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Hi Everyone,
I think that we can go to any one of the gardens right now and find something to snack on. There are green beans in the first Market Garden tunnel, and if you have a fire and some time there are fresh red potatoes in the second market Garden tunnel. If you looked hard enough in the Cottage Garden you just might find an asparagus spear, and in the greenhouse there are strawberries. The West Garden has carrots for the pulling up, and the East Garden has sugar snap peas for the picking. The Berry Garden only has one tree in it so far—but twice last week you could find Mama and I standing around it gleaning from the branches turning our fingers purple as we stuffed our mouths with mulberries.
When I planted the green beans I specifically planted them for our Farm to Table Dinner last weekend. I scanned the seed catalogs looking for a green bean that would grow and produce in 45 days—for that was all the time I had from planting to the dinner. Two weeks before the dinner I gave up hope because they were just starting to bloom and the beans were only a little strings. Well, last Monday (two days after the dinner) I managed to harvest two gallons of green beans. I was so bummed, because I do believe that they were ready for the dinner, I just didn’t look inside the plants deep enough. Before I found my “stash” of green beans I spent some time in the greenhouse picking a colander full of strawberries. I had planned on spending my day in the garden getting beds ready to plant and planting the seeds for cucumbers, okra, sunflowers, pumpkins and pole beans—but to my dismay when I came in for lunch Mama informed me that my taxes were done, and I HAD to go to town that day to pick them up. I was not the happiest person on earth for I only get two good days in a garden per week, sometimes a few extra hours here and there, but mostly just Monday and Thursday afternoons. So Papa and I headed to town together since he had some errands to run also and while in town I decided to take the advantage of being in town and picking up a few groceries. By the time we got home it was dinner time—and then I had to finish the journal that I had started last Sunday night but had gotten too tired to finish.
We are selling a heifer and a bull calf tomorrow and we needed the vet to check them over—and while he was here I wanted to get one of our heifers pregnancy checked. We have only had one heifer so far that never could get pregnant, but Leah went in heat every month for almost a year, and even though I have not seen her go in heat since October, I wanted to make sure that she was pregnant. The vet came over Tuesday morning and to our delight our heifer (Leah) is six months bred—which means we have three months to train her to be tied into the milking stall. She comes in to eat, but the slightest movement causes her to back out and leave. A year ago I tied her in and she panicked so bad that she did a backwards summersault to get out of the stall and then it took her another three months or more before she would even think about coming back in. I have hopes that she will calm down, because when we had her in the cow chute she was very calm and let me pet her all over. So the challenge is to make her feel safe and secure in the milking parlor—and we have three months to accomplish it.
I planned on joining the egg party Tuesday afternoon, but when I came inside to make the yogurt Mama informed me that the computer was acting crazy. It was as if it had been hacked, and I knew I needed to take care of it right away—but first I had to order more chicken feed. Then I had to make the yogurt and get me a bite to eat. Then I could finally get around to calling a friend who is very knowledgeable with computers. The problem was not being hacked, but having our computer storage space completely full. We moved the pictures (over 1400) and videos (close to fifty I am guessing) to a different drive—but that only cleared up a small amount of space. While the icons on our computer were starting to pop back on the screen and I was able to open Outlook again, we knew that we really hadn’t solved the problem long term. So we did a search for gigantic files and found that QuickBooks had done a little “sabotage” and had literally taken over more than half of the computer storage space. So we deleted the QuickBooks error file and all was as good as new—except that finding pictures is a little bit more difficult. With that problem behind me I could finally head outside to the gardens to harvest lettuce, kale and broccoli leaves for the JAX deliveries.
Our 300 new laying hen chicks arrived Wednesday, and when we got back from picking them up our technician for the freezer unit was here to talk details concerning the new walk-in, and moving the compressor to the now existing walk-in cooler and freezer. While Mama talked with him I put the 300 chicks in the brooder house. I asked Mama if I needed to count them, and she said “no” because there were 100 chicks per box—which meant that there should have been 25 per section in each box. There were two brooder rooms to put the chicks in (150 per room), which meant that one whole box would be put in each room, and half of the third box in each room. To my dismay when I was emptying the last half of the half/half box I noticed that one section looked like it had more than 25 chicks in it—but I had no way to prove it for I had not counted them as I took them out of the box, and it really isn’t easy to count moving objects. Therefore, I really have no idea how many chicks we got. I then worked on the chore of putting Ana in to nurse her calves. When the technician left, Mama noticed that Analee was in labor. The area where she was determined to give birth was not the cleanest of conditions and we tried to get her moved to greener pastures before she gave birth, but by the time I drove down the lane, opened up the wires and drove back the calf was more than half way out. It was too far of a walk for her to go with the herd to their nightly green pastures, but we did manage to get her to a green grassy area before she dropped her calf. I have never given birth, but for you mothers who have you can just imagine the craziness of being moved from one birthing room in the middle of your delivery to another birthing room and not wanting to go. It took a lot of coaxing to get Analee to move to another side of the field, but she did and we were happy.
Years ago we named a heifer calf Heidi because she was always wondering off hiding—well this newest bull calf loves to hide and not in very obvious places. If you have ever watched the movie “Song of the South” then you are familiar with Brer Rabbit and the briar patch. Brer Rabbit thought that the best place to be safe was in the briar patch, and Brer Fox wasn’t about to go in after him. Well, Brer Bull Calf must have the same philosophy because every time he goes missing Papa finds him in the briar patches.
My whole goal last week was to get the last of the garden planted—but everything seemed to be against me—at least until Thursday. When we finished milking the cows Thursday morning Mama headed to the East Garden to harvest the sugar snap peas and I headed to the Market Garden to harvest the green beans. Then after lunch we headed to the Cottage Garden to prepare one for the garden beds with trellises so that I could plant some cucumber seeds. Then we went over to “Martha’s Vineyard” to plant pumpkin seeds. Last year we had two “Food Pyramids” garden section in the middle of “Martha’s Vineyard”, but this year I wanted to grow pumpkins in the middle, so a few months ago I covered the area with some black plastic in order to suffocate the weeds. Nutgrass is the worst weed we deal with in “Martha’s Vineyard”, and to my dismay the black plastic did nothing to curtail the terrible nutgrass. When we pulled back the plastic the nutgrass was about four inches tall—but yellow. I broadforked the middle area and then we pulled up a good amount of the nutgrass. Then I planted some Seminole pumpkin seeds and some Sugar baby pumpkin seeds. They are two different pumpkin types so I could grow them together without worrying about them cross-pollinating. I still have okra, pole beans, and zinnias to plant—but I am excited to have the cucumbers and pumpkins planted.
I would have loved to have worked in the garden again on Friday, but with the demo crew showing up next week to demo the concrete Mama and I had to get busy transplanting some Orange Daylilies that my Grandpa and I dug up years ago from the side of the road in Missouri. They have done really well in the little flower garden beside the Milk House, but now the Milk House is gone and a new building is fixing to be built over the flower bed area so we have to move them. We decided to move them in front of our little “old” farm shed where we just put a porch. First we had to broadfork the area and then we had to pull up all the grass clods. We dumped some buckets of manure compost in the new flower bed and then we planted two Fairy Roses and Mama dug up some of the Orange lilies and planted them in the new bed. We still have more lilies to dig up, but we have to prepare another section before we can move anymore.
There is so much to do right now, and so little help that it is hard to keep up with everything. Sometimes we have to ignore the house to keep up with the farm, and sometimes we have to ignore the farm to keep up with the house. I will admit that most days I ignore the house, but Saturday I chose to ignore the farm—except to weed around two plants in the courtyard before Mama mistook them for weeds and mowed them down. Mama spent her afternoon in the courtyard weeding and mowing, and I spent the afternoon in the house making kombucha, folding laundry, ironing, and straining the herbs out of the oil for the Virus Salve and Relief Salve. I didn’t get as much ironing done as I wanted, but at least we had clothes to wear to church today. I also managed to get some piano playing time before the day was over.
My goal for tomorrow is to get the zinnias transplanted. I almost killed them by forgetting to water them, but I was sure glad when they perked back up after a good drink of water. I planted three rows each of different colors of zinnias, and I didn’t take the time to label which row was which color, so I was really hoping that they would revive because I had no way to know which color I had “killed”. So before I do kill them I have got to get them transplanted out to the gardens—all 125 plus of them.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare