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Hi Everyone,
Thanksgiving did not sneak up on me this year—like it has for the past so many years. I guess you can say that I rolled right along with fall this year. First there was the planting of the fall garden greens (broccoli, lettuce, collards, kale, bok choy, cabbage, and spinach—plus the root crops of carrots, onions and beets). A sure sign of fall is the blooming of the goldenrod and the Spanish needle. The end of October found us saying good-bye to processing chickens every two weeks. The grasses began to grow slower—and the last cutting of the year arrived. The leaves on the cherry, sweet gum, elm, sycamore, and maple took on hues of red, yellow, orange and brown—yes; we have four seasons here in north Florida. In November we got the last of the onion crop planted, and finally there was the long anticipated turkey harvest. So when it was time for Thanksgiving, I was ready. I was not mentally prepared though for December to arrive on our doorstep three days after Thanksgiving—but I can say that my body is ready for a long winter rest. Needless to say, here in Florida winter can be one of our busiest seasons—yet, at the same time, life does seem to go at a slower pace.
A slower pace is just what I needed last Monday. Actually, if I could have disappeared or life could have come to a complete standstill I would have been very happy. After all the preparations for the turkey harvest—I was EXHAUSTED! I had tons of paperwork to do to figure out who was getting which turkey, and I would have been content to sit at my desk and at the computer and just take care of paperwork—BUT, the cows needed to be milked, the sweet potatoes needed to be moved from the brooder house (where they were curing in the wrong conditions for it was cool and damp), to the sewing room which was dry and warm. I did work on the paperwork—but with many interruptions. After lunch I had to make yogurt. Later that day it was time to change out the rubber tubes on the milking claws. We do it twice a year. We also needed to clean out the pulsators—the gadget that controls the milking motion of the claws. It was getting clogged with alfalfa dust and our air suction was slowing down. That whole process took well over an hour—and when we were done, poor Steve could hardly use his arms. Taking rubber tubes off of metal pipes is not the easiest thing in the world. Then once you get the old ones off—you have to put the new ones on. We have four sets of milking claws—and each claw has four tubes (because a cow has four teats). Therefore, he had to pull off 16 tubes, and put 16 tubes back on. The sad part was that Tuesday morning when I went to put together all the milking equipment, one of the claws had been put together upside down. Moises was around so I had him pull the rubber tubes off—because I could not even budge them. He got all four off, I then got them restarted and he pushed them back on all the way. Then to my horror—I had put them together upside down again. Moises so kindly pulled the rubber tubes back off-and I made sure I did it right that time.
By Tuesday I had most of the turkey paperwork all done—and I knew which turkeys were going to whom, which turkeys needed to be frozen, and which turkeys needed to be cut up. We also realized that with it being Thanksgiving week, the meat orders were very big, therefore Mom thought that it would be best to weigh out all the meat, and get it put in bags—before Wednesday morning. That was a chore too—come Wednesday morning I was very glad that we had already done that part of the packing. At 4:30 Steve had to go home, and Mom and I headed to the garden to harvest. We had kale, green onions, and bok choy to harvest for the Jacksonville delivery on Wednesday. Once all the veggies were harvested, we then grabbed the clippers and strolled through the garden harvesting roses. There was a giant red Mr. Lincoln, a dainty apricot Rose at Last, a lemony yellow Poet’s Wife, a delicate pink Queen of Sweden, and a beautiful pink and yellow Lafter. Mr. Lincoln was a gift from our dear friend Emily and her boys when my precious dog, a black lab named Genea, died. It has an intoxicating smell, and while most of the summer the Black-eyed Susan plants totally overgrew it, when we did our end of the summer clean up, Mr. Lincoln reached for the sun and produced two of the most beautiful roses I have ever seen. The main one was a good 6 inches across, and the smell filled the whole room. The nice part was that they have a very long vase life. Lafter was a gift from another dear friend who shares my love for roses. She gave me some cuttings, and we stuck them in some dirt in a pot in the garden—and we ended up with some rose bushes. The other three were roses that I just had to have—and of which I indulged in last spring. I cannot wait to see these roses when they are mature and loaded with roses. When we were done harvesting flowers—our hands were full. We were not too sure who was going to drive home. When we did get home, we brought our treasures inside and filled vases with them. Later Papa came in and asked why we didn’t bring in the parakeets—of which we are babysitting for my niece. We told him that our hands were full. He asked, “With what?” and we said with big smiles on our faces—“Flowers!” He didn’t understand, but that is okay, I do not get turned on by knives, and he does. Papa’s favorite food is—pot pie, and his favorite color is—green, and for every holiday he wants a new knife. Anyway, once our roses were all arranged, then we put the garden produce in the cooler, and brought the parakeets inside. It was then time to cook dinner. After dinner I had all the orders to put together, but first we had to juice a bag of lemons that someone had given us. Our hand press juicer is broke, so we used some old-fashioned glass citrus juicers. I was glad that it only took us 25 minutes to juice a little over a gallon of lemon juice.
Young people that like to work are of a rare breed. Most young people today only know how to move their thumbs. When young people like to work—and they find working on our farm a real treat—it is a big blessing to us. Wednesday we were blessed to have the Crane boys help us on the farm for longer than normal—and everyone was thrilled. They helped Steve package up the rest of the eggs—which wasn’t very many. We were all excited though when Steve came up carrying the first egg from the new chickens. They are giving us two eggs a day—and now we wait for the other 98 to start laying. Once the eggs were done they filled in holes in the backyard that Yasha had dug in her boredom when she was living in the kennel in the backyard. Then there was the order to pack—and since it was so big, Steve was very grateful for their help. Since the new chickens were starting to lay eggs, they cleaned out the nesting boxes and filled them with fresh wood chips. Then they filled the mineral boxes up for all the animals and gathered the eggs for the day. The last bit of work that they did was weed in the onion bed. Then it was time for lunch—a late one at 2:00. They had to leave shortly after 3:00. Later that afternoon Mom and I had to run to town to pay the property taxes and get some last minute groceries. We got home around 5:30 and I told Mom that if she would put away the groceries, I would go feed the dogs and bring in the calves for the night. Feeding the dogs was the easy part. Bringing in the calves was a different story. It was getting darker by the minute. I had to walk way out pasture to gather them together, and I got them all the way to the other side where the gate was and they took off back to the far end. I repeated it a second time—and a third. It was very dusky, so I gave up. At that time Mom arrived, and we attempted it one more time—and accomplished our goal.
Thanksgiving Day found me a year older and very blessed. We got up at normal time, and headed outside around 8:00 to set up for milking. Moises came in, and we all pitched in together to get things done quickly so that he could get home to his family. We were all done by noon, and we started our Thanksgiving Day cooking. Before I had gone out to milk I had put parts of a turkey in the oven to slow cook—I wanted it to fall off the bones. We kept the meal very simple. We had turkey, mashed potatoes (white sweet potatoes), gravy, broccoli, and pumpkin pie. Our friend Sue came over after we ate to pick up her turkey. We were done with dishes by 4:00. I left the turkey carcass and pan drippings in the roaster and filled it with water and put it in the oven at 250F to cook over night. Then I was finally free to curl up on the sofa and enjoy my four new garden books—and I did that until about 7:30 when I was ready to fall asleep.
A change of seasons calls for a change of décor. I had three things on my Saturday “To Do List”—make kombucha, practice my piano, and redecorate the dining room. After we got the milking done, orders packed, and the receipts printed and Papa on his way to Gainesville—then Mom and I bottled the lemon juice in little jars and put them in the freezer. We were going to can up the turkey broth—but decided to drink it instead. After drinking some for breakfast this morning—we decided to can it. Turkey stock tastes much better in soup than sipped in a cup. Then when I was ready to bottle and make kombucha, Mom was ready to make a rustic wooden box for a center piece on the table. She wanted some beeswax candles for it, so I headed to the computer to find out how to make them. The process looked easy, so I headed to the kitchen to melt the beeswax. I ran into a problem though—I couldn’t find three containers that looked alike. Then I realized that it would take one whole block of beeswax to fill each container. Mom and I tried to brainstorm ideas—but we had no good ones. Then I looked at the clock and saw that it was almost 4:00 and I still had to make kombucha, cook dinner, practice my piano—and we hadn’t even started in the dining room. Needless to say—I fell apart and got real stressed out. There is nothing worse than realizing that you have just wasted 2 hours and have nothing to show for it, and still a lot left to do. I scrapped the candle idea, Mom went back to her box, and I started on the kombucha. One of my favorite ways to cope with stress is to sing. Since it was almost December—and one day away from when our radio station www.bbnradio.org begins to play all Christian Christmas music for 31 days, I decided to sing some Christmas carols. I was amazed at how calming the carols were—“Silent Night, Holy night, all is calm….”, “O Little Town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie….”, “What child is this, who, laid to rest, On Mary’s lap is sleeping…”, Then again it shouldn’t surprise me at all that songs written about the Messiah—Jesus Christ, should bring peace to the soul—for He is the Prince of Peace, and when He came to earth the angels cried out saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” So take time in this busy month to enjoy some of the old Christian Christmas carols, and pay attention to the words—I can guarantee that you will be blessed.
Once the kombucha was all made, it was time to make the after Thanksgiving traditional turkey pot pie—thankfully the crust was already made from when Mom went to make the crust for the pumpkin pie, she didn’t realize at first that the recipe made two pie crusts. So we saved one for the pot pie. Once the pie was in the oven, then I could help Mom in the dining room. She had already packed up all the fall décor, and was beginning the new theme—rustic and wintry, with a touch of Christmas. This year we decided to bring down an old ceramic nativity that Mom had painted back when she was a senior in high school. I was shocked to find her maiden initials on them with the date—11-22/24-72. I then had the chance to practice my piano—time to polish up on the Christmas hymns. In the end—everything got done, and we were more than ready for bed.
There is a cold snap on the way—so we have some garden preparations to do tomorrow. We also need to start some more kale—for it is selling like hotcakes. I cannot blame the people—it tastes real good.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare