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Hi Everyone,

               This morning I woke up at 5:00 and was outside by 5:30 to start setting up for milking. There was a setting full moon in the sky—a blue one at that for it is the second full moon this month. A little later while we were milking I got to watch the clouds turn pink and the sun rise. It was one of those mornings where everything seemed perfect. The temperature was 72—not too hot and not too cold. Flowers are blooming in the gardens, and everywhere you look it is green. I am amazed at how fast the grass went from brown and crunchy under your feet to lush and green and needing to be mowed. Summer is here—and it is starting out beautiful! As we drove to church I was aw struck with the beauty all around and rejoiced in the sunshine that was shining so brightly. How easy it is to think that all is well when the sun shines—and how easy it is to get a little gloomy when the skies are grey (although after months of drought every cloudy rainy day has been one of happiness and rejoicing). It is interesting to think that the sun makes such a difference on how we see life—but did you know that the sun never stops shining; we just cannot always see it. Years ago I had a piano student who was going through the stage of hating piano lessons. I got it—I had been there a few times in my childhood years of piano lessons and my teacher lovingly pulled out all the books that had fun songs in them in order to keep my attention. I tried that method with my student—but that method didn’t work for him. One day he was really complaining to me and I told him that all of life was not doom and gloom and that behind every cloud the sun was still shining—a fact he refused to believe and since he had never flown before I could not convince him that I was right. Facts are facts though and whether we believe it or not it doesn’t change the fact that the sun is always shining.

               Last week we had two holidays in a row—at least we did here on the farm. Monday was Memorial Day—a time to pause and remember all those who sacrificed their lives for our freedom.  On Tuesday we celebrated my Mama’s 71st Birthday—although she didn’t feel much like celebrating. We had spent all day Monday finishing all the odds and ends in the new Feed Room, and just maybe she had overdone. I did manage to hang a birthday sign for her with some balloons and streamers and cook her a special dinner.

               Wednesday morning while we were milking the cows, Bonnie came in to eat and when she was finished she headed out to pasture and gave birth to a little red Laddie. He is a cute little bull calf and spends his days sleeping curled up in the blackberry brambles. Bonnie was a little over a week overdue, and I had been expecting her to calve any minute for about three days before she did calve—her udder had freshened and was quite big! She shall add a little over a gallon of milk to the milk tank once her colostrum has cleaned out. A newborn calf cannot drink all of his mama’s milk until he is a month old or older if the mama has a really big udder—and the extra colostrum has come in big handy this week. Thursday morning when the cows came in to be milked, Analee did not come in with them. Analee got sick last fall and we tried our best to nurse her back to health and the day after I gave up on her and told Papa he needed to put her down she gave birth to an adorable “little” heifer calf that we named Leeann. For seven weeks Analee nursed her calf and lived for her calf. She had just enough milk for her calf. The last few weeks we noticed Analee getting worse, and her calf getting slower. We knew it was time to put her down and start bottle feeding Leeann—but doing what you know needs to be done isn’t always easy. The Lord made the choice for us Thursday morning for Analee died, and Leeann was then caught up and put into a portable hoop house so that we could bottle feed her. The first day she protested the bottle—but by day two she was finally hungry enough to drink it down with no problem. Papa and I were ready to sell her off—but Mama has taken a special liking to little Leeann. Therefore Mama has made it her responsibility to bottle feed the calf. You know that Mama is really attached when she volunteers to do the bottle feeding.

               We didn’t make deliveries on Wednesday last week because we were voting in a new pastor at our church. Our Pastor that has preached at our church for the last 50+ years is in his 80’s now and his health is failing him—so we needed someone to take the baton and continue on with the preaching of God’s Word and the Shepherding of the flock. A few months back we found Jayson Hill and had greatly come to be blessed by his preaching—and last Wednesday night we asked him to become our Pastor. If you would like to listen to his sermons you can find them at: https://www.youtube.com/@FaithBaptist_Tabernacle

               Since we didn’t make the deliveries on Wednesday—we made them on Thursday. Our morning was spent milking and packing orders so that Papa could leave by noon. I have to get the garden area ready to plant sweet potatoes—but it is not an easy task this year because the nutgrass has taken over as a carpet and it is impossible to weed it out. I am therefore trying to figure out how to wisely garden that area. After lunch I headed out to the garden to start prepping—but it started to rain. I then headed inside to help Micah package the eggs. I decided against that when I realized that if it rained all afternoon and he finished early there wouldn’t be anything to do—and it stopped raining so I headed back outside. When I got to the barn it started to rain again. It was so hard to accept the rain for all I wanted to do was weed in the garden. I thought about working in the rain—but I really didn’t feel like getting soaked. I thought about sewing—but didn’t think I was in the right frame of mind to sew. Then I remembered that I had a pile of laundry that needed to be folded so I headed inside to fold laundry and when I was done with that the rain had stopped and the sun was back out. I weeded the rows of tomatoes and basil and one of the rows where I hope to plant sweet potatoes. Then my garden time was over and it was time to go put the cows out to pasture for the night. Everyone headed down field with no problem—but calf number 12 (the newborn) was missing. He was curled up in the blackberry brambles and I had to get Mr. Limp and play dead up and on his feet and out of the briars. I managed and then I headed back to the other end of the field to get the Gravely so that I could come and pick him up and give him a free ride down the lane and to his mama—but to my delight he followed me all the way to the Gravely. Papa says that for the first three days of a calf’s life you can rub them all over and they will follow you wherever you go—but after three days they all of a sudden think that people are the enemy and they are not so easy to catch. By then they are keeping up with their mama much better anyway—although Laddie is four days old now and he is quite lazy and is still catching rides up and down the lane. For some reason the bull calves have more of a tendency to be extra lazy.

               If you have ever called our house and got the answering machine you have heard my message: “Hi, you have reached Tom, Tarri and Tiare Street at Shepherd’s Hill Farm. We cannot answer your call right now for we are either out milking the cows or playing in the garden . . .” Playing in the garden is exactly what I got to do Friday. The East Garden has been growing beautifully this year—but so were the weeds. (You can see for yourself in my newest YouTube short). I couldn’t wait to get in there and pull up all the weeds. I spent hours in there Friday afternoon weeding to my heart’s content and to my muscles dismay. Most of the garden only had a few weeds here and there, but the cosmos and the marigolds were becoming victims of overpowering weeds—and I was able to set them free. The Tithonia was massive, but the pigweed was getting so thick that you almost couldn’t tell where one stopped and the other started. The mullein has gone to flower, the cantaloupe is spreading like wildfire, the zinnias are blooming and the Bright Lights cosmos is fixing to turn bright orange when the flowers open. The sunflowers are eight to nine feet tall and a variety of colors (all red, all yellow, and brown centered with yellow petals). On the side fence the watermelons are stretching out and on the back trellises the cucumbers are producing abundantly. I gathered a whole hat full the other day and Mama and I spent Saturday afternoon making Maple Bread and Butter pickles.

Maple Bread & Butter Pickles

Ingredients

·        4 cups of pickling cucumbers, sliced or in spears

·        4 tbsp. coarse Celtic sea salt

·        Crushed ice

·        Sliced onion

·        1 cup apple cider vinegar

·        ½ cup water

·        ½ cup maple syrup

·         “Bread and Butter Spice Mix” recipe below

·        Coriander seed

Instructions

1.      Sterilize your pint jars.

2.      Combine the cucumber and salt in a large bowl. Cover with ice and refrigerate for 2 to 6 hours. Drain and rinse the cucumbers.

3.      Combine the vinegar, water and syrup in a pot and bring to a boil.

4.      Place 1 teaspoon of pickling spice and 1 teaspoon of coriander seed and enough sliced onions per jar. (One recipe makes 2 to 3 jars)

5.      Pack the cucumbers into each jar and pour in the vinegar mixture leaving a ½ an inch of headspace.

6.      Remove the air bubbles with a plastic knife, wipe rims and affix lids.

7.      Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

8.      Remove jars from the water bath and let sit undisturbed for at least 12 hours.

Bread and Butter Spice Mix

·        3/8 cup yellow mustard seed

·        3 tablespoons black peppercorns

·        2 tablespoons coriander seeds

·        1 tablespoon celery seed

·        1 tablespoon crushed bay leaf

·        ½ teaspoon allspice powder

·        1 ½  teaspoon turmeric powder

·        ½ teaspoon chili flakes

·        1 crushed cinnamon stick

Mama and I made 8 pints of pickles Saturday afternoon, and we are hoping that they taste just as good as they did a few years back when we made them using this recipe.

               I have one story left to tell! Thursday night just as we were sitting down to eat dinner I saw something black and white messing with something in the grass in our back field. I knew that the black and white part was a skunk—but I couldn’t tell what it was messing with. I grabbed my camera and flew out of the house and jumped in the golf-cart and headed around the barn and got within 200 feet of the skunk when my Mama started having a fit with me. I always get way to close for her comfort. To my delight the skunk was carrying one kit in her mouth and being followed by another kit. The following kit was not walking as fast as the mama skunk and she was having a fit with him. She would run up a few feet then return to her other kit and try to encourage him to keep up. She finally ran under the Poultry Barn and dropped off the kit in her mouth and went back and picked up the second kit. I got a few pictures before my mama insisted that I come back inside. While we ate dinner I watched as the mama skunk came back to the hay rack three times and came out with three more kits moving them to their new home one at a time. So we now have a skunk family of 6 (mama and 5 kits) living underneath our Poultry barn—right under Goose and his ducks. Hopefully they mind their manners and do not cause any problems.

Serving you with Gladness,

Tiare