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Hi Everyone,
Last week started out with a house full of family. While Mom, Aunt Carol and I milked the cows, Papa did the field chore and Uncle Jerry planted two trees and a few plants for a lasting memory of their time and Grandpa’s time here on the farm. Then Uncle Jerry headed inside to bake a scrumptious breakfast of Blueberry Lemon Soufflé—although I do not understand the soufflé part because it was baked in a giant cast iron skillet and looked like a giant blueberry pancake. It had lots of eggs, plenty of lemon zest, and tons of blueberries. Then it was drizzled with maple syrup. Since our diet is so restricted, very few people take upon themselves to feed us—so it is always a special treat to me when someone goes out of their way to serve me a meal that they made with love just for us. Thank you Uncle Jerry! I know that his recipe calls for regular flour and white sugar—but the recipe adapted itself very well to fresh ground whole wheat flour, maple sugar, farm fresh eggs, and organic blueberries. I was told that it was a special breakfast that he makes for company at his house—and sometimes he will make it for his wife to take to work to share with her co-workers. It was definitely a special breakfast to me—and he even made sure that it was cooked in time for us to have time to enjoy it and get to church on time. The sad part was that they had to fly home that afternoon. It is nice getting to see them a little more often now that Grandpa is living here. The next morning when I was milking cows I have to say that I really missed Aunt Carol’s help. My sister Samantha was still visiting so she kept me company while I milked—and she even noticed that Rosa (one of the milk cows) was looking in the back feed room for Aunt Carol. I remember Aunt Carol saying that Rosa was her favorite because Rosa enjoyed letting Aunt Carol pet her.
Monday was Samantha’s last day with us, and Monday afternoon Mama had to take Grandpa to the doctors for some tests. Samantha and I had a chance to spend some sister time together and we played a game of Sorry. The time change definitely had us extra tired, and after a week of company and a Farm to Table Dinner on Saturday staying awake was pretty hard. Sorry was a good game—for it required no brains just reading and counting abilities. Tuesday morning my sister Nichole picked up Samantha to take her to the bus station to catch a ride back to Tallahassee where a friend would pick her up and take her back to Pensacola where she lives. My siblings are adopted, and growing up Samantha was more bitter than grateful—but adulthood has taught her many lessons and as she was leaving Tuesday morning I saw the tears well up her eyes (and felt them pool up in mine). I told her that I bet she never expected to get teary eyed when it came to saying goodbye—for now she is grateful and sees us as the best family she has ever had. I love you Samantha!
For over twenty years we have had an egg party every Tuesday afternoon—we would package the week’s supply of eggs. First it was the four of us girls (Mama, me, and my two sisters). Then we had workers to help, and then my sisters moved on, and then there were times when it was just Mama and me. Six years ago a large family came along and decided to help us package eggs every Tuesday in exchange for eggs—and then they moved on and another large family took their place. That family helped us for four years, but last Tuesday was their last day to help us. There is no way that Mama, I and Micah (our worker) can package a week’s supply of eggs in a few hours on Tuesday afternoon so we came up with a new plan—packaging eggs everyday Monday thru Friday. On Monday we will pack Friday and Saturday’s eggs, then on Tuesday we will package Sunday and Monday’s eggs—Wednesday will be Tuesday’s eggs, Thursday will be Wednesday’s eggs, and Friday will be Thursday’s eggs. The goal is to quit work every day at 3:30 and spend an hour packaging eggs. Hopefully this new schedule will work out okay.
Tuesday was the first big day of harvesting the fall vegetables for sale. I had harvested some mustard greens, lettuce and green onions for the Farm to Table dinner—but this was my first chance to share my garden with the home cook. The leaves from the first few pickings are always HUGE because I never seem to notice that they are ready until they like slap me in the face with their size. The mustard greens were as large as elephant ears, but still so nice and tender. Right now there are collards, mustard greens and Swiss chard growing big in the garden. To my dismay I have not had a chance to harvest the green beans since my Aunt Carol and I harvested them two weeks ago for the Farm to Table Dinner. I must harvest them tomorrow—because it is supposed to freeze really bad Monday night and Tuesday night and I do not know if they will survive even though they are planted in the middle of the garden tunnels. I took a different approach to getting ready for the first freeze this year. Usually we spend our time harvesting everything we can—like herbs, roselle, and the lemons (of which I do not believe they are ripe yet, for the first freeze is a month early this year). Then we let the freeze kill everything else. This time I decided to utilize the plants before the freeze killed them. I had a twenty foot row of the most beautiful marigolds with a few pepperoncini. I told Micah to go pull them all up and feed them to the chickens—and later he told me that he almost came back and questioned me about all the flowers. Yes, they were in full bloom and very vibrant—but I figured that the chickens would greatly enjoy them, so why waste them to a freeze. Then I told him to go pull up all twelve roselle plants and feed them to the sheep. Roselle is a great wormer and I thought that before the freeze killed them I would utilize them while they still had leaves and calyxes for the sheep to eat. Having the marigolds pulled up gave me space to finally plant some spinach. I decided to use the spot where I had grown sweet potatoes to grow a row of mullein.
Farm to Table dinners are a lot of fun—and a lot of work—but a lot of fun. I have always enjoyed a fancy meal, so sharing a seven course meal with our guests is very special. A few times a year though we like to have a Pizza Dinner—and this year we were contemplating doing one the beginning of December. We talked back and forth with our friends at Kalacrow Wood Fired Pizza and threw a few dates around—but in the end Mama decided not to have a pizza dinner after all. Then the reviews and comments started coming in from last week’s dinner and the first thing out of Mama’s mouth was, “We should do the Pizza Dinner.” Papa just laughed and made a comment about going back and forth and back and forth—so Mama dropped the idea. Then Wednesday morning when Brett Kalacrow was delivering our order of fresh sourdough bread for our customers we got to talking about the reviews and the first thing out of his mouth was, “We should do the Pizza Dinner.” We laughed and told him what Mama and Papa had said—and in the end we decided to do a Pizza Dinner. The interesting thing was that when we had cancelled doing the dinner he tried to book the date at two other events—but both were denied. I think that God was keeping the date available for a Pizza dinner here on the farm. Deciding the date for a dinner is the first step. Then second step is advertising—which can be the tricky part. When I climbed in bed Wednesday night the theme for the pizza dinner hit me: “Deck the Farm with Pizza Dinner.” It is the beginning of the Christmas season, and so I did a little play on words. A full moon is scheduled two day before the dinner—and if the sky is clear (of which we are praying it will be) the night sky will be well lit by the big moon the night of the pizza dinner—matter of fact we should be able to watch the big orange ball rise over the tree tops while we finish eating our dinner that night. Then once dinner is over we may not go dashing thru the snow on a one horse open sleigh . . . but we do plan on going on a moonlit hayride around the farm! When Jenni made the flyer for the dinner you can tell that she had just as much fun with the theme as I did. You should find a copy of her flyer in your email—Inbox. Go open it and take a look! Then take some time to reserve your seat for the dinner and hayride—we would love to have you join us.
Friday was spent doing one of my least favorite things to do—grocery shopping. I couldn’t wait to get home and get the groceries put away so that I could join Micah in the garden before we had to stop and package eggs. I did manage to play in the garden for about an hour. I was able to mark the rows and walkways so that on Monday we can start wood chipping the walkways and planting ranunculus in one of the beds. I wanted to harvest green beans and zinnias on Saturday—but every time I went to head outside it started to rain. I figured that God was telling me to stay inside and get my Administration work done, and I didn’t argue.
Saturday morning a customer arrived to pick up his milk and asked me why I was milking on Mama’s side of the milking parlor. I told him because Mama had to take Grandpa to the ER. His was not feeling very good and his blood pressure was low—so instead of milking her cows Mama had to take Grandpa in to the hospital and I milked all the cows (7 of hers and 7 of mine). When Mama got home later that afternoon the good news was that we got answers, the bad news is that Grandpa’s days are numbered. We knew that when he came to live with us, but now we know why. His lungs are full of fibrous tissue and a few tumors, and some of his arteries are full of other things besides flowing blood. We don’t know how many numbered days he has left—but we plan on making the best of them until then. Actually, all our days are numbered. We do not know when the last day will come—if it will linger or come quickly. The question that we each must answer is whether or not we are ready to meet our Maker—the Lord Jesus Christ. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. We cannot live good enough lives to pay for our own sins; therefore Jesus Christ the son of God came to earth to live a sinless life that He might die for us. The best part is that He rose again and reigns in heaven above working to intercede on our behalf. If we but confess our sins and believe that He died for our sins we can have a relationship with Him that lasts for all eternity. If we don’t then an eternity of hell awaits us. I encourage you to decide today—you never know if you have tomorrow, and if you are promised many more years of life you are not guaranteed to have a sound mind in order to make important decisions like where you will spend eternity—Heaven or hell.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare