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Hi Everyone,

               Ready or not here I come! That is exactly what winter said last week. Monday and Tuesday never got out of the 50’s and by 8:30 Tuesday night the temps has dropped to freezing—32 degrees. When we woke up Wednesday morning it was 23 degrees outside. I was very thankful that it warmed up very fast and was in the 50’s or 60’s by the time I headed out to milk the cows at 9:00. That is the temperature facts—but there was a lot of behind the scenes getting ready for that cold spell. I spent a few hours Monday harvesting green beans. They were just starting to produce and I had only managed to pick them once before—for the Farm to Table Dinner. I harvested two big baskets of green beans and after the freeze I was so grateful that I had harvested them because the freeze killed the plants. When Micah finished washing all the milking equipment I sent him to harvest all the zinnia flowers. They had sprouted on their own in the gardens—around here zinnias and cosmos grow like wild flowers. They were in full bloom and I hadn’t had the chance to pick any for the house. I wanted to enjoy them, so while I finished harvesting the green beans he picked the flowers. We had a big bucket full and they sat on the table in the living room for a few days before they ran out of water and started to die. I guess they would have lasted longer if I had thought about giving them more water. While the freeze lasted a good twelve hours, the damage was minimal—except for the fact that all the grass turned brown, which didn’t help the milk supply at all.

               Come Tuesday Mama spent her day sitting on the sofa snapping green beans. When I was growing up, the neighbor man next door grew a garden and harvested it and brought it in to his wife for her to preserve it. I always thought that if I started courting a young man that I would make sure that our neighbor Mr. White would teach him a thing or two. Gardening wasn’t my forte then so I really wanted a husband who would garden for me. My how things change! Now I love gardening and I am the one who plants, weeds, and harvests. I was hoping to help Mama snap the green beans, but to my dismay I had too much paperwork and computer problems to take care of when she was snapping the first basket. Then when she was snapping the second basket Micah and I were in the garden harvesting mustard greens and collard greens from the Market Gardens. Then we had to package eggs. Our new egg schedule is working out really nice. We spend the last hour of every work day packaging eggs—and if we get behind Micah catches us up on Wednesday. When the eggs were done and dinner was done Tuesday night then Mama and I set up in the kitchen to can the green beans. I helped her get them in the jars after she washed them, and then she finished the job of canning by herself while I worked the nightmare of figuring out who would get milk on Wednesday and who wouldn’t since we were only getting 6 to 8 gallons of milk a day instead of 16 o 18 gallons of milk a day—but the same amount of customers. I felt bad that I didn’t get to help Mama snap the green beans—but I just had to comfort myself that I had grown them and harvested them. In the end we had 36 pints of green beans to add to our cupboards.

               Thursday morning dawned bright and beautiful which was a good thing—for we had a group of school children coming for a Farm Tour. The third grade class at Spring Rivers School in Jacksonville had school at the farm. They arrived around 10:00 in time to see us milk the last few cows. Then they got to see the milk bottled and get a tour of the Poultry kitchen (where we process chickens). A hayride around the farm was next on the list with stops at the turkeys (all six of them), the milk cows, the laying hens and dogs, the chestnuts, and the heifers. The last stop was the garden and at that point we got off of the hay wagon so that I could show the children what a carrot seed looked like and then give them the opportunity to pull up a carrot out of the ground and eat it for a snack. We then walked over to the Poultry Barn where the newest egg layers are and the children fed them their carrot tops. Our last stop was the Market Gardens where I asked the children who liked cold weather and who liked hot weather. I then told them that some plants like it hot and some like it cold—and some taste good in the pot nine days old (well maybe I didn’t tell them that part). I told them that lettuce and mustard greens and kale like it cold—but green beans do not. We were standing right beside the blackened green bean plants and they could see firsthand what a freeze will do to a plant that doesn’t like it cold. Then they all pitched in to pull up all the dead plants and pile them in a big wheelbarrow that they then teamed up to push it over to the chickens. What great fun they had throwing the piles of green bean plants over the fence to the chickens—and O what fun the chickens had gobbling up all the free food. When the tour was over they ate their picnic lunch in our “dining area” where we have a bunch of picnic tables.

               Micah and I headed to the garden to get a section of the West Garden prepared for planting after I had my lunch. I finished weeding the walkways and then Micah filled them with wood chips. On Friday we headed back out and this time I weeded in the beds and Micah covered them with compost and then broadforked them and I tilthed them. Then I had one bed ready for planting ranunculus. I grew them last year for the first time and fell in love with their delicate flower petals and pastel colors. I dug up the plants last summer and stored the chromes in a cool dry place until I planted them on Friday—all 93 of them.

               Do you know how important hearing is? Grandpa’s hearing aids died last Sunday and while Mama was able to get him to a hearing aid clinic on Monday, they wouldn’t be able to get him some hearing aids until Thursday. They said that new ones were pretty pricey, refurbished ones were half price, and to fix his was the cheapest but it would take three weeks to fix them. We were having to write everything down that we wanted to tell Grandpa and it wasn’t always going smoothly—so Mama wanted hearing aids as soon as possible and opted for the refurbished ones. By Thursday morning Grandpa was so depressed because he couldn’t hear that he decided to stop talking too. Thankfully that afternoon was his appointment to get his hearing aids—and to our surprise he ended up getting brand new ones for the price of the refurbished ones because they couldn’t find any refurbished ones and decided to honor the price that they had told us. Grandpa was so happy that he could hear again that it brought tears to his eyes—and he didn’t stop talking for the rest of the day.

               We are in a drought, and we were not able to plant any fall cover crops (cow peas) for the cows to eat in October/November, and we had an early freeze and all the grass turned brown—and when you put all that together it creates a milk shortage because the cows have no green grass to eat. Just a month ago we were getting 16 to 18 gallons of milk a day—now we are getting just 6 to 8 gallons a day. We decided that it was time to find some alfalfa hay and see if we can feed them enough of that to make more milk—but not break the bank. Papa went Friday to purchase some feeders and some posts so that they could make a “feeding station” for the milk cows to eat the green hay before they come into the milking parlor to be milked. So far the cows are very delighted with the new set up and eagerly come in for their new candy. We should know by the end of the week if it will increase their milk supply—but then by the end of the week we also have to dry off two cows that will be calving in December. Add a little; subtract a little—but hopefully multiply some too. Milk cows are a constant reminder that we are not in charge, and just when we think we have it all planned out they throw a kink in the plan and upset the milk cart.

Serving you with Gladness,

Tiare