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Hi Everyone,
For years we have had a five gallon bucket catching rain water from the roof behind our lemon tree in our courtyard. When Mom started planting flowers in the courtyard and making walkways of gravel, edging the beds with stones, and mulching around the flowers, she decided that it was time to upgrade the rainwater bucket. So we went to Tractor Supply and bought a 20 gallon black plastic tub. In that tub we put a green planter full of Florida Blue Flag irises. Then one day we were walking around in the courtyard and heard a kersplat. Later we saw the noise maker sitting on the edge of the water tub—it was a bullfrog. A few days later I saw two, and it didn’t take many more days for there to be four. Most of the time we only see two, and sometimes I find Sunny Boy the orange tabby cat sitting under the lemon tree just watching the bullfrogs as they sunbathe on the edge of the water tub. I know that frog legs are considered a delicacy—but may I say that the legs on our bullfrogs don’t look very filling. I wonder how old they have to be before they are big enough to eat—not that I ever plan on eating them.
Sunny Boy is an orange tabby cat that was dropped off here on the farm when he was just a kitten—and he was a wild thing! Have you ever seen a cat swim on concrete? Sunny Boy was a pro at it for the first three months or so. If he was in the garage when you went to enter it, he put his body in such full speed that he literally swam across the concrete instead of running. I always made it a point to talk kindly and calmly to him—and allowed him to do things that we would not let the other cats do. Sleeping on the porch furniture is a “no-no” for the cats, but when it came to Sunny Boy, I was afraid that if I ran him off of the furniture it would only make him more afraid of us. After many months of being a fraidy cat, Sunny Boy finally began to mellow out—he began to sit still while we walked past him. It has probably been a year since Sunny Boy arrived, and he now meows at us, rolls on the floor in front of us screaming—but whatever you do “DO NOT TOUCH HIM”. The only time you can successfully pet him—and he actually purrs back, is when he is VERY, VERY, hungry. Then while he is eating, you can actually rub him down from head to tail—at least Mama and Papa have said that they can do it. Sunny Boy is a very welcome addition to the farm—for he is a great hunter. Sunny Boy is also a great watcher. He doesn’t attack everything that moves, and this morning was a perfect example. Our new ducks, Daisy and Daphne, roam the yard by day. They are the most active in the morning when we go out to milk the cows. This morning as I walked over to the milk house to set up, Daisy and Daphne flapped their wings and waddled after me. I usually set up the equipment with the door open so that I can enjoy the early morning coolness, and listen to the songbirds singing away. Today I had a crowd to entertain me—for isn’t three a crowd. Daisy and Daphne walked back and forth in front of the milk house, and our cat Catalina sat on the door rug bathing, and sometimes sitting up watching the ducks. Right before I was ready to carry all the equipment to the milking parlor, my trio dispersed to different places. We have a little round dolly that we use to help carry the milk tanks. When I went to get it I found it down by the milking parlor—also down by the milking parlor was Daisy and Daphne, and about two feet from them was Sunny Boy. He was lying flat out watching the ducks nibble on this and that. At that moment I wished I had my camera on me. I watched them all for a little while, and then I just had to interrupt the fun for I needed the dolly that was two feet in front of Sunny Boy—which sent him running off as I got closer. The ducks didn’t run off though. The whole time that we milk they wait for us right outside the gate. They play in the water, search for bugs, sift food through their beaks, and just hang out. Every once in a while they will “quack, quack” and startle one of the cows. The cows look at the ducks wondering what planet they are from. When we are all done milking, the ducks follow us back to the house, and then they hang out under the van for the rest of the day.
Last Saturday our Poultry Kitchen became a wedding venue, but on Monday it became a picnic area for a farm tour while we waited for it to stop raining outside so that we could go on a hay ride. Yes, two families came over to learn about farming and to see where their food comes from. It was a rainy and cloudy morning, but by the time they arrived it had stopped raining—but only long enough for them to see us milk the cows. After the cows were milked they watched us bottle the milk and then they all helped us put the milk in the walk in cooler. The next stop was the brooder house that was full of baby chicks (one week old and two week old). Papa was setting up for the hay ride when the heavens began to leak, so it was decided to break for lunch a little early. When everyone was done eating, the rain had quit and we all loaded up on the hay wagon. It was still cloudy when the ride began—but before we were done the sun had come out in full force and the heat index was 116 F. The children were all dreaming of revisiting the walk in cooler and freezer. Our first stop on the hayride was to watch Papa move the cows to a new pasture and to watch the calves be reunited with their mama’s. We then headed on to see the egg mobile and its 100 laying hens and six roosters. The ride then took us past the chestnuts, near the sheep, and around the flooded pond where we saw floating colonies of ants and schools of tadpoles. The last stop was the garden where they saw foot long cucumbers, cotton plants in bloom, and got to taste and smell the different herbs (peppermint, chocolate mint, lemon grass, garlic chives, and the licorice smell of Mexican tarragon). Of course you cannot forget to take time to feel the soft fuzzy leaves of the mullein plant—the perfect toilet paper substitute. It was 2:30 when they left, and I headed to the garden to weed a little with Mom and Steve who had just finished fixing the plastic covering on the caterpillar tunnel. All the rain had stretched it out and some places were holding water.
Thursday was the day to plant the sweet potato slips. We had spent a few days weeding the bed, and we accomplished our goal just before lunch on Thursday. After lunch I headed to town to get some compost while Steve and Mom marked the rows and filled the walkways with woodchips—well, one and a half walkways because we ran out of woodchips. I got back home with the compost around 4:15. It was time for Steve to go home, so Mom and I finished getting the beds ready—which meant wheelbarrowing a yard of dirt from the truck to the garden bed. Once the compost was spread out in the rows, I broadforked the two rows and then we planted about 43 sweet potato slips. It was 7:00 when we finished and then we came inside and fixed dinner.
On Friday the Poultry Kitchen was used for the very purpose that we built it for—to process chickens. A family came over to help us and we started to set up at 11:00 and we were done with 43 birds and cleanup a little before 3:00. Many hands, that know what they are doing, truly do make light work. While we were in the middle of processing the chickens my sister Samantha came down from Tennessee for a visit. Her original plans were to be here for just two days—come in on Friday and leave on Sunday, but she has had a change of plans and will be with us for a few weeks.
Saturday found us busy in the morning, and relaxing in the afternoon. It is always nice to have a day now and then where you really don’t have much to do—or should I say “Where you choose not to do any of the million things that need to be done”—and you take the time to sit down and relax.
Now that the garden is officially 100% planted for the season it is now time to focus on maintaining the garden—keeping up with the weeds before they get too big and take over. We have lots of other projects too—like harvesting, canning, cleaning up dead trees and making our own woodchips. If you ever get bored, feel free to lend a helping hand here on the farm.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare