636
Hi Everyone,
Today is Father’s Day—and I am so grateful that I can still tell mine “Happy Father’s Day”. I am the only one in my house who still has a father living. Papa’s father died just before I turned 10 (I missed the first few days of 5th Grade due to the death and funeral of my Grandpa). Mama’s father died just a few months ago—and O how blessed we were to get to spend every day of the last four and a half months of his life with him. I thought that I just might tell you a little bit about my father—things you may not know. He was born in Winter Haven, Florida and his parents called him Thomas Perrin Street. His family (his side and Mama’s side) calls him Tommy. Many people today know him as Farmer Tom. I call him Papa! When he was in the second grade his family moved to Brandon and lived in a house on the Alafia River. Papa and his brother Scott were true river rats growing up—the stories they tell would make every mother cringe. They jumped out of trees 30 feet up in the air; they sunk boats, and at the age of 13 or 14 Papa and his friend spent a week boating down the Peace River camping alongside the river as they went (just the two of them). Papa originally went to college to work in Forestry, but he soon found out that it was not for him—so he joined the Navy. His timing was perfect for the ship he got on had just returned from Vietnam and the war was over. After four years in the Navy he decided to go to college to become a geologist—and follow in his Grandfather’s footsteps. His Great-grandfather on his father’s side mined silver in Colorado before he moved to Florida to become a part of the orange grove business. When Papa graduated from high school his Grandfather took him on a trip to Colorado to see the silver mine and the mountain that he had grown up on. His Great-Grandfather on his Mother’s side worked the Phosphate mines in Fort White, Florida in the late 1800’s—just 20 minutes from where we live now and since my Grandparents used to own the land I grew up climbing up and down inside the old mining pits—lots of rocks and trees and brush with little lime rock caves. I was always a little afraid of coming across a rattlesnake. Today phosphate pits are restored to beautiful countryside—but back then they were just left as huge holes in the landscape. When Papa was 28 he got a job as a geologist at the Phosphate mine in White Springs, Florida—40 minutes north of Lake City. He started out as “a” geologist, and then became the “senior” geologist, and in the end was the only geologist. At work they called him a mountain goat because he could walk up and down the steep pit walls with perfect posture. He worked there for 35 years before they forced him to retire in 2014—and like a car he “re-tired” and kept on working—but this time as a farmer. Papa usually carries a small magnifying glass with him—from years of having to look closely at the “dirt” particles to find the phosphate, and when it comes to rocks and minerals he uses more than his eyes and touch to check them out—he uses taste too. Rocks are a part of who Papa is. If we go on a vacation to the mountains—Papa wants to climb the rocks (I do too!) Mama is happy driving through the mountains, but Papa and I have to get our feet on the ground.
My Papa is more than a geologist and a farmer—he is a Christian who has taught me to love our Heavenly Father. As I child I remember Papa telling me the Bible story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who were thrown into a fiery furnace because they refused to worship anything or anyone but the True and Living Creator God—but God miraculously preserved their lives and they walked out of that furnace unhurt (they didn’t even smell of smoke). My Papa still believes that God works miracles and answers prayers—for when someone needs help Papa doesn’t just pray for God to simply answer, he prays for God to extraordinarily answer. Happy Father’s Day Papa!
It rained off and on last week—to which we are most grateful, for it is dry and while most of the farm is still green, some parts are brown and crispy. Drought in the winter doesn’t look any different than winter, but drought in the summer makes the lush green grass turn brown and brittle. Thankfully just the driving areas are suffering—the pastures are still looking lush. This time of the year is when the field peas (Crowder, pink eyes, purple eyes, black eyes, zipper and my favorite-white acre) are in season. So on Monday Mama and I bought three bushels (one each of zipper, pink eye and white acre) of peas and spent the afternoon canning them.
Tuesday morning was rainy and I decided to use a rainy day as a chance to get some much needed sewing done. After lunch the sun came out and Micah and I were able to spend a few hours in the garden prepping to plant sweet potatoes and tying up and pruning the tomatoes. I have wanted to plant sweet potatoes for the last month—but I didn’t have a place to plant them, nor did I have the man power to prepare a place. I was very grateful to have Micah back at work. While I trimmed the tomatoes he was able to make a foot tall plastic wall with old siding 30 inches off of the garden fence. Then he lined the “bed” with large sheets of cardboard, and topped that with about 6 to 8 inches of tree trimming woodchips. He was able to finish the woodchips Wednesday afternoon.
Once the milking and packing for delivery was done on Wednesday I spent some time in the kitchen making kombucha and turning the last of the cucumbers into pickles (the smaller ones into Bread and Butter slices and the bigger ones into relish). While the cucumber soaked in salt I was able to get some sewing done and take some time to relax.
I needed some compost dirt to cover the woodchips with so that I could plant the sweet potato slips. I had Papa do the math for me for I needed to know how much cubic feet of dirt I needed to fill a 2.5 foot x 40 foot x .50 foot area. The answer was 50 cubic feet. The easiest method would have been bags of compost from the box store—but that would have cost me around $200. I could buy tons of already harvested sweet potatoes for that price. I could go get 2 yards of compost dumped into the back of Papa’s truck for about $50, but getting it out isn’t as easy and I would have to figure out what to do with any that was left over. Neither method sounded good to me—but I needed dirt. Then I remembered the “sink hole”—a low spot on the farm where we dump all compostable material (trees, chicken offal, grass clippings, weeds). So once the milking was done I gathered some buckets and two shovels—and Micah! We drove down to the sink hole and I told Micah that we needed 40 buckets—he wasn’t too excited, but very willing to help. We both shoveled but he picked up and dumped all the buckets. In the end we only needed 24 buckets—and to my delight the sweet potato bed was now ready to plant my sweet potato slips that I had rooting in water. I wasn’t able to do them that day though because Mama had a doctor’s appointment and we had to do some grocery shopping.
Just as soon as breakfast was over Friday morning I headed outside to plant the sweet potato slips before we watered the gardens for the day. I planted 17 red sweet potato slips and 17 white sweet potato slips. Then I watered the gardens and headed up to milk the cows. That night we got over an inch of rain and the next day we got another inch of rain—so they are getting well-watered as new transplants. I was so happy to have accomplished my goal—to have them planted by Friday. I had decided that if they were not planted by Friday I was going to give up and not grow them this year, but little by little all week the bed got prepared and then in about fifteen minutes they were in the ground Friday morning. Now that the sweet potatoes were planted I had to make that garden deer and rabbit proof. The side walls are made of three foot high hog panels lined with chicken wire and topped with four foot high plastic netting fence giving me a seven foot high fence—it keeps the deer out. The ends are made of plastic greenhouse panels with a door in the middle. The door blew apart during one of the hurricanes a few years ago—so I have had a makeshift door made out of green plastic netting and a metal tray held up by a short piece of metal cattle fence stuck in the ground. The metal tray was because a rabbit made a hole in the netting. The plastic greenhouse panels were barely attached on the ends and were flapping open so bad that the deer could just walk in if they wanted to—and deer love to eat sweet potatoes. We had a wrong sized PVC screen door in the barn that I decided to make work in order to replace the door. Micah and I added a few more 2 x 4’s to the door opening (because the door was 32 inches and the opening was 36 inches. Thankfully Micah had hung a door before, so I let him take care of that part while I walked through the pumpkin patch jungle to find the ripe acorn squashes. Once the door was hung I sent Micah up to package eggs because the sky was threatening to let loose and since he had been sick I didn’t want him being caught in the rain. I stayed in the garden to beef up the corners of the garden so that I would have some wood to attach the flapping plastic panels too. It never did rain—but the fencing did get fixed and the eggs did get packaged. I then headed to the feed store to pick up some alfalfa pellets because Mama and Papa had gone north to pick up some honey for us and two picnic tables for our church.
Saturday afternoon I had one goal—finish the dress I had started so that I could ware it to church today. There wasn’t much left to do on it, so it was done within an hour. I then spent some time checking out the heifers to see which ones—if any I would be willing to sell (for we have people asking to buy them weekly). We could use the money, but we also need to build our herd back up. I really wasn’t too successful—for “Next” is Papa’s cow, Miss Bea is too sweet, Noel and Gracie look just like their mama Merci and she is a great milker. Then there are four that will be ready to add to the herd this fall, and three more next spring which will bring us back up to 25 milk cows. There were only a few that I was not partial to. When I came back inside I spent the rest of the day in the kitchen. Since we had dinner at church today I wanted to cook Papa a special Father’s Day Dinner Saturday night. I marinated some rib steaks and then cooked them in the skillet and I baked some fresh red potatoes from the garden and heated up a jar of our freshly canned pink eye peas. For dessert I made some Father’s Day brownies. Mama asked me if I had found a recipe for “Father’s Day Brownies”—but I laughed and told her that I just made my regular brownie recipe and added lots of chopped walnuts on top. Papa likes nuts—so they are what made them “Father’s Day Brownies.”
We accomplished a lot last week—and I am grateful for all the help we had to get it all done.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare