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Hi Everyone,
Last week was a lot of fun----for my dear friend Lydia spent the whole week with us. So come along and join the fun, as I tell you all about our wild adventures.
Monday morning we milked the cows. Lydia helped by serving the cows their feed, tying in the cows, letting out the cows, and keeping me company. J After milking we bottled the milk and then we began a long egg party. It was too cold outside to do anything else. Steve, Lydia, Mom and I spent about four hours packaging eggs. At 2:00 one of our customers came over with her girls to help feed the bottle lambs. Around 3:30 we called it quits on the eggs, and Steve and Mom began to work some more on our little people barn. Lydia and I cleaned up the egg mess, and then we began to prepare for a garden picnic. I had thawed out some chicken legs, and we put some butter in the Dutch oven, grabbed some utensils, and the picnic basket. Before we got too far though, a family showed up wanting to buy some turkeys and a sheep. So we showed them the turkeys---and they picked out my two Tom’s. Yes, that puts me out of the turkey business, but that is okay, for I am losing money on them. My dream was to have heritage turkeys that could reproduce, and we would always have turkeys to eat. Well, they didn’t reproduce enough to sell them for Thanksgiving, and last year out of about 80 eggs, I only had one turkey chick hatch and live. Most of the eggs were duds, some tried to hatch, some did hatch—but died. So I decided that it was time to get rid of my heritage turkeys, and then we can just focus on the Thanksgiving turkeys four to five months out of the year. This will honestly be a lot easier---and much more economical. Then we took the family over to the sheep barn, and they chose one of our older, large red breeding rams. It was time to retire him, and hopefully one of the red lambs will be a ram to replace him. They left around 5:00, with plans to return on Thursday to pick them up. Then Lydia and I loaded up all the dinner supplies, and some wood for the fire. Papa got the fire going for us, and then Lydia and I walked through the garden harvesting vegetables to put into the pot. We picked the first small purple cabbage, some carrots, beets, rutabagas, and green onions. Lydia fed the fire, while I washed the veggies in our large cast iron porcelain garden sink. Once I had the veggies all washed and cut up into the Dutch oven, then Lydia and I walked through the herb beds collecting herbs to season the veggies. By this time, Papa and Mama had joined us. The temperature was dropping fast, but the fire was getting warmer by the minute----but we were not cooking dinner in the garden, in the cold, just for the fun of it. We had a purpose---to see the full moon come up. We did too. It was nice and big and orange---although the Harvest Full moon is much bigger. We enjoyed the stars, and sitting around the fire. It was so cold though, that if you turned your face away from the fire—it got cold. By 7:45 our dinner was all cooked, but we all decided that it was just too cold to eat in the garden. So we loaded up our hot meal and headed to the warm house to eat our open fire cooked chicken and veggies.
Tuesday morning found us back in the milking parlor having cookies and milk with the ladies-----Well, not exactly. We had no cookies, but the ladies (cows) were graciously sharing their milk with us. After milking was over, we bottled the milk and the kefir. Then Mom and Steve worked at finishing the construction of the Little People Barn. Lydia and I walked around like lost girls----having lots of ideas of what to do, but not really knowing what to do. We opened up the garden tunnel so that we didn’t cook the veggies before they were harvested. Once we got back to the house, we had to go back to the garden to get some weeding tools. Then we searched through the barn for crafty ideas—but couldn’t find what we were looking for. After lunch, and bottle feeding the lambs, we finally decided to weed the steps that lead down the boardwalk between the brooder house and feed room. It was about 4:00 when we finished, and we were just fixing to head to the garden to harvest the greens and onions for the Jacksonville order on Wednesday. Mom had other plans though---the Little People Barn was done, and it was time to start painting. They said that everyone was fixing to be handed a paintbrush, so I stood around waiting-----thinking that in five minutes I would be handed a paintbrush. An hour later they finally got around to opening the paint cans. By this time, I had no time to harvest, and no time to paint. I had to cook dinner. I got the meatloaf in the oven, and then I needed some collards for dinner. On my way to the garden I noticed that the calves needed to be separated, and Papa needed help bringing in the sheep for the night. When I got back, Mom was turning the barn roof silver, and Lydia was turning the walls red---ladybug red.
Wednesday morning my plan was to get up and head out to the garden at 7:00 to harvest the veggies for the delivery. Mom had other plans. We have five bottle lambs, and one of them spends the night in the house with a diaper on in a large box. Lydia spent lots of time working with her, and ended up calling her Freckles. First thing in the morning, Freckles needs her diaper changed and her bottle. Therefore, Mom couldn’t fix breakfast while Lydia and I harvested. So we cooked breakfast, while Mom “played” momma to Freckles. After breakfast I set up for milking, then Lydia, Mom and I worked on cleaning the bathrooms, and Lydia ran the vacuum cleaner. Lydia did a great job vacuuming, for since she vacuumed while we milked, she had the time to vacuum places that we do not usually have the time to vacuum because we are outside farming. It was the week for the Crane boys to come and help out on the farm. Samuel helped with the milking, and Timothy and Peter helped Steve finish up packaging the eggs for the week. When we finished milking, Timothy and Peter headed to the garden with Mom to help harvest the veggies---they got done after all. Once I got the orders all put in, I could tell them how to bottle the milk, and then I packed the order. The boys packed the ice chests in the van, and I finished the receipts after I had weighed all the meat. Then it was time to teach my students how to play the piano. Lydia spent her time painting the Little People Barn—she was still trying to get all the sides red. I sat and talked to her---I do not paint (no patience and no skill). At 5:00 Mom and I headed out to do the chores, while Lydia cleaned up. Then we all headed to Hobby Lobby to buy some paint for Lydia to decorate the sides with. We also had to swing by Home Depot for some more red and silver paint. We got home around 7:00, and it was time to cook dinner.
Thursday Freckles was finally doing better----she was actually drinking more than an ounce of milk, and she was finally starting to gain weight. When we found Freckles out in the pasture, she was snitching off of the other momma ewes---but wasn’t getting much. When we brought her in to give her a bottle I think that she ate one bottle and then she went on strike—for a week. Everything she ate had to be “forced” down. She got weaker and weaker---we would feed her every twenty minutes sometimes. Then Thursday morning she got hungry, and began to chow down. Tonight she is doing much better, and is hopping around like the other sheep, and drinking 4 to 5 ounces at a time. We still bring her in at night—for she is still too frail. Taking care of orphaned lambs can be a challenge. We have all kinds of experiences. One year my brother Charles named a ewe Tweezers. She became pregnant, and had a little lamb that he named Pinchers. One day Tweezers got trampled by the other sheep, and ended up paralyzed on the ground. Little Pinchers stayed near to her momma, and Tweezers would expose her udder so that Pinchers could nurse. Charles kept her fed and watered, but eventually she died. Pinchers was too big for a bottle, but how in the world were we supposed to feed her. Charles had an idea, and Pinchers understood it completely. Pinchers would stand by Charles side, and then Charles would make a quick grab for one of the nursing momma ewes. As soon as Charles caught a ewe, Pinchers would dive under the ewe, and start nursing frantically. Charles did this until the lamb was satisfied. Years ago when we had Dexter cows, we had some lambs that wouldn’t take a bottle, and we would take them with us when we milked the cows, and we would let the lambs nurse on the cows. That was a big hassle, but it worked.
Lydia was able to start painting pictures on the Little People Barn. She started with a milk can, and then painted a cat sitting on top of it. I was not able to spend the whole time with Lydia, but popped in and out as I did the days’ worth of dishes, sold the turkeys and the ram, and cooked dinner. The people ended up buying one of my female turkeys too, so now I only have seven turkey hens left to sell.
Friday Lydia painted instead of helping with the milking. Then around 11:00 the vet showed up. We had some heifers to dehorn----one especially because she is two years old and is ready to breed. We couldn’t put her in with the bull until her horns were removed, because she liked to use them, and we couldn’t run the risk of one of our milk cows getting their udders punctured. Lydia took a break from painting to go and see the vet work with the cows. We watched the dehorning, and then one of the old cows needed to be pregnancy tested. She is fifteen years old, and hasn’t had a calf in two years. We have someone who wants to buy her, but we wanted to make sure that she wasn’t bred. The pregnancy blood test said that she was pregnant, but after so many months, she was showing no signs of being pregnant. Plus, the bull was paying her a lot of attention. The vet confirmed our suspicions---she is not pregnant. Once the adventure with the vet was over, Lydia headed back to painting. Once again I didn’t get to spend as much time visiting with her because of dishes, customers, bringing in the cows, and cooking dinner----a bowl of hot chili.
Saturday was our last day with Lydia. She helped milk, and then she headed to paint. Lydia is an excellent painter, and the details she puts into her artwork makes them just pop on the canvas. Her birthday cards are always the best---true works of art and love. Once I had the milk bottled, the kefir bottled, and the orders packed, I joined Lydia and Mom in the garage. I was their moral support as they painted. I told them what spots they were missing, and helped Lydia know just where to put the spots on the pig and how big to make them. At 4:00 her parents called and said that they were on their way, and Lydia had just enough time before they got here to finish the pig. There is still a pile of hay, a pitch fork, a little mouse entering a hole, and a mother hen and her chicks to be painted onto the sides of the barn---so we have hopes for another visit in the near future. The Little People Barn will be the focal point of a playground that we plan to erect somewhere on the farm. We are having a hard time deciding if it should go in the garden (where farm tours begin and end), or in the yard (where the grandchildren and visiting customers can use regularly).
After Lydia left we finished cleaning up from painting, and Mom and Dad hung a pulley on the front of the little barn. I practiced my piano, and then it was time to cook dinner.
All in all we had a wonderful week. Lydia and I had lots of fun together and shared many laughs and made lots of memories. I hope you have a great week---until we meet again, I will be…….
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare