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Hi Everyone,

                If ice cream freezes your sinuses, why does cold air thaw them out and make them run? Most mornings last week started out in the 30’s, and our noses were doing their fair share of thawing out. My little weather station let us in on a secret though---our farm gets about seven to ten degrees colder than the weather channel says that it is supposed to get. Three times last week the weather channel said that it was only supposed to get down to the 40’s, but when we woke up………………………well, it was close to 6:30 Thursday morning, and I was still curled up under my covers in bed trying to wake up. Mom came in and climbed up on my bed. I wondered what was up, and then she spoke “It is 34 degrees outside, do we have anything in the garden that could be damaged by a frost or a freeze, besides the Ponderosa Lemon tree that is in full bloom?”  I thought and thought, but couldn’t think of anything----unless the freshly planted seeds for our spring garden had sprouted. She said that they hadn’t as of the day before---thanks to a drought and us forgetting to water the garden daily. To our delight, and amazement, it did not frost (it was even a clear sky and the wind was not even blowing). The truck window was iced over, but the ground was not frosted. That happened two days in a row, but on the third day it did make it to 32, and the lower partials of land did get frosted. We are definitely in the tender time of spring---when everything is blooming and beginning to turn green and a frost or late freeze could ruin it all. My two lemon verbena plants have been doing the “go dormant, green out, get frozen, go dormant, green out,” at least three times this year.

                Monday we milked the cows and headed to the garden. Steve took the push mower around all the garden fences; so that he could weed eat around the garden beds. To my dismay, and his horror, a loud clanking was heard as he mowed over a section of weeds where Mom and I had been measuring one of the garden beds last week. You guessed it---for the first time in our lives we got to see what the inside of a tape measure looks like. The lawn mower chewed up the first 11 feet of the tape measure, but the rest of it was in perfect condition—though useless. The tape and the insides went flying, but the case got jammed in the lawn mower blade. We cleared it out, and were thankful that the lawn mower still worked---but it kept making a little noise as the blade spun around. We turned it off and found that the blade was barely scrapping the edge of the lawn mower frame. Steve used a hammer, and expanded it a little, and he was back in business. I was busy weeding the kale bed. I planted 3 rows, but only one row did well. I wanted to clear out the bad rows to make room to plant radishes. Poor Steve didn’t have much success with the powered equipment, for the weed eater refused to work after he filled it up with fresh gas. It was then lunch time, and later that day Papa was able to fix the weed eater, but the time was gone for weed eating. After lunch we all headed back out to the garden. Steve worked at pulling all the big weeds out of the old sugar cane patch. The pigs really did a great job clearing out the sugar cane. We only have three clumps left. Two will be dug up and discarded, and one I want to keep for teaching lessons when we do farm tours in the fall. I also bought some cotton seeds. Did you know that not all cotton is white? Some are naturally green or brown. While Steve pulled weeds, Mom mowed, and I finished weeding and thinning the kale. The broccoli is flowering and most of the plants are making seeds. The plants are ready to go to the chickens, but the flowers are great food for pollinators, they look pretty, and I really want to save my own broccoli seeds for next year. Two of the plants had gotten so big and top heavy that they were leaning over the walkway making it next to impossible to walk through the winter garden. Therefore, Mom wanted me to cut them down, for pulling them up by the roots would disturb too much soil. I went and grabbed the tree loppers, for the trunks were pretty large. The first one was very easy, but the second one was bigger. The loppers have one handle that is broken off half way, and I was having a hard time squeezing the two handles together. Since I was on my knees, I put the broken handle on the ground, and used both of my hands to push on the other handle. Now, I am not the most cautious person, and I do not have much common sense when it comes to using some tools or doing certain jobs---like the kind that men should do and not women. Therefore, just as soon as I got the loppers closed around the trunk of the broccoli plant the unexpected happened. I was clobbered in the forehead by the blades of the loppers. I was pushing down with such force that once they cleared through the broccoli stem they flew up in the air at lightning speed and I can honestly say that I had no idea what had hit me. My head hurt pretty badly, and I was most certain that it was split wide open and gushing blood. I called for Steve, who upon investigating declared that I only had a small drop of blood. I also figured out just what had hit me---a large goose egg. J I know for sure, because it stuck to my forehead for the next few days. I was able to finish weeding the kale, and then I helped Steve in his bed. When that was done, I headed to another area, while Steve tilled in the garden bed. I plan on planting sunflowers, zinnias and pumpkin in that bed. We did manage to get a lot weeded before it was time to call it quits for the day.

                Tuesday was spent packaging eggs all day----after we milked the cows and bottled the milk and the kefir. While we may have stood on our feet all day in the milk house packaging eggs, we got to spend our evening relaxing. We had an early dinner, then a little after 5:00 we headed to Gainesville to the movie theater----a place we never go to. Monday night we had gotten an email that a movie called “The Moses Controversy” was going to be showing at theaters for only three days. Tuesday was the last night. The movie was a documentary about whether or not Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. Moses says that he wrote those first five books, and all through the Bible it says that Moses wrote the first five books, and in the New Testament Jesus even says that Moses wrote the first five books-----but some scholars today do not believe that he really did. Why? Because they do not believe that there was a written language and an alphabet at that time in History. So the author of the movie went on a mission to discover the truth. The movie was 2.5 hours long, and was very interesting. He found that a written alphabet existed long before Moses. He also figured out that those who disbelieved that Moses had written the first five books of the Bible also didn’t know if there was a God. If you cannot believe that Moses wrote the Bible, then that makes the Bible false, and if the Bible is false, then there must not be a God, and if there is no God, then there is no life after death, and if there is no life after death, then they are not accountable to anyone for how they live their life here on earth. If the Bible is true, then we are all sinners, but Praise be to God for His son Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the pardon for our sins. Romans 6:23 says: “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  And John 3:16 says:  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  You can order the movie, and check out all the info at www.patternsofevidence.com .

                Wednesday we had the Crane young men here to help---which was very good, for the order was large, and since we had not been able to harvest the vegetables the day before, we needed to harvest for the delivery. We had it all done by about 12:20 and Papa was off to Jacksonville, and I could sit back and relax while my piano students serenaded me on the piano---that is as long as they played the right notes and got their counting just right. Later that afternoon, Mom and I were ready for some down time, and what better thing to do than to be encouraged by other gardeners. So we watched a documentary of Gardens is Great Britain. Once in a while you have to take time to renew your vision---or get new ideas.

                Do goose eggs taste good? One day last week Papa found two goose eggs and brought them inside. Since my Daddy Goose (Papa Gander) was killed by a bobcat, I no longer have fertile goose eggs. We have been eating my turkeys’ eggs also, because I sold all my males, and am trying to sell my females. Turkey eggs taste like chicken eggs. We have tried the duck eggs, but Mom and I think they have a stronger flavor. Now we had two goose eggs. I was afraid to taste them, because I do not like duck eggs. Then we watched Justin Rhodes one night, and their goose had just laid her first two eggs. They were doing a blind taste test at breakfast. They couldn’t really tell the difference between the chicken egg and the goose egg, but had said that they could tell a difference between a duck egg and a chicken egg. That encouraged me to give the goose eggs a try. Papa was outside when I cracked them, and I really wanted to totally serve them without him knowing that I had cooked them. I got them all the way to the table, and as we were fixing to put them on our plate Papa asked, “Are these goose eggs?” They were truly a darker orange than the chicken eggs---which have been pretty orange with all the fresh green spring grass. And the taste? They were very mild.

                Friday and Saturday the Cranes were back to work on the plumbing and the electrical for our new Poultry Kitchen. We now have running water in the building, and almost have lights and power. While they worked in the building, Papa worked on the outside digging trenches and connecting pipes for the drainage to the building. Mom and I worked in the garden planting radishes, weeding the walkways and some of the raised beds, and planting two new roses. I have received three new roses, but only had the garden beds ready for two of the roses. Since two of them were shipped bare root, we planted them. The other one came in a pot, so it helps us to buy some time until we can get the garden bed rebuilt. The two roses that we planted are David Austen roses. One is a beautiful yellow and is called The Poet’s Wife. The second one is pink, and is called The Queen of Sweden. The third one is apricot and is called Rose at Last------which is a good name since it will be the last rose to be planted. I thought when I ordered the roses in January that we would have all the time to get the garden bed rebuilt---but alas reality was that we never did get around to it.

                Life is very busy on the farm, and spring is truly keeping a spring in our step as we get new chicks in the mail, prep the garden for the spring seeds, and get the Poultry kitchen all ready for the first processing on April 12. Time is ticking quickly………before you know it, we shall be harvesting the vegetables from the seeds that we haven’t even planted yet. J

Serving you with Gladness,

Tiare