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Hi Everyone,
It started out a normal Monday morning—we milked the cows, I answered emails, ate lunch and headed to the garden. Mama spent most of her day mowing, and Papa mowed some and installed insulation in the new barn walls. Sounds normal, sounds easy, sounds like a perfect day on the farm—but that is where normality stopped. I had just bought 144 flower starts: vinca, torenias, coleus, and Dusty Millers. My goal was to have them all planted before dinner. We headed to the garden around 1:00—so we had lots of time, but the HEAT was against us. I had managed to weed all but two of the eleven beds, but the last two were full of coastal Bermuda grass. Mama told me to focus on planting the flowers, and not to waste my time weeding the last two beds—but while Jessie was busy getting me buckets of manure compost and organic soil I was able to use that time wisely and get the lesser of the two evils weeded. It was extremely HOT outside and when Jessie arrived with the buckets of manure compost we were both ready for a cool down—and he was out of water. So we dumped the buckets in the garden beds and headed to the walk-in cooler. I grabbed two buckets and dumped them upside down and handed him a “seat”. We were so hot that it didn’t even feel cold in the cooler. We probably sat in there for a good 15 minutes it seemed like before we felt revived and ready to tackle the great outdoors again. We got more water and I returned to the garden and Jessie took the empty buckets and filled them up with compost soil. It was 4:00 by the time Jessie dumped the last of the compost in the beds and then he left for the day—and I remained in the garden. I already had about half of the flowers planted when he left, but there was still the other half. Planting 136 plants in one hot afternoon isn’t the easiest or the smartest thing to do—but I did it and finished up around 5:00. I couldn’t plant the last 8 plants because I didn’t have the bed prepared. It looked like it was going to storm soon and then again I feared that it would just blow around us as it had done so much of late. I went ahead and turned on the sprinklers just to be safe. When I got to the house I found Mama just as exhausted as I was—and in just as much pain from stooping over and pulling weeds and planting plants. She had gone to the store that morning and bought her 24 flower starts to plant under the roses in the courtyard. Mama had one more plant to transplant and then we cleaned up her mess and headed out to the garden for her to see my flower beds. When we got back to the house the wind was starting to pick up and the sky was getting blacker. Papa headed out to do the evening chores (and turn off the sprinklers) and Mama and I were heading to the shower when a customer showed up. It was raining by the time the customer left. I ran inside and Papa was close behind—he left the golf-cart parked in the barn because he had a bucket of eggs with him. Mama headed to the shower, but before I headed there I asked Papa if he had ever found Bonnie’s calf (it was only three days old and liked to hide out in the tall grasses). Papa said that he had not—which meant that the calf had not eaten since breakfast. I headed back outside—rain or no rain that calf had to be found. The rain had slacked off and I noticed that Papa had come out behind me. We drove the golf-cart everywhere, and walked everywhere the golf-cart could not go. We checked the woods, the barns, behind the hoop houses, in with the heifers, around the milking parlor, from one end of the farm to the other—and we found no calf. Papa said that we had one place left to check and that was the pile of pallets in the woods. We drove back there—and there was no calf. I told Papa that there was still one field that we hadn’t checked—the heifers winter pasture. So we drove through there and as I was going past the east corner I ran up on some old logs from a fallen mimosa tree. Papa told me I couldn’t drive through there so I put the golf-cart in reverse to get off of the fallen tree—but before I moved I saw a little brown ear flicker under a tall weed and behind some tall grass. We had found him at last! Papa went and picked him up and we drove him over to the field where his mama was—and she was most happy to see him again. Then it began to rain heavy and we were glad that our mission was over. As I drove the golf-cart back to the house the rain got harder. Mama and I might choose to work outside in the rain—but not Papa; he will always wait inside if he can. There are those times though that it cannot be helped and you just have to go with the flow. This was one of those times. Papa had looked for the calf in the heat of the morning, and now he had looked for the calf in the rain of the evening. We were wet, and tired from a long day’s work—but instead of getting moody over it my Papa all of a sudden stood up in the golf-cart and grabbed the roof handle and hung outside and began to sing, “I’m singing in the rain, I’m singing in the rain, I’m happy as can be, I’m singing in the rain.” We laughed and laughed, and the rain came down heavier and heavier so that it was next to impossible for me to open my eyes so that I could see where I was going. The rain was pouring down my face in sheets. We finally made it to the house as totally drowned rats—and the warm shower that followed felt so good and refreshing. It was now after 7:00 and my body still ached so badly and we were all so tired. I had chicken wings out for dinner—but they would have to wait until Tuesday. I needed something quick and easy—like French toast and eggs. My sister Nichole showed up for a visit while we cooked dinner and ate. Yep, it was one long and tiring—but very enjoyable day.
I had one goal for Tuesday—get the last flower bed weeded and the last 8 flower starts planted. Needless to say, I wasn’t sure that it was going to happen. Jessie had football workout in the morning and didn’t make it to work until 12:30. Then he had to pick up the grass that Mama had mowed. At 2:00 we all had to package eggs—and then we got to go to the garden. I got the last bed weeded while Jessie got me some more compost. Just as Jessie arrived with his buckets full of compost I looked across the fields and saw a white wall of rain heading straight for us. I told Jessie to quickly put the buckets in the garden shed and we loaded up the tools and ourselves also. This time Jessie was handing out upside down buckets for us to sit on while we stayed dry in the garden shed and waited for the storm to pass. It flew past in less than 10 minutes, so we didn’t lose much time. I got the compost all spread out in the bed and then I set the plants out where they went and let Jessie plant them while I transplanted some basil. We finished 15 minutes before Jessie’s work day was over—but I had found some rocks the day before as I was looking for the calf and I wanted Jessie’s help to pick them up. One was pretty big (like 2 feet across), and the other we had to get a shovel to dig it up (it was just about a foot wide). We finished right at 4:30, but Jessie had his heart set on washing all the mud off of them before he left—and he asked Mama where she wanted them in the courtyard.
Wednesday was no less crazy. I had received an email on Tuesday saying that a customer who lives in Spain would be in town on Saturday and wanted to pick up some salves. I knew that I only had two Soothing Salves left and only one Drawing Salve—thankfully I was stocked on Virus and Relief Salves. Usually I am very slow about making salves. I put the herbs in the oil and heat them for 24 hours and turn off the oven—but it may be weeks before I remove them from the oven (we have a second oven that we only use once in a while). Then it is usually another couple of weeks before I strain the oil, and a few more weeks before I actually make the salve. Well, I didn’t have weeks or months to get my act together—I had three days (which is all it really takes anyway). So on Tuesday, I steeped the herbs in the oil, and Wednesday I strained the herbs out of the oil. Then I was expecting a shipment of chicken feed on Wednesday. I had my ears peeled for the sound of the big semi-truck coming up the drive, but at 5:00 we still hadn’t heard the truck. I was just fixing to call the company when I decided to step outside to make sure that the driver didn’t just drop the feed and leave without our knowledge. When I went outside into the garage I heard the truck—but as I listened I realized that it wasn’t coming, it was leaving! I ran back inside and quickly called the company, and they got in contact with the driver and he came back. As he was trying to unload our two pallets with a ton of feed each, he got the pallet jack caught under one of the pallets. The pallet had begun to crumble and it penned his pallet jack underneath. He couldn’t get it out, nor could he get it all the way in in order to safely pick up the pallet of feed. So he had to leave and head to town to have the company fix the problem. In the meantime a neighboring farmer stopped by to give us 70 broiler chicks. The hatchery we both used had an accident with an automatic egg turner and the owner didn’t know if the eggs would hatch or not—for she had to turn them by hand. The other farmer was supposed to get chicks two weeks ago, and when she heard that they might not hatch she ordered 120 chicks from another hatchery. Then her chicks did hatch and now she had too many chicks. She was able to find a home for all but 70—so she called us. Well, our chicks were supposed to hatch last week—and they didn’t. I thought that we would just skip the batch and not worry about it—but then I got the phone call and we all had a good laugh. It was amazing how the Lord had worked it out. Our 70 didn’t hatch, but she had 70 extra—so we got chicks after all (and she didn’t charge us for them either). Just as the farmer was leaving it was starting to rain and my neighbor drove up and told me that one of our dogs was going down the road. I ran up to the house and grabbed the truck keys and headed out to find our dog. I got to the end of the driveway and our neighbor had stopped in the road and was walking Yasha back toward our driveway. Yasha was glad to see me—but not too excited about getting in the truck. Picking up a dog that is as big as me—but as limp as a wet noodle isn’t exactly easy. I finally managed and drove her back out to pasture with Aliyah and the chickens where she belonged.
We had to get up at 5:00 Thursday morning so that we could get the milking done and all the equipment washed before the electricians arrived and had to turn off the electricity so that they could run the electrical wires into the new barn. We had planned to can potatoes after breakfast—but our help never showed up. Mama headed outside to mow and I worked on a million odds and ends jobs in the kitchen. I had harvested rosemary and sage a week ago—but hadn’t had time to get them off of the dehydrator yet. So I took the time to strip all the leaves off of the rosemary stems first, and then I had to turn the dehydrator back on for a few more hours to finish drying the sage. Then I crumbled all the sage leaves off of their stems. I made and bottled kombucha, and I made the Soothing Salve and the Black Drawing Salve. When I was weeding in the garden I dug up a pile of daffodil bulbs—the only true looking daffodils I have that bloom every year. They were planted in a bad spot and this year they didn’t bloom because the bulbs had multiplied greatly. I plan on digging them up and moving them every year—but I always forget once they are no longer in bloom. Since I was digging in the bed anyway, I had a great opportunity to dig up all the bulbs. I had to Google how to store them, and found it pretty easy—just put them in an open paper bag and place in a cool dark room. So I did! About a month ago I harvested the ranunculus bulbs and had them drying in the barn. They were ready to separate and place in bags in a cool dry place too—so I did! Then it was time to cook dinner, and after dinner I had to put a batch of chicken broth in the oven to cook over night.
Friday was chicken processing day and we did manage to have some help. It didn’t go much faster—but it was very much less stressful. I wasn’t trying to gut six birds at a time! It was nice to have help. We were not able to cut up the chickens on Friday—so they are chilling out until tomorrow when we shall finish packaging the birds and cutting them up.
Saturday was the first day for the temp to reach 100 degrees and have a heat index of 116. Yep, it was HOT. Once the milking and packing was done I spent my afternoon inside. To my delight I got to spend a considerable amount of time playing the piano. It was midafternoon when Mama wanted to go to Tractor Supply. The negative was that the truck has no air conditioner. We were willing to brave it—but we couldn’t tell if the truck had any gas (for the gauge said empty one minute and full the next), then the check engine oil light came on and Mama abandoned the idea—and I didn’t complain. We relaxed inside the rest of the afternoon. After dinner I went out to the garden to see how the flowers and pumpkins were doing in the heat. A few flowers were droopy, but the majority is looking great. There are lots of pumpkins ready to harvest, along with a slew of pepperoncini peppers ready for pickling. I did harvest a basket full of cayenne peppers and put them on the dehydrator. Then I harvested some tomatoes too. I have a 20 foot row of tomatoes and they are really producing this year—more than I can possibly eat. I didn’t prune them, so they are growing all over. It is like a jungle of tomato plants. I need to do some weeding and cleaning up in the East and West Gardens now that I have the flowers planted in the Cottage Garden. Trying to organize what to do today, tomorrow and next week—and remember what all needs to be done is crazy. I still need to get the potatoes canned and keep threatening to hold a canning class just so that I can have a set date to get them done. Tomorrow we have to cut up chickens—and remember that the pumpkins need to be harvested before all the rains arrive, and maybe more tomatoes.
I think that I had best go to bed so that I can have the energy to do it all.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare