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Hi Everyone,
MUD SEASON
February arrived last Monday, and I am a firm believer that spring begins February 1st. Now it might be chillier than a Florida February is supposed to be, and all the flowering bushes and trees may not be flowering yet—but I promise you it is SPRING! You know how I know—because the birds are singing extra sweetly lately, the fields are getting greener and greener, and the dirt is turning to mud. I am sure that it is unaffectionately called Mud Season, and in some places it is called the Fifth Season. Wikipedia describes Mud Season as “a period in late winter and early spring when dirt paths and roads become muddy from melting snow and rain. Mud season occurs in places where the ground freezes in winter and thaws in spring. Dirt roads and paths become muddy because the deeply frozen ground thaws from the surface down as the air temperature warms above freezing.” By that definition it is easy to assume that it only happens up north where the ground freezes—but I will tell you that it also happens in the south where there is a lot of clay, the grasses are not growing quickly, and the rainy season begins. If I had been in the milking parlor this morning with a camera the picture for this journal just might have been of Mom doing a split with one foot on the concrete and the other sinking in the mud while she frantically tried to catch her balance and pull herself out of the mud. We have had over an inch of rain in the last few days, and the places that are travelled the most, and see the most wear and tear, are suffering.
MOO-ving on with the New
We are in the process of having a new milking parlor built, and the rain can get in the way of building. When you are demolishing an old building it is easier to do it on hard ground not sinking sand. The positive side is that with all the standing water the contractors can get a good idea of where the water collects and use their engineering brains to figure out how to get it to drain away from the parlor. It just will not be very helpful when it comes time to remove all the muck so that they can fill it in with sand in order to pour a concrete slab for the milking area—no more rotting floors. The new milking parlor is coming along nicely. They started putting it together last Monday. The outside walls were welded together in their shop at their house, but the rest is being assembled on our concrete in front of our garage. Once the parlors are completely built, they will be dragged out to pasture where we will temporarily move into the new milking parlor while they demolish the old parlor, pour a big concrete slab, and then move the new parlor onto the concrete. Sounds pretty easy—but reality is a different story. The new parlor is being built out of 3 inch galvanized pipe—no more rotten walls. The pipes have to be welded together, and for now the walls are standing in metal skids so that it can be dragged out to pasture. Once the walls were measured to the right spacing, they welded a small piece of metal to them in order to hold them in place. Well, they learned the hard way not to ask me any building questions. As they were positioning the walls according to the plan measurements, the center aisle came out bigger than the center aisle in the old milking parlor. I told them since the old parlor was 31 inches, that 39 inches would be too big—so they unscrewed the wooden rafters that were holding them together, repositioned the outer walls, then welded the inner and outer walls in place. The next morning Mom took a look and realized that something was wrong. While the entrance to the middle aisle in the old milking parlor was 31 inches, once you got past the 4 x 4 posts it opened up to 39 inches—oops! I felt so bad that they had to cut the welded metal apart, and put it all back the way it was—according to the plans. I shall stick with gardening, sewing and cooking, and I shall observe the building from a distance. Mom told them that if they have any questions—ask her! By Wednesday all the kinks were getting worked out and progress was happening smoothly. When I went inside at noon they were working on the first parlor, but when I came back outside around 4:00 I was surprised to find two parlors. Our parlor is made so that we can milk four cows at a time—two on one side and two on the other. There is a lane between the two, and Mom milks on the east side and I milk on the west side—so that I can watch the sun come up on Sunday mornings. Our videographer has been on duty catching as much as he can of the new build. He is hoping to put together a “Rags to Riches” video of our milking parlor renovation.
Walking Fertilizer’s
We were able to spend quite a bit of time in the garden last week—and could have spent more but the rains arrived. We have weeded, mulched, pruned and manured. We were a little late, but the asparagus is finally weeded, cut down, and manured. Now we have to mulch it. The roses are all pruned—well except for the ones at the house. Pruning roses is always a challenge—they have thorns that grab a hold of you and refuse to let you go. I had pruned one set of roses and piled the canes in the walkway. A few days later when Steve and I were putting manure around all the roses I got myself all tangled up in those rose canes. Steve had to help me out for those thorns had grabbed hold and the whole pile was connected to my dress. The benefit of having cows is that they produce piles of fertilizer. On Tuesday Steve and I drove around the pastures filling the back end of the Gravely with cow manure and then we fertilized the asparagus and roses with it.
Buried Treasure
If you could bury a piece of gold and come back three months later and dig it up to find a four to eight fold increase—you would bury lots of gold wouldn’t you! When it comes to gardening that is exactly what you are doing. Not all seeds multiply, but many do. Carrot, onion, beet, radish, and turnip seeds all produce just one carrot, onion, beet, radish, or turnip. Yet, when they go to seed each plant will produce enough seeds to make many, many more. There are those crops though that when you plant a seed you can get a hundred fold increase. One kernel of corn will produce three ears of corn, and those ears are full of around 800 more kernels each. That means that from one corn plant you could grow 2,400 more corn plants that would produce 7,200 ears of corn. On Monday we dug six inch holes and dropped in little round balls that were covered in eyes, and then we covered them up. In a few weeks green leaves should start to break through the soil growing bigger and bigger over the next three months. Then come May we should be able to dig them up and if all goes well each plant should give us 4 to 8 new round balls that we can make mashed potatoes, French fries, potato soup and baked potatoes with.
Harvest Time
I may be late, but late is better than never. I planted carrots back in September—Rainbow carrots. Those seeds that I planted produced orange, red, yellow, white and purple carrots. We have been eating on them since December—one here, and a few there. I found out that I was not fond of the white or the purple carrots. The purple ones turned your cooking “dirty,” and the white ones reminded me of a turnip instead of a carrot. The white ones also taste best cooked. I will say that the white ones created an unplanned prank on my brother who hates carrots. When the family came over for dinner Christmas Eve, we served a garden fresh salad—with sliced rainbow carrots. My brother thought that the white carrots were radishes and ate one—and couldn’t understand why he didn’t like the flavor. He! He! On Monday I finally got around to harvesting the rest of the carrots, and we had some big ones. Some of the carrots had a diameter of an inch and a half, and they were a good 18 inches long. Some carrots were fatter, and shorter—and some were typical carrot size. After I cleaned them all up we packed them in a tote layered with sand, and placed them in the walk-in cooler. I also harvested the rest of the cabbage and the dried out bok choy seed pods.
Sold!
A week ago I advertised our old chickens on craigslist and within 30 minutes the phone was ringing. Most were sold the first three days, and then the first person who came returned on Thursday night to buy the rest of them. We were truly blessed to be able to sell them all so quickly. When they just wanted a few chickens they came in the middle of the day and we were able to catch their 8 to 10 that they wanted. Most of the chickens were sold in the dark—after the chickens had gone to bed and it was easy to just pick them up off the roost and pass them over to their new owner. Now we have to repair the roof and clean out the bedding to get it ready for the new chickens which are ready to be moved to pasture.
Admitting Defeat
Have you ever had to admit defeat? Sometimes you have done everything that you possibly can, but success is nowhere in the horizon. For months we have been working to tame a few new heifers. Some have been a success, but one has not. Anita was an eager eater when she was the “head heifer,” but when we brought her into the milk herd she refused to even come near a feed bucket. It took months before she even approached the milking parlor. Then I stuck a bucket of alfalfa pellets out for her and she gladly gobbled them up. A few months later and we actually got her into the milking parlor. Then a few months later we tied her in—and that was the end of her. Cows are pregnant for nine months, and for nine months we have worked with Anita to no avail. Last Wednesday she calved and gave birth to an adorable little bull calf which our worker Moises has big dreams of raising up to be a nice big bull. On Thursday we needed to milk Anita—because a freshened cow makes more milk than her calf can drink. It took some ropes and some strong men (Papa and Steve), but we got Anita into the milking parlor. Once Anita was in, we tied her in, tied back her leg, and milked her—and she did perfectly fine. She never fought or kicked, but was very calm and actually let her milk down—until she had eaten all the food that she wanted and was ready to leave. Come Friday I was hoping she would come in easier—but no. We did get her up to the parlor, and with Steve and Moises’ help we did get her into the milking parlor—but it didn’t go that smoothly and Steve lost some skin in the process. I had forgotten to get an empty milk tank to milk her into, and since the cows are now spending an hour a day in the winter green grass fields—all my milk tanks were full. By the time we got a tank emptied, Anita had eaten all the alfalfa that she wanted and she was ready to leave. I did my best to clean her up, but with all her dancing around I could not get the milk claws to latch on. I soon had to admit defeat and let Anita out. On Saturday we couldn’t even get her up to the milking parlor. Could it be that we are going to have to sell Anita because we cannot break her to come in. The sad part is that she is a sweet cow—she is not mean at all, but she is too afraid.
The Rains came down—and we hibernated!
Starting Friday the sky turned grey and the clouds began to leak. We really didn’t feel like milking or doing chores—but rain or shine the animals need fed and the cows need milked. When our outside chores were done we headed inside. I worked on organizing our seed collection. I turned an old desk into a garden filing cabinet. All the seeds are in one drawer, and the catalogs and garden info are in another drawer. On top of the desk I have pens, calendars and planting charts so that I can “plan” what needs to be done and when. Saturday afternoon Mom and I took some time to relax and then we worked on laundry, balancing bank books, balancing customer order sheets with the QuickBooks receipts, vacuuming, practicing my piano, cleaning out the fridge, and cooking dinner. When Papa came in for the evening he got Mom to give him a haircut—I guess it will be a few more months before he looks like Sam Elliot again. For years perfect strangers have come up to Papa and told him that he looks so familiar—and in the end they always say that he resembles Sam Elliot. We laugh—and now when they come up and tell him that he looks familiar, Papa will ask if Sam Elliot rings a bell. Yes, yes, yes they say.
Time has passed again and it is time to close and go to bed so that we can be ready to start a new week tomorrow.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare