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Hi Everyone,
Life on the farm is always interesting—and sometimes a little more interesting than others. Last Monday was very interesting. Mom and I always spend our mornings milking the cows. People always ask us how many cows we milk. Believe it or not—I do not know. One week it may be ten, and the next week it may be fourteen, then the following month it may be twelve. The reason why it is constantly changing is because every month we have new calves being born, and some cows need to be dried off because they will be calving in a few months. Lately we have been adding and subtracting a lot. Most of the adding in the month of August has been first time heifers—cows that have never calved before, which also means they have never been milked before. Some cows are easier to milk than others for the first time. Last Monday we added Ella to the milking team. She has been trained to come in and eat for the last nine months—but when it came to milking her that was a different story. When I washed off her feet with the hose—she kicked, when I touched her udder—she kicked, when I attempted to tie her kicking leg back—she kicked and kicked and kicked (and broke my wooden box that held my iodine teat dip cup). Then when I finally got her hooked up to the claws—she refused to let her milk down. As the week has gone by, it has gotten easier and easier—but I did get kicked in the head this morning as I was hooking up the claws. She either has very little milk, or she is still holding up quite a bit for her little heifer calf. You never know what kind of adventure you will experience in the milking parlor.
Once we finished milking on Monday I worked on the orders, and then I headed to the garden to harvest okra and to finish weeding in the garden tunnel—and Mom headed for the lawn mower. After lunch I made okra and then I headed to the garden to do some more weeding. One of the 50 ft. rows in the garden was three feet wide and two to three feet tall with weeds. I am determined to get the garden in tip top shape by the middle of September when I have to start planting the fall garden. I worked for over an hour in the heat, sweating up a storm and over working quite a few muscles as I “man handled” those weeds. I would unearth a whole wad, and then I would pile it on top of a 50 ft. row of weeds that I had already pulled. It was around 4:00 when I quit and came inside for a shower—I had managed half of the row.
When I got out of the shower it was time to start dinner. Madison—the young lady who is doing a short film ad on our farm, was scheduled to arrive around 4:30. I had a beef roast in the oven, and I was planning on having potatoes and carrots with it. For desert I wanted to make a pumpkin cake with quark icing. I had one problem though—the oven was set at 250 for the roast, and the cake needed to cook at 350. We have two ovens, but I overflowed beeswax into the second one over a month ago when I made salves. I had two excuses for not having cleaned it out yet: I didn’t know how to, and I couldn’t remember to. Well, there is no time like the present and when you really want something you figure out how to get it. So I Googled how to remove beeswax from an oven—and they said to lay paper towels down over the beeswax, and turn the oven on low. When the beeswax melts, the paper towels will soak it up. So I grabbed a bunch of paper towels, lined the bottom of the oven, and turned it on. For a while I stood there watching with the door open in fear that the hot coils would ignite the paper towels—and don’t forget the beeswax is flammable. All was going well, so I closed the door. I came back in a minute or two, and opened the door—I was surprised to find a light on in the oven. UGH!!! I had left my magnetic flashlight hanging from the roof of the oven. I jerked it out—and it was okay, but I was very paranoid that I was going to start a house fire one way or another. I finally accomplished what I set out to do, so I made my pumpkin cake and put it in the oven. There was a lot of smoke—but in the end all was just fine.
Madison did arrive around 4:30 with camera in hand. We had dinner and then we stepped outside on the front lawn for her to do the interviews. It was getting dark when we finished, so she went with Mom and I to put the new laying chicks to bed. Madison stayed until about 9:30—and filmed most of the time. We had a lovely time with her.
When the milking was done on Tuesday I took Steve to the garden with me. My muscles demanded that I needed help to tackle those weeds in the garden. I had spent over an hour clearing 25 feet, but in 15 to 20 minutes Steve had the other 25 feet cleared. I just had to pull up some of the root systems. By the time I finished removing all the little weeds, Steve had finished picking up my 50 ft. row of pulled weeds—while he took them to the compost pile, I cleaned up that row of all its little weeds. I was amazed at how fast we got it all done. Lots of women, work hard to prove that they can do everything that men can do—and better, but let me tell you that I am not ashamed to say that when God created man He created him to do the heavy jobs and the hard jobs, and God created his body strong enough to handle it. There is a lot on this farm that I do, but my body suffers from it—those same jobs are simple as pie to a man. I am grateful for all the help that we get on our farm—especially when it comes to weeding man size weeds.
We came in from the garden around 12:30, and we needed to get lunch done because the Durmaz family was supposed to arrive at 1:00 to help us package eggs. Needless to say, we were late getting lunch, so we invited the Durmaz family to sit at the table with us while we ate our lunch—and we fed them Pumpkin cake! Before we were all done with the eggs, my piano student showed up. By the time my lessons were over, the eggs were all done.
We were scheduled to deliver two bulls on Thursday afternoon to a family about an hour away—but there was so much to do before we left. A new batch of chicks had arrived, but one batch had to be taken out to pasture and the brooder house cleaned out before the new ones could be put in. I had about an hour and a half of time and I decided to go weed in the garden—but before I got to the garden I changed my mind. It is time to start the seed trays for the fall garden, but I didn’t have a comfortable place to work. Last year we had racks on top of the saw horses, and that made the working space the perfect height—but the container of dirt was on the floor. This year those saw horses are in the tool shed supporting the chop saw. I wanted a potting bench, and I needed one by Monday. I headed to the barn to look through all the scrap wood. I found a long 4 x 4 post, two short 6 x 6 posts, a couple of square wooden frames, some old 2 x 4’s (I found one to be too rotten to use), some wire, an old nesting box (that I thought would make great shelves) and some plywood. I loaded it all in the back of the golf-cart and headed up to the house where the greenhouse is. Mom found me and was very skeptical of my “junk”. She was too busy to help, but let me go on about my business. Before I headed to the house I decided to ransack one more junk pile. In that search I found an old door to one of our demolished chicken coops. To my delight it wasn’t even attached to the frame. It would work perfect for my table top. Once I arrived at the house I laid my “finds” all out on the ground. Having found the old door, I was able to discard the wire and one of the wooden frames. I did manage to get Mom to cut my 4 x 4 post in half so that I could have two front legs to go with my two back legs. I do not use the power tools for two reasons—I do not know how, and because I am prone to carelessness, Mom refuses to teach me. That is okay, because as a piano player I do enjoy all ten of my fingers. I can use the electric drills though—but I did use the wrong kind of drill. I managed to get the frame all put together before it was time to go. When we got home I fixed dinner. After we ate I was glad that Mom forgot to turn on the dishwasher, which meant we didn’t have to do dinner dishes. I eagerly headed back outside to build a shelving unit for our potting bench. I didn’t get another chance to work on the bench until Saturday. Mom had time to help then, and she helped turn the piece of “junk” into a very nice piece of “art”. It was a rainy day, but the greenhouse was under cover—but we did have to walk through the rain to get to the wood stash in the barn and to the tool shed. We made a bottom shelf to store all the potting trays and pots, and then we covered the top with wood—because the dirt would just fall through the wire. I am very pleased with our potting bench, and couldn’t wait to use it so I potted up the three lavender plants into bigger pots. The soil is stored in a tote beside the table and all the seed trays will be laid out on the racks once they are full.
Friday was our last day to process chickens for a month. Our next date will be September 18th. To my delight though—with processing every week for the last month we were finally able to get the freezer stocked so we are no longer “Out of stock.” While we were in the middle of packaging the chickens I saw a customer drive up. I went to check on them and see if I could help them. That customer happened to tell me that she was off to see a mutual friend of ours who was in town. I have to say that I was a little envious. I hadn’t seen Rachel since her wedding day almost two years ago. I first met Rachel when she was 8 years old—and I was her 16 year old babysitter. Over the years we became friends. Our families did a lot together—and for a while her family owned the health food store in town. Later on in life Rachel would come and spend a week at a time on the farm with us—enjoying our fellowship and getting the chance to be a farm girl. During lambing season Rachel was known to pop in during feeding time just so she could spend time with the lambs. I remember spending hours one night with Rachel and a friend as we talked into the night watching the lambs frolic all around us. Then Rachel got married and moved away. I was thrilled to hear that she was in town—with her three week old baby in her arms. So I decided that if we could get done with the chickens early enough I would head over to Rachel’s parents to visit with her and see the baby. I promise you that I have never cut up 13 chickens as fast as I did on Friday. We were done by 4:00, and our help left around 4:30. I headed to the shower—so that I didn’t smell like I had been processing chickens all afternoon. By 5:00 I was in the van heading over to visit with Rachel. Her baby is adorably cute—and looks just like her. It was a delightful finish to a long day.
I am hoping to use the potting bench a lot tomorrow—for we have the entire fall garden to get started in seed trays. Don’t forget to enjoy the cooler weather—we couldn’t believe that it never got out of the 70’s on Friday. Fall is right around the corner.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare