397
Hi Everyone,
We’re pilgrims on a journey, and while many people have lived before us, no one has walked the path that we must walk, no one has gone into the future and come back to tell us how it will all turn out. Webster’s 1828 dictionary defines a pilgrim as “one that has only a temporary residence on earth.” The nice thing is that while we may not know what lies around the corner, we can be thankful that God has promised to never leave us nor forsake us. When I think back to “the” Pilgrims that arrived in 1620 to a New World I am amazed that they were so willing to face an unknown world and do their best to make a living from nothing. There were no houses already built, no grocery stores, no gardens already planted and ready to harvest from—they had to start from scratch. The worst part was that they arrived in November which meant that winter was fast approaching and they would not be able to even plant a garden until the following spring. Only half of the people survived that first winter (because of a lack of decent food and shelter), but come spring they were finally able to plant gardens, hunt and build houses. It is no wonder that those who survived that first year had much to be thankful about when the second winter faced them and they were more prepared. I am sure that they had many trials—failures and successes. Today we face our own trials—and in some things we shall find success and in some things we shall face failure. We must persevere, learn from our mistakes, glean wisdom from others, and press on. I will admit that with life the way it is in the world around us right now, that I find it hard to “see” five, ten or fifteen years down the road—but as Lina Sandell, the author of the hymn Day by Day once said, “We are given one day at a time, and for each day, new grace, new strength, new help.”
“Day by Day”
Day by day, and with each passing moment,
Strength I find to meet my trials here;
Trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment,
I’ve no cause for worry or for fear.
He, whose heart is kind beyond all measure,
Gives unto each day what He deems best,
Lovingly its part of pain and pleasure,
Mingling toil with peace and rest.
Every day the Lord Himself is near me,
With a special mercy for each hour;
All my cares He fain would bear and cheer me,
He whose name is Counsellor and Pow’r.
The protection of His child and treasure
Is a charge that on Himself He laid;
“As thy days, thy strength shall be in measure,”
This the pledge to me He made.
Help me then, in every tribulation,
So to trust Thy promises, O Lord,
That I lose not faith’s sweet consolation,
Offered me within Thy holy Word.
Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble meeting,
E’er to take, as from a father’s hand,
One by one, the days, the moments fleeting,
Till with Christ the Lord I stand.
Here on the farm we have definitely been taking life one day at a time—because that is all we can do. There are so many irons in the fire right now—with a million distractions that it is next to impossible to get anything done. For the last two weeks I have had one goal—get the broccoli transplanted to the garden (along with the Swiss chard, sage, lettuce and chamomile). I also need to pot-up some flowers, plant some parsley and some more lettuce—but I had many problems.
1. I was out of dirt for potting up.
2. I was out of compost to plant the broccoli.
3. The rabbits were eating the cabbage, lettuce and kale in the garden—so I was afraid to plant more lettuce or even broccoli since the neighbor lady told me that the rabbits had eaten all the leaves off of her broccoli plants.
4. I attempted to put chicken wire around the garden beds—but only had enough to go 16 feet before the “already used roll” came to an end.
5. I needed to buy chicken wire to keep the rabbits out of the garden.
6. There was “Never Enough Thyme” in any day to get everything done that needed to be done.
Planting was not the only thing on the menu of things that needed to be done. We still need a place to put firewood. The shed has been moved to the new location—but the firewood rack still needs to be built. The first two posts have been buried in the ground, and one bottom brace has been added to them—but then we had to wait until Papa could buy more wood and posts before the rack could be finished. Now we have to find the time!
Not only have we had plants and firewood on our mind—we have had the winter preparation of the caterpillar tunnels. For the last month we have been working on getting the plastic roof back on the caterpillar tunnels—the deadline is Tuesday when we could possibly get a frost. While frost makes some greens sweeter tasting—their leaves tend to get frost burn on some of the leaf tips which causes us to have to cull them off the plants. While the chickens do not mind feasting on the scrumptious green leaves, it is money lost since we could have sold them to grace someone’s dinner table. We have had a few hurdles to jump in before we can put the plastic on the roof. Mom wanted to secure the sides of the plastic with channels and wiggle wire this year—instead of rope. Therefore, Mom and Steve have spent countless hours attaching metal pipes and the channels to the sides of the tunnels. To make matters worse they ran out of channels before they could finish the last side, which meant we had to order more and wait until they arrived. Then one of the tunnels needed a wall built on one end (we got the other wall built last year)—but we had to wait until the door and wood could be bought before it could be built.
On Monday we had all the supplies that we needed so Mom and Steve were able to work on the caterpillar tunnels, while Papa had to get the new turkey cones ready for processing, and then he had to plant some winter grass seed (oats and barley). I needed groceries, some onion starts and some supplies to make my seed planting soil mix. So after lunch I headed to town—I was determined to do what I could do to help get things accomplished. While I was hoping that Papa would be able to go to town and get the dirt, he did not have the time, so Tuesday after milking I headed back to town in the truck to get a load of compost mix and some perlite (because to my dismay the store was out of vermiculite, and to buy it online cost and arm and a leg). When I got home I mixed up the seed starting mix in our BIG orange wheelbarrow, and then I jumped in the truck and headed to the garden—but I met Mom and Steve coming in for lunch so I had to turn around. Papa was busy pressure washing the shed we had moved out of the woods so that it could be sealed before the firewood rack could be built. After lunch I had yogurt to make and eggs to package. Mom and Steve went back to work on the caterpillar tunnel while I helped the “egg crew” package eggs. By the time we finished the eggs my piano student had arrived and it was time for me to head inside and teach piano lessons. It was 4:30 by the time I was able to head back to the garden. I was tired, I realized that it was late—but the broccoli needed desperately to be transplanted into the garden. I bought fast growing broccoli seeds and I had already ruined the first planting and I didn’t want to lose the second planting. When I arrived at the garden Steve was ready to start wheel barrowing loads of compost into the rows where I planned on planting the broccoli—but I still needed to measure and mark the rows. To my dismay the tape measure was at the house (it was supposed to be in the garden shed, but the house tape measure and the Gravely tape measure have all disappeared). It was at this point that I had to admit defeat—I had done everything that I possibly could do in order to get the broccoli planted by Tuesday night, but it just wasn’t possible. Not only did I not have the tape measure, but I was greatly worried about planting the tender, juicy broccoli plants in an area where the rabbits could eat them up in one night. So I gave up! In the end it was the best thing that I could have done at the time—it was now 4:45 and I still had to harvest bok choy for the Jacksonville delivery. By the time I got back to the house it was 5:00 and it was time for Steve to go home; Mom and Papa to separate the calves, lock up the ducks and turkeys and gather the eggs; and it was time for me to cook dinner (but the kitchen still needed to be cleaned up from lunch). So really, I really didn’t have time to measure the rows, let Steve fill them with compost, broadfork and level the rows, mark the spots, and plant the broccoli.
While I was having a problem believing that God would keep the rabbits out of the broccoli if I just prayed about it—God greatly encouraged me Wednesday night by showing me that He really does care about the little things in life. It was 4:00 and we had to leave a little after 5:00 to go pick up our Azure order. Papa was in Jacksonville delivering our farm goods to our customers, and Mom was busy—but since it would be dark by the time we got home the ducks and turkeys needed to be locked up before we left. The other problem was that the calves needed to be separated before we left also. While it would have been easier to just leave the calves on their mamas, I knew that I would not be able to make yogurt and kefir if I didn’t separate the calves. The calves and the turkeys usually require two people to deal with them—but I only had me. Thankfully the ducks are trained to go to bed when you holler “Ducks to bed”—you just have to be patient because waddling doesn’t happen too fast. The ducks followed me from the yard out to the pasture and to their house—and since I only feed them at night they went through the door really quick. Then I headed to the turkeys. There were 46 of them, and there were three pens and I had to get about 15 to 16 in each pen, and without the second person it is very easy to play “all around the turkey pen the farmer chased the turkey.” I told the Lord that I didn’t have any help but “Him,” and I had very limited amount of time. When I got to the pens each pen was already half way full, so I herded up a batch of turkeys and directed them into the first pen—and they went right in and I closed the door. Then I herded up another batch toward the second pen—and they went right in. The last batch went into their pen just as easy, and with them all locked up and watered in about ten minutes I was praising the Lord and on my way to the calves. The turkeys don’t usually go that easy with two people! I set up the panel pens for the calves and headed down to the bottom 40 to round up 10 energetic and free-spirited calves. Many times when we round up the calves we have to walk up and down the field a good 3 to 5 times, and sometimes we have to bring the whole herd down the lane, then separate the calves and run the cows back to their field. I didn’t have time to do that—and the Lord knew it. I only had to walk half way up the field to get behind the last calf and shoo it down the hill. All the calves started walking toward the opening, then one bolted to the other side of the field and I thought that I would for sure lose them—but they turned around and ran out the opening. To my delight only one cow went out with them, and she didn’t go very far past the gate so it was quick and easy to turn her around and put her back in the field before I got back in the golf-cart and followed the calves up the lane to the panel pens. The whole thing (ducks, turkeys and calves) took me 45 minutes and I was back inside with plenty of time to spare before we needed to leave—and I was very thankful that God had been so faithful to help me in time of need.
We had three goals on Thursday—get the wall built on the tunnel; get things prepped for the turkey processing on Friday (which included making cookies); and the broccoli, Swiss card, lettuce, sage and chamomile transplanted. Yet there was a customer who needed to pick up a live turkey, and we had a farm tour scheduled for the afternoon. It was well after noon before we could start in the garden. I got the rows all measured—but Steve was too busy to dump compost for me. I thought that I could do it myself—but after one wheel barrow load I gave up. I didn’t have the beds weeded for the Swiss chard and lettuce so I decided to weed them. I planted marigolds in the tunnels in the summer and they are now humongous plants in full bloom—canary yellow and burnt orange. I really need to plant the fall crops where they are growing but I just cannot make myself pull them up. While I was working in the East tunnel (Mom and Steve were working on the West tunnel), I noticed that half of the cabbages were eaten to the ground. We have never had rabbits eat our garden—and may I say that they are quite pesky. We could use a few hungry coyotes that only like to eat rabbits. Seeing the rabbit damage made me very fearful to plant the broccoli. So after lunch I spent an hour or so attaching chicken wire to the side walls. Steve was finally able to fill the rows with compost and it was around 5:00 when I could get around to broadforking and leveling the dirt. It was going on 6:00 when we finally started transplanting the broccoli, and it was getting dark fast when we finished. Papa arrived with the trailer in order to gather up the turkeys and move them up to the poultry kitchen (processing building). I headed down field to separate the calves. If separating the calves by yourself in broad daylight is hard, separating the calves after dark is even harder no matter how many people you have—but again I was all alone. In the dark you cannot use a flashlight or headlights to separate the calves because the light shines a shadow in front of the calves and it scares them and they run backwards. By the time I arrived at the cow field I knew that I only had about 5 minutes left to see anything. Once again I asked the Lord to help me, and once again He was faithful to help in time of need. I walked up the field and started the calves in the right direction. It got a little chaotic toward the opening and some cows started running back up hill—but the calves were all running right out the gate (with no cows following them) and they continued running on up the lane. I was done in the same amount of time that it took Mom and Papa to round up all 46 turkeys. It was close to 7:00 by the time we arrived inside and thankfully the meat was already cooked, so I just had to cook a few vegetables. I dreamed of baking cookies after dinner—but reality hit and bedtime was more important. The broccoli was transplanted into the garden though—the rest of the plants we had to put back into the greenhouse.
I dreamed of baking cookies first thing Friday morning—but by the time I had the milking equipment set up, breakfast eaten, dishes done, the brisket in the oven and everything else assembled for the dinner we would eat at 2:00 it was time to milk the cows. Before we finished milking, the Tavernari’s had arrived to set up the poultry kitchen for butchering turkeys. By 10:00 our Pastor and two of his sons arrived to help also. Shortly before we began our friend Mrs. Sue arrived to fix dinner for us. I had the brisket in the oven and it would be done around 1:30. I had sweet potatoes in the instant pot, a crock-pot for green beans and a crock-pot for white potatoes. Mrs. Sue had to make a salad and get the area all set up to eat and everything turned on at the right time so that we could eat at 2:00. Three years ago we only had half of the turkeys processed by 2:00, and it took us until 11:00 at night to get the other half butchered and all of them bagged and the building cleaned up. Last year we had all of the turkeys butchered by 2:00, but we still had to clean the gizzards and package them. This year we had less help than last year—but the Tavernari’s had helped us process chickens all year so they were very skilled in knowing what to do. Papa and one young man gathered the turkeys, our Pastor and another young man ran the scalder and the plucker. Usually we put two people per bird at the eviscerating table—and last year we had four teams. This year the 10 year old and I teamed up to remove the head, neck and tail gland, then the birds were passed down the table and the Mom and the 18 year old each gutted a turkey (they came in groups of two). One of the young men separated out the liver, gizzard and heart, and another young man cleaned the gizzards. Mom was quality control getting the turkeys rinsed and into their ice bath. We were completely done processing the turkeys, cleaning the gizzards and packaging the birds and getting them to the cooler about ten minutes before 2:00! We had made really good timing. We broke for lunch, and then all we had to do was clean up the room and we were done by 4:00. As to the cookies—well I never did get around to baking any, but it turned out okay because the Tavernari’s brought a pecan pie and we supplied ice cream to go on top.
Saturday was spent taking care of customers as they arrived to pick up their turkeys—and in one case to pick out a cow. You may have heard of the Gold Rush in 1849, when people flocked to California by the wagon loads. Well, due to the current situation in California people are now flocking out of California and last week alone we had two families here who have just moved to Florida and are setting up a homestead—they both left the city and moved to the country. Talk about a culture change—from L.A. to a little bitty town called Callahan (I think it has a Post Office), and from neighbors a stone’s throw away to 11 and 20 acres. One family wants sheep and the other wants a milk cow. They have a lot to learn—but they are excited to begin the journey. They are pilgrims on a journey!
Fall is quickly wrapping itself up, but there is still much to be done before winter truly sets in and before spring arrives next year. The garden needs put to bed: weeded and mulched, and the fall leaves need to be gathered. There is still time to plant a fall garden so that you can enjoy the fruit of your labors. The other day I came across this article by Happy DIY Home and if you would like some great fall flower ideas, a list of what vegetables you can grow now and encouragement on how to prepare your garden for the winter you can check it out at https://happydiyhome.com/fall-garden/.
Happy gardening—and I hope that you have a very HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare