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Hi Everyone,
I hope that you all had a wonderful and thankful Thanksgiving! Our original plans were that we were invited over to our friend Emily’s house for Thanksgiving dinner along with her parents, sister Lydia, and a widow from our church. On Wednesday morning Emily called and said that her family just couldn’t shake a cold and would we be willing to host Thanksgiving at our house. We gladly stepped up to the plate—and we were very glad that I had just started a new vacuuming schedule which allowed me to vacuum a portion of the house every day between 8:00 and 8:30. Thankfully the whole house had been vacuumed—but the two big rugs and the dining room. We were already scheduled to supply the turkey—so the biggest part of the meal was taken care of. Mom and I spent Wednesday evening baking a pumpkin and a pecan pie. Mom made cassava flour pie crusts, and I made the filling. We also made some Pineapple/Orange jello. Once the pies were in the oven I seasoned the turkey—a big 23 pound turkey. Thankfully Papa was home by then so that he could carry the heavy roasting pan back to the walk-in cooler. I sautéed onion, carrots and the turkey giblets and then I added a bunch of seasoning and covered it all with two quarts of water. Then I covered it and placed it in the oven at 250 degrees overnight.
We started Thanksgiving morning at 6:00—heading straight to the kitchen. Mom worked on breakfast while I stuffed the turkey with celery, onion, and apple. I took the turkey stock out of the oven and drained it, and I put the turkey in the oven around 7:00 at 325 degrees. After breakfast we milked the cows and did the morning chores. We were done outside around 10:00. Moises and Steve quickly bottled the milk and washed up the equipment and headed home to be with their family for Thanksgiving. We spent the next two hours dusting, cleaning bathrooms, setting the table, and getting the preparations ready to cook the green beans, cauliflower, broccoli and gravy. The Lytle’s brought sweet potatoes, and Mrs. Meyer’s brought salad. Our company arrived at noon, and we were ready to eat a little after 1:00. We had a lovely time fellowshipping with one another, and while Mr. and Mrs. Lytle and Mrs. Meyers left around 4:30, I was blessed to be able to have my dear friend Lydia stay to spend my birthday weekend with me.
The Bible tells us in 1 Thessalonians to give thanks in everything. This year we have all been challenged to find things to be thankful for in the midst of trying times. I don’t know about you—but I am thankful that we never ran out of toilet paper, and it wasn’t because we had a stock pile of it. The last roll of toilet paper has always been one of our deciding factors for “when” we go grocery shopping. Thankfully we had just bought a pack of 12 rolls right before COVID-19 caused chaos. We did ration it—no more than 3 squares at a time. Then the inevitable happened—we were down to the last few rolls. We had no idea where we would get more, but then my brother’s girlfriend came by and dropped a pack of toilet paper off to us which she had found in a small town while visiting her parents. We were thankful that God had provided. The weeks passed by and we were getting low again—and my brother came for a visit, and he had a BIG pack of toilet paper taking up space in his car and he offered it to us. Once again God provided just in time. About a month later we were getting low again and my brother called, “I’m standing here in an aisle at Walmart, and the shelves are full of toilet paper—do you need any?” What a blessing, what provision, what a mighty God we serve! Some people were challenged to be thankful that they had to work from home—with their children who had to be schooled from home. Some people lost their jobs, and some people lost loved ones of whom they couldn’t be with to say good-bye. For many the world was turned upside down—but in every situation we are commanded by god to give thanks. In many situations I wondered—how can I be thankful for this? Then this last Monday something happened that God used to teach me what it means to “Give thanks in everything”. My brother-in-law, Gary, and my Papa were working on the grass seeder when the neighbor stopped by to say that one of our Great Pyrenees dogs was wondering down the road. They left to go looking for her but couldn’t find her. I was inside cooking dinner with my niece Makenna, while my sister was visiting with Mom. Makenna loves to help in whatever I am doing. This night she managed to peel the garlic and mince it in the garlic press. Makenna also shredded the kale and put it in the pot of garlic oil. She loves to measure and pour, peel and mix—she loves to help, she loves to learn, and she is a sponge soaking it all up. When dinner was done cooking my sister and her family started to head home—but the phone rang before they got out the door. It was another neighbor saying that our dog was curled up at their gate and couldn’t get up. Papa and I drove down in the Gravely and there was Sheba. Papa called Sheba to him, and she came on three legs. Papa picked her up and put her in the Gravely and I drove us home. When we got home Papa picked up Sheba to get her out of the Gravely and it was then that I saw the damage—Sheba’s back leg was just dangling, for it was completely broken in half, and blood was everywhere. I wanted to crumble. Papa got her into the garage and I sat there and petted her. She was very calm, never snapped or growled—just wagged her tail, looked at us, and enjoyed the loving. Mama called around to find an after-hours vet (it was after 7:00 at night). We were told that there were no local emergency vets—and we would have to go to Gainesville. Since dinner was done, and we knew that it would be a late night, we decided to go ahead and eat. Papa then had to go and feed the other two dogs and close all the gates. I do not do good being up late, so I stayed home while Papa and Mama took Sheba to the vet. Mom called home a little after 10:00 to tell me what the vet had said. I expected Sheba to come home with three legs, Mom and Dad expected to pay around $1500 to fix her up—but no one expected what happened. Sheba’s leg was badly broken, her lungs were bruised, they expected internal damage and hip damage but wouldn’t know for sure without an x-ray. They started talking prices: $2000 to stabilize her, at least $6000 to do the surgery on her leg, plus x-ray fees, plus emergency fees—and there was no guarantee Sheba would live through surgery. If she did live—the recovery would be long and hard. We were looking at around $10,000 to see if they could help her. They chose to put her down. Sob! Sob! Sob! How do you be thankful that your dog got hit by a car? (Or when your spouse or child dies, you lose your job or your possessions, etc.) It is then that I learned that we show a thankful spirit by not getting angry at God when things happen that we do not like. In every situation there is always something we can be thankful for, something we can learn, and something that will help us to be an encouragement to others down the road. While I may not be thankful that my dog got hit and we had to put her down—I can be thankful that we found her. We had a dog leave the property two years ago and we searched for months and never found him—we never knew what happened to Jack. I can be thankful for the four years that we had with Sheba, and for all the years that she has faithfully guarded our chickens and given us much joy when we spent time petting her. Sheba was great at meeting you at the fence or gate to whatever field she was in—she was happy to see you, and eagerly lead the way to her dinner bowl. When Jill guards—she stays with whatever she is guarding so if it is dark outside I have a hard time finding which field she is in. Sheba always made it easy—she would meet you at the lane. Yes, Sheba will be missed, but her memories will always be precious. Sorry—I should have warned you ahead of time that you might need a Kleenex!
A lot of our time last week was spent in the garden. I had a goal to have the collards, kale, broccoli, and Swiss chard transplanted to the garden by Friday night. We weeded, and we worked on getting the new tunnel all put together. Come Friday morning the bed was all weeded, we had a truck load of compost, and a trailer load of woodchips. We still needed to secure one of the walls and attach the pipe down the center to connect all the pipes together and make it secure and stable. While Steve, Papa, and Mom worked on all that, Lydia and I worked in the greenhouse potting up flowers: stock, statice, snapdragons, and California poppy. We also planted some more lettuce and bok choy seeds. Around 3:00 we were summoned to the garden and it was time to start dumping compost in the beds and woodchips in the walkways. All that was accomplished by 5:30 and then it was time to mark the beds with the gridder and transplant the little plants to their new home. We finished around 6:20—and it was getting dark, but we were done!
Tuesday was a very busy day as we milked the cows and then I worked on the orders. We had a very large order for milk—and I was confident that we could fill it if we separated the calves from their mama’s that night. After lunch we packaged eggs, and since the Durmaz family was on vacation, another family came over to help us package eggs. Seven five gallon buckets of eggs can take Mom, Steve and I five to six hours to package—but when we have enough help they can be done in ninety minutes to two hours. What a blessing! A mother and her seven children came over to help—16 years old down to 4 years old helped out, and it was amazing how helpful the 4 and 7 year were. When we finished the eggs we cut up a few turkeys to fill some orders for parts. Then I headed to the garden to harvest the veggies for the Jacksonville delivery. As I harvested I couldn’t help but to think about how many Thanksgiving meals we would be supplying some of the food for: eggs for pies, kale for a side dish, and of course the turkey! When I came inside I cooked dinner and it was around 7:40 when I sat down at the computer to work on the orders. The first thing I saw was the milk order and then I groaned in panic—we had forgotten to separate the calves! It was dark outside and it is not easy to separate the calves in the dark. I ran next door to the cooler and counted the milk—it was a sad story. I came back inside and Mom asked how it looked, and I told her “terrible”. I sat back down at the computer praying and trying to figure out how in the world to separate the calves. If we did it at 6:00 in the morning—the claves would have already had breakfast. How could I ever ask Papa who had already closed up the garage, and was relaxing for the evening? Then Papa spoke, “what if we do this, or this or this?” The first two ideas were to move the mama cows to a new field leaving the calves behind—but I was afraid that the calves would go under the hotwires. So we agreed to bring the whole herd up and put the calves into the panel pens, and then send the whole herd back to their pasture. It was dark, but the Lord allowed everything to work out picture perfectly. We put the panels across the lane to direct the cows into the pen, and then we headed down the lane to the field that the cows were in. They didn’t come when called, so we had to walk across the 2 acre field to get their attention and then they followed us. Once the whole herd was in the lane then we followed them to the panel pens. Once all the calves were inside, then we sorted out the cows and sent them back out. We then sent them back to their pasture and came inside. I was so thankful that Papa had suggested it all, and that it was successful. I knew that we needed 20 gallons to fill the order—we had only been getting 13 to 14 gallons. We have 7 calves so I was hoping for 7 extra gallons since the calves had been pulled off the night before. The next day when we were done milking I looked into the tanks and did an estimated guess of how much milk we would have available—and I thought that there was only 18 gallons. It was a sad story—but 2 gallons short was better than 7 gallons. Then to my delight, once the milk was all bottled we had 20 gallons—and we even had some left over after I filled the orders—which was a blessing since we only had an inch of milk left in the house.
Saturday was my birthday, and when I entered the kitchen and dining room I was greeted with ribbons and a beautiful hand drawn and colored birthday card banner. My friend Lydia was up late decorating—and she is a superb artist. We had cranberry cinnamon pancakes for breakfast and after milking we packed the order and headed to the garden to harvest kale, bok choy, cayenne peppers, and we dug up some new basil plants that popped up in the garden and I don’t want to lose in the upcoming freeze. We spent our afternoon in the sewing room—she was mending a jumper for Mom and I was working on a new dress and jumper for me. After dinner we spent about forty minutes making music—Lydia on her violin and me on my piano. I really enjoyed my time with Lydia, and honestly the only thing on my birthday wish list was to have Lydia spend the weekend with me. You know you are getting older when your wish list is almost non-existent.
Tomorrow we shall be getting the farm prepared to say good-bye to green grass. We are not looking forward to the cold weather—28 degrees doesn’t sound great when you HAVE to go out and milk the cows. Yet, I can be thankful that I live in Florida and that 28 will only last one night and it will warm up again.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare