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Hi Everyone,
When our week began, we had no idea how it would end. I only had one goal—get the white potatoes planted. I knew that to accomplish this we needed to finish weeding the plot of garden where I planned on planting them, plus we needed compost for the bed, and wood chips for the walkways—I am on weeding strike.
The Geologist Heads for the Woods
Monday arrived and I had hoped to work in the garden. It was a misty, rainy day and since Monday is usually our garden day, no one really wanted to retire to the milk house to package eggs. Mom had other ideas though—even though it was a wet day. While I worked at the computer getting my latest recipe blog ready to be published, Mom and Steve worked on weeding—in the courtyard. Once I had “Butter Makes it Better” published on the website, I headed outside to see what they were up to. My timing was perfect for they were just fixing to load up into the Gravely to head next door to tramp through the woods looking for rocks. We need little rocks to outline the flower beds, and some large rocks as focal points. Before Papa retired to be a full time farmer, he was a geologist. While he dealt with finding phosphate in the ground, rocks have always been his fascination. We found a HUGE rock that we all would have loved to have—it was about 6 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 2 feet thick. When Papa tried to pick it up with the tractor forks, the back tires of the tractor came off of the ground. We found two nice size rocks that the tractor could pick up, and we filled the back end of the Gravely up with little rocks. When we got home, we ate lunch and then we landscaped with the rocks.
Little BY Little
Tuesday’s are always one of our busiest days—partly because some of the things that we could do on Monday, we leave for Tuesday. Many times I can get overwhelmed wondering how in the world we will get everything done on Tuesday that needs to be done—but somehow it always gets accomplished, and I am always tickled pink when we even get to play in the garden too. After we milked the cows Tuesday morning we headed to the garden to get the potato bed weeded. After we finished weeding, Mom dug up some day lilies and some agapanthus (Lily of the Nile), so that she could plant them in the courtyard. Once lunch was done and the yogurt was made, it was time to package eggs. I took a break to teach piano lessons, then I helped some more with the eggs. We called it quits about 4:30 and then I headed to the garden to harvest produce for the Jacksonville delivery. Then it was dinner time—but a load of clothes needed to be taken care of first, and O me, O my, the ants were back in my bedroom. I hate cold days, and so do ants (they hibernate). I love warm sunny days, and so do ants (they come out to play).
A Family That Gardens Together
Thursday was the day that we planned to plant the potatoes. At 6:00 in the morning the Post Office called and said that another batch of 50 chicks was ready for pick-up. We got ready for the day, ate breakfast and headed out to do our morning chores and milk the cows. When that was done Mom headed to town to pick-up the chicks, and I headed to the feed store to get some wood shavings for the chicks bedding. Once lunch was out of the way Papa headed to town to get two yards of compost, and Mom and I headed to the garden. The sky threatened to fall on us, but the Lord was merciful and only a few misty sessions fell on us. The first thing that Mom and I had to do was spot weed—the nut grass and betony had begun to sprout, and we needed to dig them up. Then we marked the rows and strung our wire. When the rows were framed in, Mom shoveled dirt from the walkways into the bed. Once Mom finished making the 30 inch bed, I broadforked the area. Papa arrived home just in time to mark three rows with the gridder. Then we dumped the 50 pound bag of potatoes and we played baseball. Papa straddled the bed, and I sat on a bucket picking up the potatoes and pitching them to him. Once Papa caught the potato, he would then set it on the mark where it would be planted. It was fun to see how fast we could do it. Once we had a potato in every spot, then we all went down the row digging holes and putting the potatoes in and covering them up. Papa then pulled the trailer of compost alongside the garden bed and he and Mom shoveled the compost on top of the potato bed. I weeded under the trellises until they were done. When we were all done with the potatoes, we still had about 49 potatoes left. Our friend Emily had told Mom that she didn’t plan on gardening this year because she is pregnant, but that her boys were very interested in gardening this year—so interested that one morning she found the boys had gotten up real early and headed outside to weed the garden and to load the garden with compost from their cow—and they hadn’t been asked to do it. Emily said that the boys are very anxious to start planting something in their garden—but it is still too early for the frost and freezes would kill them. So Mom called and asked the boys if they would like some potatoes to plant—and they were ecstatic! They came over that night to pick them up.
In Everything Give Thanks
I guess I can be thankful that when the 21 mph wind causes a 35 degree wind chill while we are milking the cows—I live in Florida and it will be warm in a few days. We liked to have frozen milking those cows Friday morning. We were all grateful when we finished and could go inside where the heater was working. We had kefir to bottle, yogurt to make, milk to bottle, all the equipment to wash, and a customer to take care of. When that was all done we ate lunch and then Mom and I headed to town. We must have had about ten stores to go to, for we had a very long list of things that we needed—cow halters to train some new heifers, wood chips for the courtyard flower garden, dog and cat food, and many other things. Tractor Supply was our first stop, and they had most of the things that we needed to get there. We then headed to Goodwill, where we hoped to find Papa some large Blue jean long-sleeved work shirts—but they didn’t have any. Our next stop was the bank and then we headed to the farm store to get three cow halters—of which they only had two. While we left the house at 2:30, it was now after 5:00 and we still had to go to Home Depot, Hobby Lobby, and Publix—we desperately needed groceries. By this time Mom’s stomach was begging for dinner—so we scratched everything, but decided to stop at Lowe’s to get some things on the list. Try to get them that is—for they didn’t have any Organic citrus fertilizer, no wood chips, and no little hook to fix a clock. They did have some real pretty flowers on the discount shelves and we found a pretty white rose for the courtyard. We got home after 6:00 and cooked dinner. We had hamburgers using a recipe in my new cookbook by Jill Winger at the Prairie Homestead. https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/the-prairie-homestead-cookbook. Once dinner was done I had to make the receipts and finish putting together the orders for the Gainesville delivery. We were all done by 9:00 and decided to catch up with some farmers via YouTube. At 10:00 I could hardly keep my eyes open, so I retired to my room to get ready for bed. I wasn’t in my bathroom very long before I noticed some muddy prints on my floor. I looked to figure out why, and I found a foot wide water puddle on my floor—but I couldn’t figure out where it came from. I called Mom! After she investigated, she called Papa. The baseboards in my bathroom were wet and moldy. We went up in the attic to check for a pipe leak—nope. The baseboards in my closet beside my bathtub were wet, and the baseboards across the room beside my toilet were wet. We decided to start with the bathtub area, and at 11:00 at night we began to pull the baseboards off—and then we found wet sheetrock, and once we removed it, we found a pin hole in the copper pipe. YIKES! It was going on midnight and the decision was made to turn off the water to the house, and deal with the leaks in the morning. There was one problem though—the on/off handle broke—it is 1:00 in the morning, about 30 degrees, and poor Papa was not only cold, but very tired. He finally got the water turned off. Come morning I asked when we might have water back on. Mom said that she didn’t know—it could be Monday. She assured me that we had running water next door in the milk house—or so she thought! It turned out that the valve that Papa turned off controlled the house, milk house and poultry kitchen, and the other valves were not working properly. After breakfast Papa made a wick for my leaking pipe so that the water would drip into a bucket, while he turned the water to the buildings back on. We called our friends the Crane’s, and they were able to come over after lunch. In the meantime, we washed all the laundry, got our cows milked and the equipment washed. Right before Papa left for the Gainesville delivery, Mom had him take the wood off of the wall beside my toilet where the wood was also wet and moldy. In that wall Mom found water gushing out below the floor where the hot water copper pipe was. That made two copper pipes in one bathroom broke—how many more copper pipes have holes in the house. Could the bathroom on the other side of my bedroom wall where the ants are living have leaky pipes too? Mom spent an hour syringing water out of the hole into a bucket and had about a gallon in an hour. Moises was finally done washing the equipment and I headed down to the well to turn off the well so that it didn’t pump any more water to the house. When Travis and his son Timothy arrived they found a mess. They were able to temporarily patch the pin hole in the bathtub pipe, but the other pipe was not fixable since it was busted below ground level—in the concrete. Therefore, the hot water heater had to be turned off. My bathroom is connected to the hot water heater in the garage that services the kitchen and laundry room. So now we wash dishes by hand (because the dishwasher is only piped to the hot water) and we wash clothes—all in cold water. Thankfully we have a second hot water heater in the attic that services the other two bathrooms—so we can still take hot showers. The milk house and the poultry kitchen also have their own hot water heater, so where it matters the most, we are set. Last year when Mom had some allergy tests done, she was told that she was allergic to copper. All our water pipes are copper and we had no idea how to fix the problem—well, it looks like we are going to have to re-pipe the whole water supply to our house. That will require opening up walls—like the one where the ants are living, so hopefully we can get rid of them too. My birthday verse for this year is 1 Thessalonians 5:18: “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God, in Christ Jesus concerning you.” It looks like I shall have many “in every things” to be thankful for. Remodeling is not my cup of tea, but if it helps fix the copper and ant problem—then so be it.
Once we were done dealing with all our water leaks, it was time to cook dinner. I was planning on cooking Broccoli Cheese soup. I was half way done and was fixing to add the broccoli when I saw that the last ingredient in the soup was cheese—I was totally out and was supposed to get some at the grocery store, of which we still have not made it there! I guess I know one thing that I will be doing tomorrow—grocery shopping, but after I play in the garden!
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare
