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Hi Everyone,
There is never a dull moment around here—and last week had enough adventure to last for a while. I have been having some allergic reactions—I do not know exactly what to—which has been causing me to have struggles with my breathing, and when my breathing is off, my energy level is not up to par. Once in a blue moon it means that I just sit around and relax—but most of the time it just means that I exchange “Outside: To Do List’s” with “Inside: To Do Lists”. That is just what happened on Monday—which really wasn’t a bad problem because I got sidetracked in the garden on Saturday and never did accomplish the things that I needed to do inside. I spent most of the morning milking the sweet faced Jersey cows. Each cow has a different personality and some are laid back and some are high strung. The most mannerly of all is Dijon the bull. He is not pushy, and he doesn’t barge in like Ana. I will say though that Ana is learning some manners. Her bull calf, Mr. Red, got old enough to be weaned and we were able to sell him for a breeding bull. Mr. Red was drinking Ana dry, so I always let her come in first since we just had to feed her and not milk her—and she always barged in full speed ahead. Once there was a cow in her way and she ducked her head and barged through—spinning the other cow all around because the other cow’s leg was stuck on Ana’s neck. Talk about rude and unmannerly! When we sold Mr. Red it meant that now we had to milk Ana—which meant that she couldn’t be first since Mom doesn’t come out to milk until after I have all the eaters fed. It took a week of swinging a stick in Ana’s face for her to realize that she couldn’t be first, and now she stands back waiting to be called. Milking really is a relaxing job—except when the cows have decided to look like pigs (were too lazy to get up and poo, or didn’t make sure their bed was clean grass before they laid down) and when they decide to poop all over the milking parlor causing us extra work. Anyway, once the milking was done I headed inside to make kombucha, work on the orders, put cayenne peppers on the dehydrator and put away the ones that were on the dehydrator, freeze the okra that I had harvested and package the okra that I had already frozen—I wash them, trim off the ends, lay them flat on a cookie sheet and place them in the freezer. Once they are frozen then I package them and vacuum seal them and put them back in the freezer. Mom and Steve mowed the garden and Papa drove the tractor through the fields with the manure spreader following close behind him—it was full and needed to be emptied. Around 3:30 Papa headed to pick up more beef from the butcher, and then we spent until 6:00 organizing it in the freezer.
That night after dinner Papa headed out to lock up the chickens for the night and to give the dogs their “bedtime” doggie biscuits. Mom and I headed to get our showers. When Papa came inside he heard me screaming, “What happened to the water!!!!!!!!!” Mom had finished her shower and didn’t know what I was talking about—but I had not finished my shower yet and the water just disappeared. Papa went back out into the dark night to see what he could find, and when he came back inside the verdict was: “We shall not have water before tomorrow, and hopefully it will not take a few days to fix the well.” Did I say earlier that Dijon, the bull, was not pushy? Well, let me rephrase that—from time to time he does like to push on things. We have 3 ft. by 8 ft. metal panels surrounding our well in one of the pastures. For 23 years those panels have worked perfectly, but somehow Dijon managed to open them up and then he found the biggest scratching post a bull could possibly find—the tank to the well. He rubbed and rubbed until he knocked it over and broke some pipes. Papa managed to tidy everything up a little and string some hotwire to keep the cows out of the area—and then we retired for the night. The next morning at 6:30 Papa headed to town to buy the supplies he needed to fix the well tank. When he got home Mom and I had breakfast ready. When our oatmeal bowls were empty and our tummies were full Papa headed out to fix the well, Mom and Steve headed out to move the heifers and some chickens, and I headed to the milk house to set up all the milking equipment. It wasn’t long before Papa was back up and heading back to town to buy more parts. When I was done with the milking equipment I headed back inside. I couldn’t do the dishes—because we had no water. I couldn’t empty the dishwasher that was loaded with last night’s dinner dishes—because the water turned off before the dishwasher was done. I couldn’t start milking the cows—because I had no water to clean up their udders or wash my hands between cows. I thought about vacuuming the house—but with my breathing problems I figured it wouldn’t be a good idea. So I worked on orders and played the piano. I called Penny at 9:33 to tell her not to come to work before 11:30—usually she arrives at 10:00 in order to get things ready for the bottling of the milk and washing of the equipment. It was 10:00 before we finally had running water again, and we didn’t finish milking the cows until noon. Mom decided that she would bottle the milk, Steve would bottle the kefir, and I headed inside to see how many of the breakfast dishes I could cram into the already full dishwasher. By the time we got everything done we had just enough time to eat lunch before it was 2:00 and time for an egg packaging party. When we were done I headed to the garden to harvest some bok choy and some of the Roselle calyces for the Jacksonville delivery on Wednesday.
When I woke up Wednesday morning all was well—but that didn’t last for long. At 7:00 I headed over to the milk house to set up the milking equipment while Mom cooked breakfast. Every day we make a batch of kefir for the turkeys, and the first thing I do every morning is to scoop out some of the kefir into a bowl so that we can use it to inoculate that day’s gallon of milk. When I went to set the full bowl of kefir (close to a quart) down on the table—do you really want to know what happened? The bowl fell out of my hand and spilt all over the corner of the table, down the wall, all over two five gallon buckets of cow minerals, across the floor, on my shoes, my feet, and my dress. May I say that I screamed when the bowl tipped and screamed and moaned in horror as the bowl fell off the table and splattered kefir everywhere? It was a total disaster! I stood there standing for a little bit—taking it all in. Then I grabbed a wet rag and cleaned up my shoes, my feet and my dress. Then I headed back inside to put up my hair that I had just washed—long hair and a liquid kefir mess all over the floor were not going to mix. When I came back I started with the floor (the walkway part). Then I cleaned up the mess on the table, and pulled it away from the wall so that I could start on the wall. I made sure that the lids were securely on the buckets and then I placed them in the sink to rinse them off. I washed down the walls, and scrubbed the floor over and over and over. At one point I went to stand up to rinse out my rag and crashed the back of my head into the corner of the big stainless steel sink—causing me to bite my tongue at the same time. Okay—so I didn’t cry over spilt kefir, but I was reaching my limit. It was after 7:30, I was getting exhausted, I was hungry, my breathing was starting to act up—and now my head hurt too! Yes, I sat there and shed a few tears. I pulled myself together and got my rag rinsed out and continued with my cleanup. Our workers have a saying, “No one can do it like Tiare!”—They mean that no one can make a catastrophe as big as I can. At 8:00 Steve arrived to work and I hadn’t even begun to set up the milking equipment so that he could carry it to the milking parlor. The first thing out of his mouth as he saw the table pulled into the middle of the room, all the totes on top of the table—that are usually under the table, and me washing things was, “Are you doing some spring cleaning?” Ugh! Then he asked if “I had made a mess”, and “did he smell milk”? I was horrified! I had been scrubbing the floor, the totes, the buckets and the walls for over 30 minutes and he could still smell the kefir. Papa also came by to check on me—breakfast was over and he was heading out to do his chores. I decided that I had better set up the milking equipment before I did anything else. Then I gave everything another scrubbing and headed inside. It wasn’t long before I realized that the milk smell was not in the building—but was wafting through the open door from the garbage can outside where I had thrown all the paper towels that I had used to mop up the spilt kefir. Steve politely offered to “take out the garbage” and I was much obliged. It was 8:15 when I finally headed inside. My breakfast was cold, and I had a bathroom to clean before I headed out to milk the cows. I put my breakfast of eggs and oatmeal in the oven to warm up and I headed to clean my bathroom (company was coming). It was almost 9:00 when I arrived in the kitchen to eat my now warm breakfast—and I decided to read some Hymn Histories while I ate in order to relax my poor stressed mind. Mom was done with the dishes and had cleaned the hall bathroom and her bathroom and was now ready to head to the milking parlor to milk the cows. Usually I milk my first two cows, and bring in four eaters on Mom’s side before she comes out. I talked Mom into being me until I could get outside—in other words she would milk my first two cows. By the time I finished my breakfast Mom had finished milking America and Jam and I got out there just as America and Jam were finished eating their breakfast and were heading back out to pasture. The rest of the day went much smoother—but the busyness didn’t slow down until after we had the orders packed, the receipts done and Papa on his way to deliver the farm goods to Jacksonville. Then I sat down beside my students at the piano and understood how my piano teacher years ago could fall asleep while we were playing the piano. My students are advanced enough that they do not make noise, but sweet melodies that calm and relax.
Nothing went wrong Thursday morning—matter-of-factly it went perfectly. We had not pulled the calves away from their mamas the night before—so I had no cows to milk. I had about 50 broccoli plants that needed to be potted up so I ran back and forth from the milking parlor to the greenhouse—they are only about twenty feet apart. I would put feed in the troughs, bring in two cows and head over to the greenhouse to pot up all the kale that I could before I was called. When mom would holler that a cow was leaving I would head back to the parlor to swap out cows. If a cow was known for pooping in the parlor then I would hang around a little longer to catch any messes. Once the milking was all done and the milk all bottle Steve and I headed to the garden to weed and harvest. One of the 16 ft. x 48 ft. beds was very overgrown with weeds and we found out that this is the perfect season for pulling up summer weeds—they are tired of growing and have started to die back and are very easy to pull up out of the ground (that is all except the dog fennel and the Spanish needle). We worked hard and fast and by 1:00 we had accomplished two-thirds of the bed. After lunch I harvested the cayenne and okra, while Steve finished up the last bit of the bed. We were done by 3:45 and we had taken off to the sink hole 3 big loads of weeds. Steve then headed up to help Mom rake up the grass that she had mowed down behind the heifers, and I headed inside to make yogurt and cook dinner.
I spent Friday organizing in my bathroom and in the pantry and laundry room. Then I made some brownies and my brothers came over for dinner. One turned 38 on the 12th, and the other turned 40 on the 17th. We had a nice visit.
Saturday we milked and packed the Gainesville order and then I relaxed some. The Crane’s came over to finish painting our milking parlor now that it is October and the paint will dry better without the humidity. The paint was dry in a day—but back in the summer it took a week. I harvested some more cayenne and okra and planted a few more multiplier onions—they are having the hardest time growing this year (thanks to the weeds). It didn’t take long for the boys to finish painting the parlor, so Mom asked them to paint the trim around the front door. Papa had gotten it all sanded a few weeks back, but Mom just couldn’t get around to painting it. That didn’t take them very long either and Mom was tickled pink that the door trim was finally painted before October was over.
The last week of October is here, and it looks like it will be a very interesting one. I hope that you have a blessed week.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare