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Hi Everyone,
If I was to write in detail about my whole week—it would be a novel! I can sum up most of the week with a few words: weeding, planting, and milking. My neck and shoulders were in serious pain after much weeding—the garden bed that has to be planted by Friday is full of nutgrass (my absolutely most hated weed). My spinach that I planted a month ago never sprouted, so I started two trays worth on Tuesday, transplanted the lettuce and cabbage to the garden, and rejoiced when I saw that the onions I planted last week had sprouted. Milking happens daily, and I do not consider it a chore—unless it is below 55 degrees. So really most of the week was just normal . . .
. . . the real adventure began Thursday night! We had spent most of the day working in the garden. I weeded some, and then I measured out the rows and walkways while Mom, Papa, and Steve hung the door to the new garden tunnel. I think that I now have official names for the garden. Makenna (my niece) calls the raised bed garden the “Flower Maze.” In there we grow perennial vegetables, fruit trees, herbs, roses, and lots of flowers. On the west side of the Flower Maze, we plan to plant a vineyard. On the east side of the Flower Maze we have 6 fenced in garden beds. Two of those beds are caterpillar tunnels to enable us to grow winter crops without having to worry about the freezes. In the tunnels we grow collards, kale, cabbages, lettuce, Swiss chard, bok choy, broccoli, and I even have a few marigolds fixing to bloom. I wanted to see if I could grow marigolds through the winter in the tunnels. I’ll let you know how they are doing coming January. Those 6 garden beds run east and west—four of them are 16 x 48 feet long, and the other two are 20 x 64 feet long. The other day I was mapping out row spacing and I finally came up with names: There are the East Tunnel, and the West Tunnel; the Middle East Bed, and the Mid-West Bed; and the Far East Bed, and the Far West Bed.
Anyway—after spending until 2:00 working in the garden, we stopped for lunch and then we headed to the walk in cooler to organize the eggs and empty as many shelves as possible so that we would have room to put the turkeys after we processed them on Friday. We were done around 4:15 and since Mom and I had to go shopping we called it quits for the day. I headed inside to make out my grocery list, but saw that the washing machine hadn’t completely spun out all the water, so I set it on the spin cycle. Then I found that the counters and sink were full of dirty dishes—and since I didn’t want to come home and do them, I quickly loaded up the dishwasher. I had an 8-pack of chicken out for dinner, and since it would take an hour to cook at 350 degrees, I decided to put it in the oven at 300 degrees and hope that it would be cooked by the time we got home in two hours. When I heard the washing machine stop I told Mom that she could go ahead and disconnect the hose from the washing machine. A few months ago Mom was pulling the drain hose to the washing machine out of the wall when she thought she saw something fall down the drain. We could see nothing, and feel nothing—but when the washing machine would drain, it would bubble up out of the drain. They poked and prodded, but found nothing and the washing machine began to drain perfectly fine—most of the time. A few weeks ago it really flooded out the wall, and even though we had a camera on a line snake its way through the pipe—we could find nothing. The wall was cut open and the pipes were cut out—but nothing was found. So, we hooked a garden hose to the washing machine, ran it out the side door, down the porch and out into our front lawn. I had to stay on top of the laundry—no more late night washing cow towels, because the bugs would come in through the open door. Therefore, all laundry had to be done by 6:00. So, since we would not be home until after 6:00, I told Mom that she could go ahead and disconnect the garden hose from the washing machine. She asked me if the washer was done, and I said “yes.” It was a little after 4:30 when I grabbed my grocery list to fill out on our way to town, and we were heading out the door-------------------when to our HORROR we heard a rushing gush of water as the washing machine turned on and began to drain! There is a saying around here that goes like this: “No one can do it like Tiare!” I didn’t realize that the second rinse button was turned on, and when I ran the machine through an extra spin I ran it through the first rinse spin cycle. Then it filled up with water, and just as we were heading out the door it began to empty. We are ever so THANKFUL to the Lord that He allowed that washer to empty before we closed the door behind us! Do you know how fast a washer can empty? No wonder they need a two inch drain pipe! We quickly turned off the washing machine, but as we scrambled for towels and shed our shoes we didn’t realize that the hose had created a siphon and the water was still pouring out into our laundry room. We had a good inch or more of water on the floor. Mom ran out to call Papa in to help wring out the towels. A good twenty to thirty minutes later we were heading back out the door—but our washing machine and dryer were no longer hooked up and in their rightful places. It was after 7:00 by the time we got home and Papa was out in the pasture trying to round up all the turkeys into the cattle trailer. Putting the turkeys to bed can be a challenge anyway—they prefer to sleep under the stars, but that makes them easy dinners to coyotes and foxes. Thursday night we needed to put them to bed in the cattle trailer so that they would be easy catch for us the next day. While I put the groceries away and finished dinner, Mom headed out to help Papa round up the turkeys. An hour later they arrived inside and I had dinner done. I was so excited that I had cooked an 8-pack, for it was so late and I was too tired to cut up the chicken. To finish off dinner I cooked a bag of frozen broccoli, filled celery sticks with sunflower butter and raisins, and served some applesauce.
Friday morning started out on video! Samuel is working on another short film on our farm and this time he needed some shots of Mom cooking breakfast (eggs especially), and then us eating. Samuel also caught some videos of farm life and turkey processing. After breakfast Mom did dishes and dealt with the people who came to fix our washing machine plumbing and replace the lights on our porches. I worked on getting the meal prep ready for the BIG meal after the turkeys were processed. Then Mom and I headed out to milk, and the first of our turkey processing team arrived. Just as I finished my first cow, a customer showed up for milk—and to loan us their turkey killing cones. While we were milking Mrs. Sue arrived to help us—we were so glad to see her, for her main charge was to help set up and prepare for the BIG meal, and to make the gravy and serve the meal when all was ready. She had helped us last year, and was such a big help that Mom was wanting her to come and help this year—but she has had some health problems, so Mom wasn’t going to ask. Then on Thursday Sue called us and asked when we were processing turkeys, and when she found out it was Friday she said that she would be here. What an answer to prayer! Around 10:00 the Durmaz family showed up to clean up the poultry kitchen and set everything up so that we could start processing around 11:00. When we finished milking another customer showed up, and then another customer showed up. It was around 11:30 when we began processing turkeys. Last year we processed close to 50 turkeys and it took us until 10:30 at night before we made it back inside. Papa swore that we would never do that again. So we were supposed to process half on Friday and the other half on Monday—but our helpers wanted to go on vacation so they appealed to process all the turkeys on Friday. I prefer all on Friday because some people want the smallest turkey, and some people want the biggest turkey. If half are done on one day, and half on another day then the Gainesville customers don’t have a fair bid for the smallest turkey. Since the Durmaz family has helped us process chickens all year, we knew that they were experienced enough to help tackle the turkeys. We agreed to process on Friday, and they offered to bring some of their friends—a mother and three of her children (16, 14 and 12). We had a total of 16 people helping us. It was a slow start as everyone learned how to do their job—then things began to go very quickly. We thought for sure that we would be done by 3:00, when dinner would be served. Then around 2:00 I found Steve, Barry, and Josiah plucking the turkeys by hand—and started quizzing Papa for the “why?” and we figured out that the gas tank was empty and the scalder was not hot enough. So they changed the gas tank, and while we waited for the scalder to heat back up we began to package the turkeys. We got half the turkeys packaged before all hands were needed back on deck to finish up that last few turkeys. It was a little after 3:00, and we only had about 10 turkeys left so we persevered and were done by 4:00. We stopped to eat some Grass-fed brisket, green beans, white potatoes, and salad. Around 5:00 we went back to work cleaning up and packaging the rest of the turkeys. It was 6:00 when we were all done! It was around that time when the plumbers found a large rubber stopper in the drain pipe of the washing machine. Mom was squealing with delight! Now that the clog was found, the pipes could be glued back together. About the time our contracting crew left, my Mom’s youngest sister and her husband and granddaughter showed up to spend the night. We had a good time fellowshipping with them—but I also had to work on the turkey orders. With the turkeys finally harvested we found their weights were amazing. We never know how big the turkeys will be until we process them, and let's just say that they grew really well without corn or soy--maybe it was the daily gallon of kefir that they got. The smallest turkey was 17 pounds, and all of the other 45 turkeys were over 20 pounds, with the biggest being over 27 pounds. It was 11:00 by the time I climbed in bed that night.
Saturday morning we got to visit with my Aunt, Uncle and cousin. They watched us milk some, and then Mom took them around the farm on the Gravely. In the garden they had fun picking lemons. After milking I had to finish contacting the Gainesville customers concerning the turkeys they had ordered. Then I had to pack the order and go to the garden to harvest some bok choy for a customer. All throughout the day we had customers arriving to pick up their turkeys and see the farm. My brother-in-law showed up to see what was wrong with the lawn mower—which acted like a typical child at the doctor’s office (nothing was wrong with it). Mom and I did manage to relax for a little over an hour—and that was nice. I cooked chili for dinner, and once it was cooking Mom and I made some jello for our Thanksgiving meal at church today. We tried to come up with some other easy meal ideas but chicken wings were too messy, and we were so tired we didn’t even care. Later as I was saying my evening prayers I told the Lord that we had to take something more than jello and potatoes—and He gave me the idea of a pot pie—without the crust. So, this morning after we got up at 5:00 and milked the cows I quickly mixed up the pot pie mixture and put it in the crock-pot. I was happy—now Mom and I had meat, vegetables and dessert to eat at our church dinner. Allergies do get in the way sometimes, but they do keep you from eating any junk food.
I hope that you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving—I know that we plan on spending it with some friends. Be sure to take time to Count your blessings, naming them one by one—remembering that we are to be thankful for everything! If you woke up tomorrow morning with just the things that you thanked God for today—what would you have? I know that I am thankful that I have a nice comfy bed to go crawl into—for it has been a long weekend.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare