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Hi Everyone,
Someone recently asked me how often we go grocery shopping, and I told her once to twice a month. Truth be told, no one around here likes shopping whether it is in town or online. We hate spending money, and we hate leaving the farm. There is so much to do to keep us busy on the farm that in order to go someplace we have to not do something. Yet on Monday I left the farm three times—and two of those was to go to town. As soon as I was done milking the cows I climbed into Papa’s truck and headed to town. I wasn’t sure I would make it there either—for the old truck has become the perfect farm truck and is beginning to get temperamental. You do not have to worry about going over the speed limit, and you had best make sure there is a good mile between you and the oncoming car before you pull out in front of it. While the van is much more reliable—and cooler since the air conditioner works in it, the van just will not hold a load of loose compost dirt for the garden. So I took the truck. I had postponed starting my seed trays long enough, and I was determined to have all my veggie seeds planted in the seed trays by 4:30 that afternoon. I had one problem though—I didn’t have the necessary ingredients to make the soil mixture. My first stop was Home Depot. I found the peat moss and lime just fine, but since they didn’t have any blood meal I had to head over to Lowes for that. At Home Depot I took time to scan the seed racks and found me a pack of Pansy seeds, a pack of French Breakfast radishes (they are long), and two packs of rainbow carrots. I was determined to grow every color of carrots there is this year, but Mom swears that she will not eat a black carrot, and I swore that I was going to grow some anyway. She was fortunate that I couldn’t find any—the packet has red, yellow, orange and “purple” carrots. I think that they will work just fine! At Lowes I took time to visit the discount plant racks and found a pink vinca to add to the courtyard garden. Once I was done at those stores, I headed over to Evachek’s—a place in town that sells gravel, rocks, boulders, woodchips, dirt, mushroom compost and more. We like to get their mix—half dirt (composted woodchips) and half mushroom compost. We top all our growing beds with this mix, and the veggies, flowers, and herbs just love it. Once I was done at Evachek’s I headed home. The first thing I did when I got home was to plant the vinca. Then I began to gather my ingredients to make our seed tray starting soil. I needed 3 buckets of peat moss, 2 buckets of perlite, 3 buckets of our garden compost mix, 1 cup of blood meal, and ½ cup of agricultural lime. I didn’t buy any perlite because I knew I had a bucket of it already. As I grabbed the bucket of perlite, I realized that there was very little in it—and I needed 2 full buckets. Oops! I headed inside and made me a sunflower butter and jelly sandwich, grabbed the van keys and headed back to town. My problem was that I had only read the ingredient list before I headed to town the first time—I didn’t read the “amounts”. Once I got to Home Depot I had a hard time finding the perlite. When I did they only had it in small bags—I needed 8 gallons worth! I then remembered that the recipe said that you could use vermiculite instead of perlite—and there was a big bag of it right under the small bags of perlite. I grabbed the vermiculite, paid for it, and was soon on my home again jiggety-jig. When I got home I had to finish making the yogurt. Then Mom helped me mix together all the ingredients in the big wheelbarrow and then fill up the soil totes before she headed to the garden to mow. I spent the next hour or two filling up seed trays with soil, labeling them, and putting seeds in each cell before I topped it with more soil and gave them a good watering. By 4:30 I had planted kale, collards, and four types of lettuce, bok choy, parsley, winter savory, thyme, and horehound. I still had broccoli and cabbage to plant but it was time to get a shower so that we could go to the Durmaz family for dinner and to watch a chicken documentary. I was able to finish planting the broccoli and cabbages on Tuesday after I milked the cows, creamed the milk and bottled the kefir. To my delight, some of the seeds had sprouted by Thursday, and by Sunday the majority had sprouted. The herbs are still refusing to see the light of day, the collards are just now starting to peak through the dirt, and only one type of lettuce has sprouted so far.
It seems that lately we are becoming the stars of people’s dreams. One family has dreamed of doing a series of documentaries of different things that we grow here on the farm—the first episode is about the meat chickens. Then a young lady is working on a little video that showcases our life on the farm. Having them film us going about our daily routine is the easy part—sitting down being interviewed is a different story. Thursday morning Samuel and his Mom—Amelia, came over to catch the chickens in action and then to interview Mom. When I finished milking Steve and I headed to the garden to pull weeds—it is time to get the garden in tip top shape by removing all the summer weeds. I managed to trim back the apple mint before I was called up to the house to do my part of the video. There is one thing that we can all say about all the filming—it is good medicine, because we laugh, and laugh, and laugh.
For many years we had a special cow named Jamima. She was very sweet and laid back. You could pet her all over, love on her, and milk her with no problem. When she turned 10 she got mastitis that we could not cure—and I hated the thought of losing her. Since Jamima was pregnant, I prayed that God would give me a heifer calf to replace her. I also wanted to call a cow “America” so that I could say “Good morning America!” I was delighted when Jamima gave birth to a little red heifer, and I called her America. To my delight, Jamima gave us another replacement heifer before she died and I called her Jam. America turned two last January, so we put her in with our bull—Dijon, and she has spent the last nine months pregnant. America has replaced Jamima just perfectly. She has a very sweet personality, and Moises says that I have trained her like a dog. She loves to have her ears rubbed, her neck rubbed, her back patted—and as long as she is in the milking parlor she is quite lovable. There is one problem with having such a lovable cow though—you cannot get them to leave the milking parlor. America’s due date was August 28 and as the time grew closer I began to wonder if she would give birth to a Patriot or a Liberty. Thursday, August 27, when America came in to eat her breakfast I noticed that her udder was filling out quite nicely. Friday when she came in she had a little calf running by her side—and it was a little Patriot! He is very cute, with great big eyes like his father, but red eyelashes like his mother.
In the month of August we have had four heifers become cows. A heifer is a female who has never had a calf. Once a heifer has a calf she becomes a cow. When they calve we give them 24 hours before we milk them—to make sure the calf gets as much colostrum as possible. While the heifers are used to coming in to eat, they are not used to having their udders touched or their leg tied back (so they cannot kick us). Some first time cows act like they have always been milked, and others throw temper tantrums. Some let their milk down, and others hold it back. Each is different, and each tames down differently. Sally about tore down my parlor (the post was already rotten), but she let her milk down like a pro—by the third day she didn’t kick anymore. Jenny kicked a little, but didn’t let her milk down at first. The sad thing about her is she only has two teats that work. Ella used to come in with no problem—she even came running in like her mother Ellie Mae when we called her. Then she calved! She came in fine the first day—but she was a powerful kicker, didn’t let her milk down, and was wild as all get out. Each day got harder and harder to bring her in. On Tuesday she refused—though we chased her around forever. Wednesday we had to pack for the Jacksonville delivery, so we didn’t even bother with her. Come Thursday I was determined to get her into the parlor to be milked. For 15 minutes Moises, Steve and I chased her around trying to coax her into the parlor with a bucket of alfalfa. Just as we got her in a customer arrived to pick up an order. Mom was busy with the “film crew”, and I had to finish milking Ella. I had only met this new customer through emails, and this was his first time on the farm. He came over to watch the milking process and Ella decided to act like a two year old—well, she really is one. She kicked the post, pooped all over me, and really didn’t want to be milked—welcome to the milking parlor! I did the best I could, and then I turned her lose and cleaned myself up so that I could take care of our customer. Come Saturday Mom finished milking before me and was heading inside when I asked if she could please help me get Ella in before she left. I mixed up the feed and then Mom went with Moises to help bring in Ella. America was standing at the gate waiting to come in. She is used to being first—since all she did was come in to eat, but now that I had to milk her, she had to be last so that I could put her milk in a tank all by itself and not use the milk claws on another cow because they would have colostrum in them. Mom said that America was getting pushy, so I decided to let her come on in—but Mom didn’t want to wait around to bring in Ella, so I made the unwise decision to bring her in too. America was in the stall that Ella uses, so I put Ella in the other one. America had never been milked before—so I knew that she would be a problem. Ella was used to having her right leg tied, and now I was going to tie her left leg instead. Sure enough—Ella pitched a fit and kicked, and kicked and kicked sending my strip out milk bucket flying. I finally got her hook up to the milking machine and started on America—who kicked and kicked, which caused Ella to kick some more kicking off her milking claws. Sitting between two kicking cows with things flying—I fell apart (too many late nights). Thankfully Mom wasn’t too far away and came back for moral support. We got the cows calmed down, and worked on getting them milked. By this time they decided to give us everything that they had. One would poop, and then the other would pee. While Moises was catching the pee from America, Mom frantically announced that Ella was pooping again. As soon as Moises finished catching Ella’s poop, America decided to poop again. We were all glad when that ordeal was over. Sunday morning Moises and I were both determined that I would milk one cow at a time. America was eager to come in, so I did her first. She acted like a pro. No kicking, let all her milk down, stood calmly and ate all her food. Then we brought in Ella—and she only needed a little bit of coaxing, she didn’t kick, and she let her milk down nicely. Whew! We should be home free until January when the next heifer calves. Now I just have to figure out how to get the ants out of my milking stool cushion. With all the rain, they moved in last night and while I milked this morning I kept getting bit. We were almost done milking before we realized that they were coming out of my seat. If it isn’t one thing, it is another.
Friday we did not have to process chickens, so we spent our morning in the garden. I still had the back of Papa’s truck full of dirt from Monday and he told Mom Friday morning that we needed to get it emptied so he could go get some feed. While Steve transferred the dirt from the truck to the garden beds, Mom and I weeded in the raised beds. After lunch we invited the Durmaz ladies over to learn how to make soap. The last time Mom attempted to make soap it flopped, and we were not sure if it was because of rancid tallow or old lye. So Friday morning Mom rendered some tallow, and to our delight when we made soap that afternoon it was a success. So I guess the lye is still good.
Saturday we sold a ram lamb, and the lady that bought him also wanted a tour of the garden. This is not the best time of the year to tour our garden—for about 75% of it is weeds. The other 25% is herbs, flowers and veggies. She was still inspired though. Later that afternoon we worked on paperwork and housework. I also got a chance to play the piano. After dinner I headed outside to get a picture of America and her little Patriot. I found America with no problem—but I didn’t see her calf anywhere. When I asked her where her calf was she began to moo. I walked down pasture looking, and she followed “mooing”. I saw no calf, so I turned around and headed to the other side, and America turned and followed, “mooing”. Still no calf, so I headed for the woods and America followed “mooing.” Just as I was fixing to give up, I saw a little brown pile up next to the fence by the wood shed. I went over to the calf and told America I had found him. She quickly came over and began licking him. I got my pictures just in time, for it began to rain and I barely got inside before it was pouring down rain.
We had a nice week, and I look forward to getting to spend more time in the garden this week. September 1st is Tuesday and it is time to change the dining room décor from summer to fall. Cooler temps are right around the corner!
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare