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Hi Everyone,
Winter is slowly creeping in—the trees are bare, the grass is brown, the temperatures keep dropping (but thankfully we live in Florida and they rise back up just as quickly as they drop), milk production is low………..but, the winter solstice is almost here and the chickens are starting to lay more eggs, and the first of the winter flowers are blooming. Yes, the Florida narcissus’s are blooming away in the garden. I captured the beauty of a little bee feasting on the nectar in one of the flowers. Since I am a slow photographer, I was glad that he was very hungry—or was he a slow eater. While I sat there aiming my camera at the flower I was surrounded by the smells that I wish could be captured on camera. The narcissus’s have their own perfume and then I was practically sitting on the apple mint—mix the two together and the smell was quite heavenly.
While I prefer to hibernate in the winter—other things enjoy growing and needing tended to. In Florida fall through spring are our best growing seasons. In the north it is spring through fall. We have been blessed with beautiful crops of collards, kale, bok choy and green onions. I am always grateful when there is abundance so that I can share them with others. For many years we would grow long rows of greens—but we couldn’t anywhere near eat all of them. Then one year I decided to see if any of our customers would be interested in our extra collards, kale and onions. Ever since then we cannot grow enough. We are growing Siberian kale this year, and although I have about 40 plants, I cannot keep up with the orders. So last week I planted 72 more seeds in seed trays and to our delight they are just about all sprouted and heading quickly to be big plants ready for harvest. My first planting of lettuce gave us 6 heads—although I planted about 36 seeds. I was supposed to plant new seeds every three weeks—but I am having the hardest time wrapping my head around the concept of succession planting. Our friend Sue who is helping us in the garden keeps directing me in the right direction, but I think that I am a slow learner. Anyway, about five weeks ago I planted a whole tray of 72 lettuce seeds—and they all sprouted, and somehow there ended up being more than one seed in some of the plugs. Mom got them potted up to bigger pots last weekend, and in a few weeks they shall be big enough to transplant out into the garden. I am not quite sure where we are going to plant all the lettuce and kale—but we shall find a place. I know that the bok choy is finished—it is sprouting and the bugs are starting to eat it faster than I can harvest it. When I pull them up, I will have that space to plant something. Last Monday we transplanted the herbs out to the herb beds—and moved a few herb and flower plants around in the garden. We planted thyme, sage, parsley, and bunching onions—all plants that we grew from seed. The cilantro bed was full of baby cilantro that had sprouted from the seeds dropped by the plant last year. I weeded the bed and then I transplanted the cilantro plants around the bed instead of having them all clumped together. I then headed over to the mullein bed and weeded it and transplanted some mullein that was coming up in the onion bed into the mullein bed. Last year we planted love-in-a-mist and I let it go to seed—and those seeds sprouted by the hundreds. I found out that I had better be picky where I plant them for they come up like weeds everywhere. Since the bed that they are growing in is full of nut grass—a nasty weed, we decided to transplant them to another bed. I pulled up a good 30 plants and didn’t even dent them. I planted those 30 in one of the rose beds. I thought about planting more in another bed—but I wasn’t sure that I wanted them to take over that bed too.
While some things are busy growing during the winter—other things are ready to be tucked in to their beds for the winter. The summer perennials die back with the first cold snaps, and while the roses are in full bloom now, in a month they will be ready to be pruned back. It is also a good time to prepare beds for the spring planting. I want to grow the St. Croix Calabaza pumpkin again next year, and since its vines grow a good 50 feet long the best place to grow them is beside the barn. Last year 30 rolls of nasty hay got stored there, and while they have started to decay I have an idea to help make them decay and make good compost soil to grow pumpkins in. So on Monday we started to move the hay bales around. I took four of them to the poultry compost yard so that the chickens could help break it down, search for bugs, and the hay will make good compost. Papa took half of the rest of the hay bales down to the compost heap where everything goes to break down. The rest of the bales of hay was untied and spread out. The next step is to empty all the chicken houses out on top of the hay. If possible I would like to add some cow manure and maybe some leaves. Then I plan on covering the whole mess with the silage tarps until spring—and I hope a miracle happens underneath.
Did I ever tell you that Florida doesn’t have a “no” weed season. With our beautiful weather we have weeds that grow here year round. Spanish needle is one of those weeds that will grow as much as it can, wherever it can, and as long as it can. It is a great pollinator food, but its seeds are like needles that stick all in your clothes. I can say that we do our fair share of letting them flower and feed the insects—but there does come a time when they look terrible, they become overgrown into the walkways, take over the beds, and look quite unkempt. When Steve found out that all three Crane boys were coming to the farm on Wednesday, he had big plans for them—to pull up all Spanish needles growing in the garden. That crew headed to the garden and the weeds disappeared quickly. It is so nice to be able to walk through the garden and not have to worry about picking up some hitchhikers along the way. The “Spanish” weed crew was not the only weed crew we had for the day. Sue and Leo also showed up to help weed. Leo got the whole tunnel weeded, and Sue and Timothy worked on weeding the beets, spinach, and some of the onions. It is nice to have so much help in the garden—for it is definitely bigger than two people can keep up with.
Wednesday night I was busy ironing when my sister called to talk. As we were talking I heard Yasha barking. She has a deep bark, and has just recently started to use it. Since I do not hear her bark very often I told my sister that I had better go check to see what she was barking at. All I saw was the calves in the milking parlor area, and the UPS semi-truck coming up the driveway to deliver a ton of chicken feed. It was 5:30 at night and Papa wasn’t due home until 7:30. I knew that the feed would never be able to be put away that night, which meant that it needed to be stored in the garage—but the golf-cart was in the way. To make matters worse, the golf-cart is broke so I couldn’t drive it out of the way. It also has a flat tire which made it impossible for me to push it out of the way. I was thankful that the UPS driver was kind enough to push the golf-cart further into the garage so that there was space to put the feed in the garage. While he was unloading the feed Yasha started to bark again—and this time I saw the reason why she was barking. The newest little calf—Merci was out running around in the yard. As soon as the feed was secure in the garage, and the driver was on his way, I headed out to round up Merci—but I couldn’t find her. I ran to the barn, I checked in the field, I checked around the poultry kitchen, I checked down the road—but no Merci. The UPS driver got out of his vehicle and helped me look—and there she was in the back field. I promise you she was not there when I looked the first time, but where she was I have no idea. Thankfully Merci loves to be petted—especially under her chin. I walked up to her and was able to guide her back to the cow field, with a little bit of pushing and coercing. Papa says that she gets out quite often into the other fields, but this time she got out into the yard.
This week we have gotten some much needed rain—and cold rainy days make for great days to accomplish things inside. I would say that Thursday was one of those “perfect” days. We got the milking done in the morning, and once the milk was all filtered I worked on folding a lot of clean laundry, and Mom worked on cleaning the dining room. As soon as lunch was done I headed upstairs to the sewing room. I had some jumpers to work on, and I had a pullover sweater that I wanted to turn into a cardigan. Around 4:30 I headed downstairs to start dinner—I was having beef stew. Once the stew was cooking I headed outside to help Papa separate the calves from their mama’s for the night. Then I headed to the garden to harvest some fresh herbs for my stew. While I was in the garden I remembered that I was supposed to harvest collards and mustard greens for a customer who would be coming to the farm on Friday. I had only brought a basket big enough to put my herbs in—so my arms were very full. After dinner I got the chance to relax and read in my new garden books.
On Friday Mom and I worked together a lot. We milked the cows, and then while Papa and Mom bottled the milk, I bottled the kefir. Then we worked together dusting in the dining room. We broke for lunch and I made yogurt. Then we finished dusting and when we were done Papa helped us package eggs. Once the eggs were done Papa headed to buy some alfalfa for the cows and Mom and I headed to the garden to harvest the veggies for the Gainesville delivery. We finished the veggies about 5:00 and then we headed to town to run a few errands—and we didn’t get home until after 7:30. I was grateful for Panera Bread so that I didn’t have to come home and cook dinner. While the clock said that it was time to end the day—I had to put together the orders and make the receipts for the Gainesville delivery on Saturday.
Life has been so busy of late—and the best way to tell how busy we are is to see how big my ironing pile is. Thankfully I have had a little bit more time this week to catch up on my ironing—and one of those times was Saturday afternoon. We watched a gardening video and my pile of clothes changed from wrinkled messes to crisp material hanging on hangers. When my ironing was all done I bottled the kombucha and Mom worked on stringing some lights and pine cones on the greenery in the dining room. Dinner was a delight to cook as I embarked to cook old recipes with a new ingredient. A few years ago we were introduced to Otto’s Cassava Flour—and we have found that it makes great pie crusts. Since Mom is gluten free we have decided to try cassava flour for a few new items. I used it to thicken a cheese sauce and to bread cube steaks. Last year we were also introduced to white sweet potatoes. In the last month we have been wondering just how many white potato recipes we can make with white sweet potatoes—because Mom is allergic to white potatoes. Last night I tried scalloped potatoes and it was a success. I want to try some potato dumplings using white sweet potatoes and cassava flour. I feel like a whole new world of cooking has opened up to us.
I hope that you have a great week. I know that we shall be working outside on the pretty days and inside on those cold rainy days that are in the forecast.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare