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Hi Everyone,
My Mother’s parents were divorced when she was ten years old. There were five children and when they grew up they enjoyed every chance they got when they could get together with both of their parents. It didn’t happen often—but it did happen from time to time over the years. I even remember getting a picture of all five with their daddy and their mommy in the same picture. Here on the farm I can take a picture and capture something that reminds me of my Grandma and something that reminds me of my Grandpa in the same picture. On the front porch of our Cracker Shed sits a large white rocking chair that belonged to my Grandma. In front of the porch are planted some wild orange lilies that my Grandpa and I dug up together one time when I was visiting him. We drove all through the countryside until we found a large section of the lilies growing wild and Grandpa parked on a side road and we walked back up the hill and he dug them up for me. They are very robust and like to thrive—thankfully for this is their third “home” since we brought them back. We planted them beside our then new milk house almost twenty years ago—but when it flooded in the cellar and we had to replace the wooden boardwalk with a concrete sidewalk we had to move them to the other side. They stayed there until we had to demolish that milk house and bust up all the concrete to make room for the new milk house (which is still in the building process). So we planted them in front of the Cracker shed—and I have a few planted in the Cottage Garden. So I can sit in Grandma’s rocking chair and look at Grandpa’s lilies.
I am not too sure that fifty and I are getting along very nicely. My back and hips are on protest—but my mind is determined to accomplish what I set out to do. Besides, it doesn’t matter if I work or sit around for both make the body hurt. Last Monday my body was terribly upset with me. I had planned on having Micah till up the pumpkin patch on Monday, but I realized that he wouldn’t have any time once he finished washing the milking equipment and cleaning up all the poultry waterers and feeders that were stored in the old Brooder house. Then I decided that I would just transplant the pumpkins and squash plants without tilling the soil first. So after milking I headed to the garden with my plants in stow. When I arrived I was not happy with the outlook—the top layer was nothing more than an inch layer of chicken bedding compost. I wanted it mixed in with the soil! I wondered where my Papa was—but he was busy with his chores and nowhere to be seen. So I did the next best thing—I grabbed the broadfork and began to broadfork the whole area (about 24 ft. x 24 ft.—or 576 sq. ft.). Stab the broadfork into the ground, pull back toward the ground, pick it up and flip the dirt a little, and repeat—over and over and over and over again. Then I grabbed the garden rake and smoothed it all out. An hour or so later I was finally ready—or shall I say that the soil was finally ready for me to transplant the pumpkins (Long Island Cheese) and squashes (Red Kuri and Sweetnut Acorn). Planting was the easy part because the plants were all set out—I just had to crawl around on my hands and knees going from plant to plant until they were all safely buried. At this point I was dead—but the green beans needed to be harvested. There are two rows of them—but you have to go down both sides of the rows in order to harvest all the beans. Two twenty foot long rows become 80 feet of bean picking. I managed to get half of them harvested before Papa whistled for me to come in for lunch. I so wanted to tell him that I would come in after I finished. I was in so much pain from bending over that I really didn’t want to return. Then I thought that a break might do my body some good. So I came in for lunch—which was good because not only did it give me more energy it also reminded me that I had to finish making the yogurt. Once the yogurt was done I headed back outside to finish picking the other half of the green beans. Harvesting green beans really isn’t my favorite job—but I figured out why. Yes, it is back breaking—but pain isn’t terrible if you have someone to work with. Mama hasn’t been able to help me in the garden for the last few years, and somethings in life are better when done with company. The Bible does say that two are better than one! Sharing work with others is a blessing, and when I had to harvest more green beans on Friday Mama did join me—and boy was I glad for there were twice as many green beans as there was with Saturday and Mondays pickings put together. Yes, our backs were broken when we were done—but we did it together.
Green beans don’t just get picked—they also have to be snapped and canned. So on Tuesday morning we loaded the dishwasher up with wide mouth pint canning jars and we sat down with our beans and had a snapping party. That afternoon we canned 26 pints of green beans—and to our dismay one busted in the canner. Friday’s picking will have to be snapped tomorrow, but I do not know if they will be canned on tomorrow afternoon or on Tuesday. Come Tuesday though there will be more green beans to harvest. We usually get about six to eight pickings per season.
Have you ever made or bought a loaf of sourdough bread and not get it all eaten before it went stale? I try to cut it all up and freeze it within the first day or two—but once in a while life gets too busy and I just don’t want to take the time to slow down and cut up the bread. I have ordered some beeswax cloths from https://tryorvix.com/ but they are not here yet. The Orvix bread bag “is simple cloth and beeswax, no colorful ink, no artificial fabric, just simplicity that has been used for many generations. The beeswax lets the bread breathe just enough to keep the crust from going soft, but holds in enough moisture so the inside stays tender. It is the same bag that has kept bread happy on French countertops for longer than anyone can remember.” As I said—I am waiting for our bag to arrive, and while I was waiting for ours to arrive I got busy and let another quarter loaf go stale. I was going to feed it to the chickens—but forgot to take it outside with me Wednesday evening when I went out to move the cows to the green pasture for the night. Then when I got back in Mama was watching a video on 25 things that people used to do—but don’t anymore. One of those was making bread pudding with their stale sourdough bread. We immediately looked up a recipe and baked some up for dinner. It was very tasty and very easy to make.
Bread Pudding
¼ cup melted butter
2 cups milk
2 eggs
½ cup sugar (I used maple sugar)
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. salt
6 cups bread cubes (about one inch in size)
½ cup raisins
Mix all ingredients and bake at 350 F for 40 to 45 minutes.
When ready to serve melt some butter and heat up some maple syrup together and pour over the top of the bread pudding. Yummy! Scrumptious and delicious!
I had plans to have the basil and tomatoes transplanted to the garden by Friday night—then I remembered that Friday was Papa’s birthday and I would need to have time to bake a cake. So I moved my goals up one day to Thursday. Thankfully I had some free time on Wednesday and Micah and I were able to spend an hour in the garden weeding. The West Garden was a solid bed of Carolina geranium and a few other weeds. I have wanted the sheep to eat in that garden for months—but it just hasn’t been convenient to get them there. So we had to weed by hand. I haven’t watered that bed in months—so it was pretty dry and dry weeds are so easy to pull. In one hour we had half of the garden weeded and ready to prep for the tomatoes and basil. Thursday after milking, we headed to the garden and moved a trellis from under the oak tree in the Cottage Garden to the West Garden. Then Micah top dressed two rows with chicken bedding compost and we broadforked it in. Then I tilthed the beds and we set out the tomato cages and then we transplanted the Homestead 24 slicing tomatoes and the cinnamon basil down the rows and the Riesentraube cherry tomatoes were planted on the two trellises. If you want to see what it looked like before we weeded it and what it looked like when we were done you can check out our new YouTube video Chaos to Planted Tomatoes. I also was able to plant a few marigold plants and a row of eleven Roselle hibiscus plants.
Friday was Papa’s 75th Birthday. He says that he is 25 years old with 50 years of experience. When I asked him what he wanted for his birthday he said he didn’t know. We tried to get the AC fixed in the van but it was a bigger problem than the mechanic had time for on Friday (it needs a new compressor). The AC is temperamental at the moment—work one moment but not the next. Then I asked him what he wanted to eat for dinner and he said he didn’t know. I told him that I would have to Google “How to cook I don’t know”. He laughed and said that he would like a steak and some banana pudding. So after milking I made some vanilla pudding to go over bananas for dessert and I made an herbal rub for the steaks to marinade in all afternoon. I also cooked some of the freshly picked green beans and I dug up the first of the red potatoes—just enough for dinner. Everything was delicious!
Saturday we were blessed with some much needed rain. So what if it arrived while we were doing our morning chores. Who was going to complain that the rain had arrived at an inopportune time? Everything is so dry and we really needed some rain. One of our rain gauges said half an inch and the other said 2 inches—therefore I am not exactly sure just which amount we got but I am very grateful to the Lord that we got rain! We spent the afternoon inside relaxing some—after I dehydrated some carrots that I was supposed to do back in January, cut up and froze some strawberries that were supposed to be for Papa’s Angel food cake for his birthday—but he wanted banana pudding instead, and froze the rest of the bananas for future kefir smoothies.
It was a great week—full of blessings that we are most grateful to the Lord for.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare