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Hi Everyone,
Yes, summer is in full swing. Just about every day this week when we head out to milk the cows in the morning, the heat index is already over 100 degrees. By 7:00 in the evening my little weather station is telling us the outside temperature is 100 or about, and the heat index is 124 degrees. I used to believe that 4:00 in the afternoon was the hottest time of the day—but now I know that 7:00 at night is. From 6:30 to 7:00 at night the temperature just steadily climbs, while I think that the heat index multiplies. It is those out of the nowhere, afternoon showers that cool us off, keep the grass and the plants from shriveling up, and cause the weeds to grow ten feet high faster than you can blink—well…………maybe not exactly that tall, but I swear they do grow that fast.
To Weed or not to Weed
The worst part about the rain and those weeds is that I think that they are partners in crime. We all know that we need rain for the grass to grow and the vegetables to produce, but I think that the rain favors weeds more than it favors vegetables. Once those rains start, you can say good-bye to your squash, but those weeds grow by leaps and bounds. So while the rain may curse one plant, it blesses another—at least okra and sweet potatoes like rain! There lies the other problem—while the okra and sweet potatoes like the rain, they start out as small plants and grow slowly for a while. This gives the weeds an advantage, and when the rains begin they stretch out their arms to cover the ground, and they grow tall to cover the plants. The trick is to keep the weeds at bay until the okra and the sweet potatoes get big enough to shade out the weeds—and that is where the rain and the weeds become partners in crime. The weeds know that if the plants get a good head start they will shade out the weeds and the weeds will never grow very big—but if the rain can come down at just the right times to prevent us from going to the garden, then the weeds will have the chance to get the upper hand. We only have three days a week to work in the garden, mow the lawn, and package eggs. The other four days are busy with processing, deliveries, catching up on house work, and church. Every morning is spent milking and feeding the animals, so it is usually around 10:30 to 11:00 before we are done with our chores and can head to the garden. If the weather is nice, we work outside until around 4:30. Then it is time to refresh, before we cook dinner. Last week the rains were not afternoon showers that arrived after 4:30 in the afternoon, but they never failed to let loose around 11:00 or 2:30 when we would head back out after lunch. Sometimes though—we just work in the rain. Hey, when it rains the temps drop to around 75 to 79 degrees so who can complain about that! Monday was one of those days. Mom was mowing the yard, and Steve was still filtering milk when I headed to the garden. I had just started staking up the giant cotton plants when it started to rain. It was a light rain, and since the cotton plants were beside the arbor of Christmas Lima beans I decided to sit under them—that is until the rain got heavier and I realized that the leafy coverage was not going to be adequate. So I grabbed my tools, my knee cushion, and some empty buckets and made a beeline for the caterpillar tunnel—it was nice and dry in there. I worked at weeding the cayenne peppers and standing the little plants back up. When the rain calmed down, Steve joined me in the tunnel. He weeded the kale, and once the rain quit I headed back to the cotton. I wasn’t there very long before it started to lightly rain again. This time I decided to work in the rain. I was pretty wet by the time I had the cotton all staked, and then I went back to weed in the tunnel. I was a sight to see by the time Mom called us in for lunch. I was wet and my clothes were all muddy—but I was having fun, and sometimes that is all that counts. I will say that after lunch and after I made a batch of yogurt—it was still raining, and I did not feel like getting wet and dirty anymore that day. We had one basket of potatoes left to can, so I suggested that we get them canned—and that is just what we did. On Tuesday the rains arrived again, and this time we spent our day packaging eggs.
Wrongs made Right
For the whole week our house was a construction site as the Crane Crew worked some more on our plumbing. The guest bathroom and the master bathroom were on the agenda for the week to re-plumb and to tear up the old floor and lay the new floor. The hall bath went pretty smoothly, but the master bath had some major problems because the people that built our house made some major building mistakes—like walls and plumbing in the wrong place. The toilet was originally plumbed wrong, and the plumber tried to use shortcuts to fix the problem. This resulted in the floor molding after just a few years of us living in the house—but we had no idea “Why?” Travis—Papa Crane—is an engineer and a perfectionist, so he has always wanted to fix that floor and toilet—that didn’t sit flush on the floor either. Now, twenty-one years later, Travis has gotten his wish, and he was given the chance to fix the problem. A leaky toilet was the problem, which allowed the water to seep out between the concrete and the linoleum which caused the mold. A jack hammer, a section of new pipe, fresh concrete, lots of time, thinking, and muscle fixed the problem. We always feel sorry for people that have to do repairs on our house—because the people that built it were not the best. We were not here 8 years when a hurricane tore half the shingles off the roof—because they were not attached properly to begin with. Thankfully due to the hurricane insurance covered that mistake.
A Long Lost Friend
On Monday as Steve and Mom worked on the potatoes, I worked on the onions. We had two crates of onions in the laundry room that we had harvested that were not storing well—matter-of-factly, they were going fast. To be honest, they had created quite a mess on the floor in the laundry room. As we were cleaning up the mess on the floor, I just got this urge to clean up the whole laundry room floor. Bunnies and spiders belong outside, but somehow they find their way in. The spiders I cannot stand, even though the Bible says that they are in Kings Palaces, and the “dust” bunnies are not as cute and cuddly as the animal they are named after. I trashed some items, and put away other items, and had to clean out a closet in order to put away a large box of paper. It was at that moment that I wished we had a vacuum cleaner—actually I woke up wishing we had a vacuum cleaner because my allergies were getting the best of me. We have two vacuum cleaners, but they both broke back in February. While a dust mop does help, it is not the same. One of the vacuum cleaners would over heat and then turn off, and the other just quit working. As I stood in the hallway looking into the now empty, but dust bunny ridden closet I had the wild idea to go and plug in one of the vacuum cleaners—for just maybe it would work. I had thought of this idea off and on over the past few months, but the vacuum cleaner was buried in the corner of a room that was housing the furnishings of my bedroom and bathroom closet until they get fixed. In order to get to the vacuum cleaner I had to climb under a table—but I was desperate. I moved some things out from under the table, and I climbed back to the corner where the vacuum cleaner was. I found the plug and plugged it in . . . . . and I went ballistic, squealing and beating my feet against the floor. IT WORKED! IT WORKED! IT WORKED! With Mom’s help we got that vacuum cleaner out and I happily vacuumed out the closet, and then I advanced to my room. When I finished my room I was heading down the hallway for the laundry room and everything in between. I was so excited!—and then it happened. Just as I came out of my bedroom, I picked up the cord and tossed it out of the hallway and into my bedroom so that it would be out of the way. That action was followed by a loud POP, a little ball of fire, the smell of smoke—and a quiet vacuum cleaner. I could rejoice that my bedroom was vacuumed, but I was saddened that my new joy was so quickly gone. I used the Crane’s shop vac to finish cleaning up in the laundry room. Upon investigation though, we realized that all we had to do was buy a new plug and rewire it. Papa bought that on Tuesday and we were back in business. YEAH! We can vacuum again.
Show and Tell
Thursday morning a family arrived at 8:00 to pick up one of the newest bull calves. The last three cows to calve have had bulls, and thankfully the Lord has provided a buyer for them. As soon as they left, it was time to milk the cows. When we came in from milking there was a message from the Post Office letting us know that our 200 laying hen chicks had safely arrived and we needed to come and pick them up—but first off two families had just arrived for a farm tour. One of the families is moving to Italy and they wanted to know how to look for clean milk—so they wanted to see our milking process. They arrived after we milked, but they did get to watch us bottle the milk and clean up. Then I took them on a little tour around the farm in the Gravely. They were not gone thirty minutes when another group of four families showed up. They were from Miami and had come up to a nearby campground for the week. Steve used to work at the campground, so they are accustomed to sending their customers to us when the customer is looking for farm fresh food. Thursday was the third day for them to come. The first day only two people came, the second day five people came, then on Thursday the whole group came—Grandma and Grandpa and their three children and their families. They were heading back to Miami and they wanted to take home with them as much farm goodies as possible. The children were very excited to be on the farm, and asked if they could please go see the cows. I told them that it was up to their parents—and they soon returned as happy as could be for their parents had said “yes”. Once the sales were all accomplished, then all the children and I loaded up in the Gravely and we headed out to the cows. One father managed to squeeze on the Gravely, and the others either walked behind or ran beside. We got out at the cows and the children got to see the newest little calf, and I answered a ton of questions. Then we headed on to the garden where they got to pick fresh Everglade tomatoes, figs and herbs. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed their visit. After they left it was time for lunch. Then we headed to the garden to get some much needed weeding done.
A Grand Surprise
Friday was another processing day, and we were only expecting 3 extra helpers instead of 7 extra helpers. We also had 50 chickens that needed to be processed instead of the normal 40-ish. We got the cows milked and then we turned on the gas to the scalder so that it could heat up the water. Then we began washing everything down and getting everything set up so that we could begin when the water got hot enough. Then we noticed that the gas had gone out. We had to wait for Papa to come up in order to swap out the propane tanks. Then we had to wait for the water to heat up. Therefore, we got a later start. The Cranes asked me when we expected to be done, and I told them that I was not for sure since we were getting a late start, we only had 3 helpers, and we had 50 chickens to process. Then I headed over to the Poultry Kitchen and to my surprise, there were two more helpers than we were expecting. The older three Durmaz children were supposed to have left with their Papa that morning for a few weeks—but the AC was out in their van so their trip got delayed by a day which allowed the oldest two to come and help along with the youngest two and the mother. We were done by a little after 3:30. When we came inside I found a piece of leftover flooring cut perfectly to fit in my dollhouse—okay, I know that sounds funny coming out of a 44 year old’s mouth but . . .when I was a little girl of about 9, my parents bought me a dollhouse kit. Mom and I spent countless hours staining, gluing, and wallpapering the pieces to build a three story Tudor style house. Then I spent countless dollars furnishing the dollhouse with antique style furniture, dishes, food, dolls, and everything else that makes a house a home. I not only spent countless dollars furnishing it, I also spent countless hours playing with it. Now it is a child’s dream to play with it when they come for a visit. It has been a few years since it was last made to come alive, but I thought that it would be nice to put a piece of our new bathroom floor in the bathroom of the dollhouse. That idea proved not to work because the framing of the house was in the way—and the toilet and sink were glued down already. So I decided to put the “marble” floor in the kitchen. So needless to say I spent my evening putting the new floor in the kitchen, and tidying up all the other rooms. While the dollhouse does have a “vacuum cleaner”, it evidently was broken too because they had countless dust bunnies also. So I used our newly fixed vacuum cleaner and gave the floors a good cleaning. I was able to get all the big furniture put back inside, but it was bedtime and I didn’t have time to put all the little stuff back—so I guess I will have to find another chance to “play” in my dollhouse. Plus, I have a pile of broken pieces from little hands that played to ruff that I need to mend. I am having fun—but may I say that at 5’2” I find it a little hard to get to the nooks and crannies on the bottom floor of the dollhouse. I guess that is one good reason that they are made for little people—but then Tasha Tudor built a big dollhouse in the wall of her house and she enjoyed it clear into her nineties. She made her own dolls too! She was a fascinating woman. While she was alive in the 1900’s, she lived as if she was living in the 1700’s. She was an excellent artist, writer, gardener, and crafter.
Saturday was spent doing paperwork and Mom was able to get my bathroom closet painted. I should be able to move back into my closet very soon!
Well that is all for last week, and life looks like it will be pretty busy this week too—so be sure to come back next week to hear all about it.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare