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Hi Everyone,
Here I sit at my computer typing away. It has taken me a little while to get to this stage, as I have been studying all the info that Alison gave me on how to use the new website. Some things are very simple, and some things will just take some getting used to. All in all it is absolutely beautiful, and will make life so much easier. It is so nice that God didn’t make everyone a farmer—for then the farmer would be stuck with all his products, and no way to get rid of them. If everyone was a farmer we would not need each other, and we were not created to be so self-sufficient that we could spend our lives all alone. We need each other so that we may have someone to laugh with, cry with, love, serve, and take care of. When God created everything—He created them by two’s. He created them male and female: a male lion and a female lion, a bull and a cow, a stallion and a mare—and He said that “it was good.” Then He created Man—and He said that “it was not good that man should be alone.” So He created Woman. Therefore, since the beginning, it has been God’s plan that we should need each other. As farmers, we are grateful for each one of our customers—and many have become friends! Anyway, farmers are happy to just be farming, so it is a good thing that God gave some people the talent for marketing—so they can help the farmer out.
Monday found us busy in the garden. I could not get enough of the red sweet potatoes to set vine slips, so I ordered 50 slips from a farmer in Virginia. They came last Thursday, and we filled a small tub with lose dirt, and watered it. Then come Monday the chore was to remove all the old green bean plants, weed the section, till in up, and then mound two rows to plant the sweet potato slips in them. This took us all day (us being Steve, Carry, and I—Mom mowed the garden). We finished around 4:00, and got everything cleaned up, Carry taken home, and ourselves in the house—and then the heavens opened up WIDE! We were so hot and sweaty and dirty that we headed for a shower. Within a little over 45 minutes we received over an inch and a half of rain. I was really worried about the sweet potatoes. I was afraid that the hard rain would wash our mounds flat. While we didn’t lose electricity, we still couldn’t cook dinner. Since our fridge had frozen over the day before, all the fridge items were next door in the walk in cooler and freezer. It was pouring down rain, and therefore we could not get to any of our food—or so I thought. Once the rain stopped, we headed to the kitchen, and it was then that I thought to make a recipe that required everything that I had in the house. I grabbed out a casserole dish and covered the bottom with some lamb shoulder steaks. Then I seasoned them with salt, pepper, garlic and dried lemon peel. On top of that we cut up some two foot long noodle beans that I had just harvested from the garden before we came in. Then to top it all off, we peeled two sweet potatoes, cut them in half lengthwise, laid them on top of everything and coated them with butter. I put a lid on the dish, placed it in the oven at 350 F for one hour—then I high tailed it to the garden to see how my freshly planted sweet potato slips had survived. To my great delight—they had not been moved an inch. On my way to the garden I grabbed a few zip ties to attach the sides together of a makeshift compost bin that I built in the garden bed. They say that green beans are not good for chickens—so we decided to compost all the weeds, green bean plants, and grass clippings that we pulled out of the garden in order to plant the sweet potatoes. We piled the weeds and plants about four feet high, then I found some metal fencing and made a little compost bin around the pile. Now we need to get some manure in it. When I went out to harvest some okra Saturday night, I was surprised to see that the compost pile had shrunk in half—I guess we can add more to the pile now.
You can surely tell that June has arrived when you try to work in the garden—because the weeds are growing so tall and thick, or you try to mow the lawn—because the grass is growing by leaps and bounds, and you cannot get anything accomplished because it is raining. We are so thankful for the rain though, for between April and May we only had about 3 to 4 inches of rain. In June alone we have had almost 8 inches—and June is not over yet. Tuesday morning Mom and I milked the cows with Carry and Moises’s help, and then we bottled the milk. After that I helped Steve weed the Missouri lilies that border our concrete sidewalk around the milk house. The Spanish needle was starting to take over along with some coastal Bermuda grass. A grape vine has also taken up residence and no one knows quite what to do with it—leave it there and trellis it up an arbor, or pull it up and transplant it, or toss it. So we just pulled it off of all the lilies and laid all the vines in a heap on the concrete—we left it firmly rooted into the ground. Then Steve grass trimmed the yard and Mom mowed it while Carry and I bottled the kefir. When we were done there we went to the house to pull dried oregano and winter savory leaves off of their stems so that I could make Mom some Italian Seasoning that she could eat. All our other seasoning mixes have rosemary in them, and Mom recently found out that she was allergic to rosemary. When we finished the mix, it was time to fix lunch. Before we were done eating Mom’s best friend and her husband showed up for a visit. We visited with them for a while and then it was time for an egg party. Although Carry had been with us for three weeks, she had not managed to help us on a Tuesday when we have our egg parties. Hey, if you are ever in the area and want to stop in for some fun and excitement—come on by, we will even send you home with some eggs for helping us enjoy our work. The first thing I told Carry was that eggs get broke—don’t fret over it. I am the Queen Egg Breaker—and so nobody needs worry about helping us. I promise you that you cannot be worse than me. Before the day was over, Carry had truly been initiated into the egg packaging club. She did a great job, and really was very careful, but she had us all in stitches when an egg busted in her hand—shooting all over Steve who was standing on the other side of the table. All Carry could do was pull the mess in toward her, which left her with an egged shirt. The mess was soon taken care of—and we all recovered from the stitches in our sides. We then started a discussion on why we break the eggs. Everyone is always saying that I just have more strength in my hands than I realize, but I swear that the eggs have to be already cracked in order to bust on us. I had heard that you could put an egg in the palm of your hand and squeeze it with all your might—and if it was not already cracked, you could not crack it. So Carry gave it a try—no bust, and then Steve gave it a try—no bust (his knuckle cracked, but the egg didn’t). I had already tried it a year ago when Eli and Papa told me that I squeezed the eggs to hard and that is why I always broke them—when I squeezed a solid egg—it didn’t bust on me. So, we all proved that when we have an egg bust on us when we are cleaning it—it is because it was cracked when it was collected. Now here is the interesting part. We take a dry rag to all the clean eggs to wipe off any dust before we put them in the egg carton. If they are dirty, then we wash them in plain warm water. To my surprise, Steve and Eli have such delicate touches with the eggs that they can wash a dirty egg and not know that it is cracked—then when I pick it up to dry it, I end up sending egg yolk and white everywhere. Now tell me—how come they could scrub it and it doesn’t break, but I cannot even wipe it without it breaking? While we were having our egg party Tuesday afternoon, Mom joined us off and on. She was trying to finish mowing the lawn—but it kept raining. She would start mowing, and it would start raining. She would continue mowing until the rain got too heavy, then she would head to the barn. Once the rain would quit, she would head out to mow—and then the rain would start up again. If she gave up because it was raining, she would give up and come inside to help us package eggs. Then it would quit raining. In the end—she won, and the lawn was fully mowed.
At one point in time on Tuesday morning, Papa was spotted in the middle of the pond on his knees in the canoe. We couldn’t wait to hear the “why” and the “how” since the canoe had been full of water and there were no seats left in it—they had broken out years ago. It turns out that Papa had seen a large hawk perched in one of the trees down at the pond. Wanting to send it on its way—before it spotted any of our chickens and made a feast out of them, Papa looked for something to scare the bird away with. His eyes happened upon the metal tipped crook that is attached to a PVC pipe that he keeps in his tractor for catching animals whenever the need arrives. So, he grabbed the crook and gave it a big heave toward the hawk. It landed in the middle of the pond though. The metal tip sunk to the bottom, but since it was attached to a PVC pipe, it stood up straight in the water. So Papa used a bucket to empty all the water out of the canoe—because it was so full that he couldn’t just dump it out. Then he grabbed his shovel that he keeps on his tractor, and used it for a paddle. On his knees, shovel in hand; he paddled out to where his crook had landed and retrieved it. At least the hawk didn’t have chicken for lunch that day.
Thursday, Friday and Saturday were spent dealing with chickens. Now we did not spend all day every day processing, packaging, and cutting up chickens. Thursday morning we got the milking done, and then the Post Office called to say that we had baby chicks at the Post Office. While Carry and I set up to process the chickens, Mom headed to town to pick up the chicks. When she got back it was close to noon and we began processing. Lunch was not to be seen that day, for by the time we were done it was 4:00—time for dinner. As soon as dinner was done, we had someone show up to buy a bull calf.
Mom spent a lot of Friday working on tearing apart some old metal chairs so that she could repaint them and reupholster the seats. We also packaged the chickens that were to be packaged whole. We also managed to pack all our harvested and cured onions into crates and get them carried up to the FROG (finished room over garage), where we can keep the temp at 70 until we can get our Pantry Root cellar done. Then we went shopping for some supplies. Saturday we cut up the chickens and packaged all the parts with the vacuum sealer. I also got a chance to practice my piano, and Mom worked at painting her metal chairs. I was in need of some fresh produce to cook for dinner, so I headed to the garden to harvest whatever I could find. There were everglade tomatoes, green okra, yellow lemon squash, green noodle beans, and cucumbers. I had cabbage and carrots in the cooler. So, I cooked some cabbage and onions together, and some yellow squash, carrots and okra together. Mom made a salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, fresh cinnamon basil and cheese. Then I cooked up some of our grass-fed T-Bone steaks and dinner was scrumptiously delicious.
I hope that you are enjoying your summer—Papa is glad that the longest day of the year is over. Now the days will start getting shorter, and he will not have to go outside after 9:00 at night to lock up the chickens that will not go to bed until it gets dark.
P.S. I walked away from the computer so that Mom could proof read and edit the journal, and I remembered all kinds of stories that I forgot to write about—but I am sure that you are tired of reading, and I am definitely too tired to write anymore. I will say this much though, when Mom and I finished milking the cows this morning, we looked like Chocolate chip cookies.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare