the nest Aunt Carol wanted nothing of it—touching chickens was not on her “bucket list”. When we got to the second chicken house it was time to lock the chickens up for the night. Most were already in “bed”, but a few were sleeping outside so we had to pick them up and put them to bed. I got a few, and Papa got a few. As Papa passed me with an armful I asked him if that was all of them and he said that there was still one on the water barrel. So Aunt Carol and I headed back to get the last chicken—she with the flashlight and I with my hands, but my goal was to reverse the chores and once we arrived at the chicken I took the flashlight and encouraged her to get the chicken—and with a little encouragement she did. We had good laughs on the way home—because it was now raining and we were getting wet. The joys of farming—you never know what you shall encounter.

A Back Breaking Job

               My Uncle Jerry is a contractor by trade and not only builds, but decorates and landscapes too! While he visited last week we all got to enjoy his talented skills and loving personality. I put his landscaping skills to work when he offered to help me plant the garden. Thankfully the garden was completely prepped and all I had to do was grid the rows and set out the plants—then Uncle Jerry and I spent some back breaking time bent over digging little holes to tuck over 100 little plants into their fluffy new bed. We planted a variety of cool season vegetables: collards, cabbage, Swiss chard, broccoli, and a few cool season flowers: statice, carnations, and calendula. While he has landscaped many places, that was his first time planting a garden. With Grandpa living with us, Uncle Jerry plans to visit often so hopefully he shall get to enjoy the fruit of his labors. I was very grateful for his help—and greatly missed his extra set of hands when I had to plant over 100 snapdragon plants and close to 30 sweet peas on Thursday.

Uncle Jerry, Mama, and Aunt Carol holding the door in place

Extra Brains

Mama had two jobs for Uncle Jerry, and Papa had one—both dealt with the new barn build. When it rained, the water poured into the side door of the Milk House room because the door was not set right—so Uncle Jerry fixed that. The Brooder Room was ready for some partition walls—so Uncle Jerry started those. He didn’t get to finish because Papa had another goal—hang the new walk-in cooler door. The door we had was prone to mildew and it always looked terrible. I dreamed of ways to fix it for years, but didn’t know how. Then when we began our new build I learned that we could get a real cooler door, so we sold a cow in order to get the money to buy one. It arrived about a month ago—but it was so heavy and confusing that Papa didn’t know where to start. So on Wednesday  Uncle Jerry took down the old door, cleaned up the walls, replaced the door casing and with help from a lot of women (because Papa was making deliveries) he installed our new cooler door.

A Chance to Relax

               On Tuesday my cousin Brady (my Uncle’s son) came up from Tampa to spend the day with us and visit Grandpa. He had not been to the farm since he was a little boy—and now he is 28. Papa gave him a tour of the farm and one of the highlights of that was giving little Polly a ride in the golf-cart back to her mama. Newborn calves don’t always like to walk long distance and really like to hide in the tall grass or weeds. Aunt Carol’s meeting was over at noon, and as soon as I finished bottling the kefir I made up some Sunflower butter and jelly sandwiches and Uncle Jerry, Aunt Carol, Brady and I headed out to go kayaking down the Ichetucknee Springs River. It is a spring that feeds a river that is about ten minutes from our house. The water is 72 degrees year round—cold in summer, warm in winter, and perfect when the temperature outside is in the 70’s and overcast (which was the case on Tuesday). I was amazed at the variety of fauna on the river. I saw flowers I had never seen before. We enjoyed two hours of pure relaxation as we floated down stream. We did very little paddling—we paddled a little to steer around a tree every now and then—but most of our paddling was back paddling so that we didn’t float too fast. We wanted to make sure our time to relax didn’t come to an end too soon. It was nice to get out in the middle of nature and just enjoy the birds, fish, turtles and fauna that a quiet river has to offer.

The Birthday Boy

               Wednesday was Grandpa’s 92nd birthday! He had a very busy day also. After breakfast he went to town with Uncle Jerry to buy some supplies for the projects Uncle Jerry was working on. Then he set in a chair in the new barn watching Uncle Jerry work. After lunch he took a small nap, and then he returned to watch the progress on the door. While the door was being hung, I took some time to make some Fudgy chocolate brownies—so we could have brownies and ice cream for dessert. We were almost done cooking dinner when Aunt Carol checked on the door progress and found out that they still needed 30 more minutes. It was 6:00 and I knew that it would be dark by the time we finished eating so I turned everything off and Aunt Carol, my sister Nichole and I all headed outside to go and separate the calves for the night. Aunt Carol was becoming a pro at it after three nights of it. She would have done four, but Brady helped Papa do all the chores Tuesday night.

Will you play with me?

               When we would visit Grandpa at his house we played pool. When my Mama was growing up Grandpa owned a Pool hall. Grandpa was good at pool—and it was hard to beat him. The story was that if you wanted a turn when you played pool with Grandpa you had to make the first move—otherwise he could play the whole game by himself. We teased that to play with Grandpa he had to cheat—but not cheat to win, cheat in order to let us have a chance to play. Grandpa was also good at golf, and I wanted to try to play with him once, but my Uncle thought it best for me to practice at his house and I found out that golf hurts your elbows and hands and that I could not hit the ball far enough—so I never gave it a shot with Grandpa on the golf course. Grandpa can no longer play golf or pool, but he can play chess and he is real good at it too. When Aunt Carol was unpacking his belongings she came across his magnetic chess set, and after dinner Grandpa wanted me to play chess with him. I have never played chess in my life. I have no idea how it works, and what each piece was called—but Grandpa was willing to teach me. I slowly caught on (barely). I would watch him and try to do what he did—but he would tell me that I couldn’t do that. I asked if I could jump his man—but of course that is how you play checkers. Grandpa was very patient with me and even helped me think through moves by showing me what would happen if I moved a pawn this way or that way. In the end I won the game—I think they call it beginners luck, I shall say that it had everything to do with Grandpa focusing more on teaching me than playing. I need one of those simple picture books for dummies on how to play chess.

               A few days later Mama wanted to play a game with Grandpa, but she didn’t want to attempt chess—she doesn’t understand it either. So she talked Grandpa into playing tic-tac-toe. Grandpa’s brain worked too well, and so did Mama’s so no one ever won. Then Mama got out the Chinese checkers game—for she figured it would be easier to teach Grandpa to play Chinese checkers than it would be for Grandpa to teach her how to play chess. When the game was over Grandpa informed her that he didn’t like that game.

               Life with Grandpa is very enjoyable. We are learning a new routine and it is a blessing to have him around.

Serving you with Gladness,

Tiare