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Hi Everyone,
250 years ago the first American Flag was made—and it has seen a lot of changes throughout the years. The first flag had only 13 stars and now our flag has 50! We had a flag that we would hang on our front porch—but last year it bit the dust (got old and worn) and we were in need of a new flag. Mama and I were in town on Friday and we decided to stop by Walmart to purchase a flag. The first flag we saw was only 2 ft. x 3 ft. and we declared that it was way too small. We found another one that was a 3 x 5 foot flag so we bought that one. Knowing that today was Flag Day, Mama was very eager to get the flag hung up. So when we got home Mama opened the package and took out the flag—but immediately noticed that there was something majorly wrong. We had not purchased an American Flag; we had purchased a Florida Flag. Oops! We ordered an American Flag online last night—but sad to say we had no American Flag to fly on Flag Day. We were not 100% flagless though, for our summer décor is quite Patriotic and the inside of our house has its fair share of flags.
Last week started out much better than the week before—but the positive improvement only lasted 2 hours. Micah was able to return to work Monday morning, but one look at his eyes told me that he was not 100% well. Two hours later his heart was pounding and his breathing was labored and he had to call it quits. He had missed the whole week before due to an allergic reaction to (maybe) something he ate. He was doing better, but was exposed to some sickness over the weekend and his already weakened body couldn’t fight it off. Since he was able to accomplish all his morning field chores before he left, we were not that far behind schedule. Papa and Mama bottled the milk, and then Papa and I washed up all the milking equipment. I was done by noon, and Papa was done by 12:30. That gave Papa some time to run some errands after lunch and then get some fields mowed when he got home. Mama and I made some more pickles and packaged some eggs.
Micah was still out sick on Tuesday, but things still went smoothly for Papa even though he had to do all of Micah’s field chores too. I had to bottle the kefir which added an extra hour to our finishing time from Monday. I was done by 1:00, and after lunch I had yogurt to make. Papa spent his afternoon mowing. Mama and I spent our afternoon in the kitchen. When the garden harvest finds its way to the kitchen the counters begin to look like a grocery store with all the canned goods sitting all over the counters waiting to be washed and tucked away in the cupboards. Mama had washed half the jars while I started milking that morning, and they were now ready for labels and to be put away. Our kitchen and pantry was designed to store lots of canned goods—but sometimes our cupboards can become ill organized, and sometimes the space is occupied by canned goods that we really didn’t enjoy and therefore they just sit on the shelf occupying space for many years. This was the year to clean it all out—and the chickens were not picky. We took out old jars, washed down shelves, reorganized, and restocked—and just as I got one shelf all freshly stocked with canned pumpkin, carrot soup and roselle juice I heard a CRACK! One of the little plastic clips that were holding up the shelf broke. Thankfully we had some metal clips to replace all of them, but in order to fix it I had to empty the shelf back off—and we had to be careful to not mix the “bad” jars with the “good” jars. When the plastic clip broke it left its peg in the hole and we could not get it out, therefore we had to raise the shelf up a notch and rearrange most of the pantry (five shelves from floor to ceiling) since one shelf became shorter. In the end everything had its place and everything was in its place.
Wednesday Steve worked—which meant we didn’t have to bottle the milk and wash the equipment. I did take a little bit of time to distract him because he hadn’t seen the gardens since he semi-retired last September. The East Garden is just too beautiful right now to not take time to enjoy it. Everything is in full bloom (mullein, cantaloupe, sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, and Tithonia) and I just had to share it with Steve. Every time I visit that garden it looks lusher than the last time I visited it. The East Garden is definitely the most beautiful garden on the farm right now. The other day I peeped inside the North Market Garden and it was lusher than the last time I had seen it—but with pigweed! I need to do some major weeding because “Martha’s Vineyard” is having the same “lush” problem with crabgrass. It is summer and those weeds multiply when you are not looking.
Eight weeks for our meat chickens was up last week—and it was looking like we would have no help. I emailed a man Tuesday morning to see if his son could help us butcher—but I never heard back from him. Someone told us that 40 birds a day wasn’t too bad—we could handle it just fine. I agreed—until I woke up sometime in the night Thursday morning and the thought crossed my mind that, “No, we couldn’t handle 40 birds by ourselves!” Yes, we had done it in the past—but Mama’s health was better then, and I worked a little faster too. I thought and thought of who I could contact to see it they could lend a hand—and I thought of asking a friend if two of her children could help, or asking a fellow farmer if his two older children at home could come over and help. With that decided I fell back asleep. When I arrived in the living room the next morning at 6:30 I asked Mama if there was a reply to my email yet, and she said no—but that Micah had called late the night before to tell us that he would be back to work that morning. It reminded me of the verse in the Bible, “Isaiah 65:24, and it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” I had been up in the night praying for help—and God had already answered.
How grateful we were that Micah was back—for Mama was so sick that day that she couldn’t leave the house. Thankfully I had not separated the calves the night before, so that I only had eight cows to milk instead of 16 since Mama was too sick to milk her cows. Then it came time to process chickens—and Mama was still sick. The process was taking longer—but we were getting it done and only had about 8 chickens left to gut when Mama arrived. Mama felt better just in time—time to package the liver, hearts and stock packs (heads and feet) and time for me to take a quick break to get a thick slice of sourdough bread and a glass of chocolate milk. When I got back it was time to package the whole chickens and cut up 20 of them into parts and package them. We were done by 4:30—and we were all exhausted.
Friday was a repeat of Thursday—but Mama was feeling much better so she milked her cows and she helped process the chickens. Perfect days do not happen very often, but Friday was one of those days and I did not take it for granted. Everything was on time, everything went smoothly, there was extra time to rest between jobs—there was no stress at all. We finished around 3:30 and by 4:00 all was cleaned up. We were not too exhausted which was good for Mama and I had to run some errands in town. One of those stops was to get an American Flag at Walmart—and as I said earlier we came home with a Florida Flag—and I came home with a pile of material for a few new dresses and blouses. Now I have to find the time to get some sewing done. I am not an Israelite walking the wilderness for 40 years where God protected their raiment from waxing old and rotting (Deuteronomy 8:4)—so after a few years my clothes wore out and I am in need of some new dresses. Buying the material is the easy part, finding time to sew them is the challenging part.
Perfect days only happen once in a while and never more than 24 hours! Exhaustion kept our eyes closed until after 7:00 Saturday morning—which gave us a late start. I headed out to set up for milking at 7:30—but the kitchen was still all apart from processing chickens the day before. All the dishes had to be put away and all the tables needed to be rolled back into place. By 8:00 I was finally ready to start putting together the milking equipment—but breakfast is usually done by 8:00 so I headed inside. I saw that Papa was still in the middle of cooking breakfast so I begged Mama to come and help me so that I could get it done faster. Fifteen minutes later we were done and breakfast was on the table. Papa had separated the calves the night before—but since we already had enough milk to fill the orders they needed to be let loose to nurse their mama’s before we milked. Two of the young heifers were over six months old now and needed to be weaned—so I was glad that Papa had separated the calves so that we could wean those two heifers. Papa put out the alfalfa hay for the cows and went to get them. I headed to the garden to harvest the cucumbers and turn on the water sprinklers—but first I had to help Papa move the two weaned heifers to join the other heifers, and I needed to turn the pond water off so that there would be enough water pressure to water the garden. I arrived just as Papa was letting out the young calves to join their mamas—but instead of going north to join their mamas, they turned south and ran all over the pond field. Papa chased them round and round before he got them to come back up the lane. I got the water turned off and then Papa and I moved the two weaned heifers—and that thankfully went smoothly. It was 9:45, and Steve was due to show up to work at 10:00 in order to bottle the milk and wash the milking equipment—and we hadn’t even started milking! Mama got right on to milking, while I finished up in the garden and Papa filled our feed cans with alfalfa. With only three cows to milk, Mama finished much faster than me—and this time she took Steve out to see the lush gardens. I was left back in the milking parlor to finish milking my cows. Mama wasn’t back long before my cow America covered the place with brown muck—and I was included in that paint job. I am so glad that summer time is here—for it makes a wet dress feel real good (for sometimes the only thing you can do is hose yourself down). Once the milking was done—finally, I got a change of clothes because we had to work it the walk-in cooler and freezer to package the Gainesville orders. Then there were customers to take care of—and one of them I was very eager to take to the East Garden to show them the flowers. They have been waiting for months to purchase a flower bouquet when the sunflowers and zinnias were blooming. Once Papa was on his way to Gainesville, the chaos of the morning was over. Mama was able to spend her afternoon decorating and cleaning in the kitchen, and I finally found some time to iron Papa’s shirts. The day was great after all!
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare