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Hi Everyone,
Believe it or not—there are only ten weeks left to this year. I am sure that most people will be glad to say “Bye-Bye, 2020”. It has been a very interesting year, and has had trials for everyone—some more than others. Here on the farm the one change that we really noticed was the increase in the amount of broiler chicks that we raised. This has definitely been our biggest year yet. When Covid -19 hit we sold out immediately, and we spent the next few months trying to keep enough in stock. By July we were finally able to meet the demand, and tuck some aside for those winter and early spring months when we do not process chickens. We now have eight weeks left of processing, and then we will have a break until around April. We were especially blessed when the Durmaz family stepped up and said that they wanted to help us process chickens—it was a BIG blessing especially when we went form 50 birds every other week, to 70 birds every week. If you are interested in knowing why we raise chickens the way we do—and how that is, you will have to be on the lookout for the announcement of the finished Chicken Documentary. We got to see a sneak peak of it last Thursday—and it is so very, very good. I just cannot wait to share it with everyone. I even went so far as to open up a YouTube channel “Shepherd’s Hill Farm” in order to share all the videos that others are doing on and about our farm. Samuel Crane’s goal is to do a mini documentary on each of the “eggs in our basket”. The first one is on the Broiler Chickens, and then there will be one on the milk cows; the egg layers, ducks, and turkeys; the sheep; the beef cows, life on the farm and possibly the garden. Most people start a YouTube channel in order to post their own videos—but we have been blessed to have some people who want to make videos for us.
As I watch garden videos I realize that everyone is doing the same thing right now in their gardens—preparing them for winter. Up north that means harvesting the crops and storing them in the root cellar. Here in the south it means planting—and weeding. Two months ago I planted in the seed trays broccoli, cabbage, kale, collards, Swiss chard, and bok choy. The bok choy and the kale did the best, and two weeks ago we started harvesting them. Some of the broccoli, cabbage, and collards sprouted, but I planted more seeds a month ago. The Swiss chard sprouted pretty well—but little black worms ate every last piece of them. I shall replant them this week. It seems like I am constantly planting seeds, potting up, transplanting to the garden—and weeding, adding compost to the beds, and mulching the walkways. Tomorrow I have one goal—get the spinach planted for the year. I also have some plants in the greenhouse that need to be transplanted to the garden. Last Thursday afternoon I started transplanting lettuce and some flowers—until a big rain storm made us head for the house. If I had stayed planting in the garden I would have stayed dry—for I got pretty wet making a mad dash for the house. I know that marigolds are summer plants, but since we have a tunnel to grow the winter crops in, I decided to see if I can grow marigolds all winter—they are good for pest control (so they say).
Planting vegetables for us to eat, and for our customers to eat isn’t the only thing we grow in the winter garden. Many herbs do best over the winter months. Here in Florida the summer heat and humidity kill off most of the Mediterranean herbs (thyme, parsley, sage, and cilantro). Even the mints do not like the heat. Our apple mint grows very well—but the peppermint and chocolate mint all but disappear in late summer. The difference is that the apple mint is grown in the shade of a large oak tree—the others are in full sun. Last summer I got some lemon balm and since it usually dies off in the summer, I decided to plant it under the oak tree also—and it has done beautifully. I guess the real key to growing herbs is to find their favorite spot. Basil, oregano and hot peppers will do just fine in the sun—but comfrey, catnip, lemon balm, and mints prefer some shade. For the last two years I have told myself that I was going to dig up a parsley plant and bring it inside for the summer—but I never remember, and then they are dead.
Another thing that we prepare for in the fall is what the garden will look like in the spring. Now is the time to plant flower bulbs that bloom in the spring—daffodils are our favorite. The Florida narcissus are already peaking their green leaves up from the ground. Most of the weeding done right now is to remove the massive summer weeds—goldenrod, Spanish needle, dogfennel, wild grasses, and other plants I have no clue about. The beds have to be cleared of all the weeds so that the bare dirt is exposed in order to plant wildflower seeds, herbal plantain seeds, and mullein seeds. I may sprinkle some pansy seeds also—even though we already have Johnny-jump up that comes up in little nooks and crannies. In the greenhouse I have stock, statice, and snapdragons growing. They have a long ways to grow before they will be big enough to move out to the garden. I started some sweet peas in the greenhouse also, and they were already five inches tall so I did transplant them to the garden and we shall see how well they grow. Since peas like cool weather, I am hoping that they do real well—and that the freezes don’t kill them off.
Monday afternoon when our work day was over, Mom and I headed to town—we finally got to do that much needed grocery shopping. We haven’t really been shopping since the first week of August. A few items we did learn to order on-line, but food is a different story. When people ask us what we eat I can describe breakfast real easy—oatmeal, eggs, toast for Papa, chicken broth and a glass of milk. Lunch I have no idea—I honestly hate fixing lunch because I never know what to eat, and I am usually too exhausted to figure it out. Thankfully Mom does a good job with lunch. Dinner is always my responsibility, and it always consists of meat (chicken, beef, or lamb) and a few vegetables (whatever is in season in the garden, something we have preserved from the garden, or when I am in a pinch—a bag of frozen vegetables such a broccoli, green peas, spinach, or some mixed veggies). Right now we have bok choy, kale, and lettuce growing in the garden, and we just harvested the sweet potatoes. There is a whole crop of butternut squash growing that I hope will ripen soon. We have a few Calabaza pumpkin vines left growing in front of the barn. They are still blooming, and they keep setting pumpkins—but the bugs keep eating them. Today I saw one that looks like a zucchini, and I saw no bugs on it. Just maybe—we may get to eat it, even though it has a long ways to grow.
I spent Wednesday afternoon posting another recipe on the website. People have asked us for years to offer cut up whole chickens, and a few weeks ago I decided to do it. We now sell what we call 8-packs, and it contains 2 breasts, 2 thighs, 2 legs, and 2 wings. I decided to share my favorite recipe for broiled Lemon Barbequed Chicken.
Thursday morning as I was getting ready for the day Mom told me that we were having company. Samuel and his Mom (our dear friend Amelia) would be coming over bright and early so that Samuel could capture some more farm life on video. His goal was to follow Papa around doing his morning chores and then he especially wanted to film Papa planting the winter grass seeds. The cows are working their way through the cow pea fields (iron clay peas). Once a field is completely eaten up, then Papa goes behind them and plants oats and barley. These seeds produce green grass during the winter months when the Bahia grass has gone dormant and the green grasses help with the milk production—as it goes down when the cows are on hay (for it is GREEN that makes milk).
Friday we finally got the ducks moved out to pasture. We have had them locked in their big movable hoop house for the last few weeks. Every day we move the house to new ground, and they have slowly been moving away from our garage area toward the barn. They reached the front of the barn on Thursday, so on Friday we loaded all 12 ducks into a cage, and put it in the back of the Gravely. Papa then hooked the hoop house (duck house) up to the tractor and dragged it out to pasture. Tomorrow we shall open the door and let the ducks have their freedom back during the day—but lock them up at night for their safety. We have left them locked up so that they can reset their GPS as to where home is. If we moved them straight to the back pasture and let them out immediately, they would just have marched themselves right back to the house. We are hoping that they stay out to pasture, and do not return to the house—where to our dismay they have learned to eat our flowers on our porch and in our courtyard. I will say that they did manage to keep the mosquito larva eaten in our rain tub. So tomorrow is the big day to see how the ducks will behave in the pasture. Hopefully we will not have to figure out how to get them back to bed from the front porch!
Yes, life on the farm has been very busy of late. We didn’t process chickens on Friday, which was a nice break and gave us time to get other things done. Mom has been busy painting the doors to the house. If painting was all she had to do to them I think that it would be much easier—but alas they have to be scrubbed clean first, and the handles have had to be repaired or fixed. Little by little she is getting it all accomplished, and October is almost over which is the best time of the year to paint outside because it is such a dry month—well, except for the inch and a half of rain that we received last night in a short time.
We have one week left in October—and so much to do in it!
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare