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Hi Everyone,
Out in our courtyard the purple irises are blooming—not just one, but lots of them. These irises have a story though. One of our elderly customers shared them with us a few years ago telling us that years and years ago her father dug them up out of the woods in south Florida and planted them in his yard—and everywhere he moved he took them with him. As his daughters had homes of their own, they also carried the Blue Flag Iris with them to every house they lived. The irises multiply, and when you think you have too many—you share them with others, and that is just what they did. We have them growing in our garden, in our courtyard and in our rain tub—where the ducks love to swim. I do not believe that they bloomed at all the first year; last year a few bloomed and then this year they all exploded. That is pretty typical with plants: the first year they sleep, the second the creep, and the third they leap.
Papa had one goal to do on Monday—get the tires on the cattle trailer fixed. Two of the tires needed to be replaced so that we could deliver a cow on Friday. There was one complication though—the truck tire was flat, VERY FLAT! So, Papa had to get a new tire for the truck also. While he spent his day retiring, we spent our day weeding. First we took down the covers that we put over the white potatoes and the cantaloupe to protect them from the heavy frost last weekend. Thankfully everything survived—that is everything but the pasture grass that the cows and sheep had been eating. That turned brown, but after today’s inch of rain it is starting to turn green again. The cows will be very grateful for they are tired of hay, and although we have it available for them—they are not exactly eating it very fast. Typically in the winter the Jersey cows can eat a whole round bale in one day—which is almost equivalent to 20 square bales. We have fed out all of our round rolls, so now we are buying square bales. The cows will only eat about one or two square bales a day—where they were eating the equivalent of 20 bales a day. Hey, you cannot blame them. If you spent your winter eating dried vegetables you wouldn’t want to eat any more once the fresh ones became available.
After we uncovered the vegetables we covered up some weeds. We are turning one of our large garden areas into a cut flower garden—with the hopes of selling floral bouquets. The area just happens to have the most weeds. My idea was to just mow down the weeds, till it all under, top dress the rows with compost, and cover the rows with weed cloth and plant. Mom had a different idea though—especially after the tiller broke. Her plan was to cover the whole area (20 ft. x 64 ft.) with cardboard, then mark where the rows are supposed to be and fill the area with 6 inches of compost mix with the weed cloth on top of that. The walkways will be covered with woodchips. Pretty much we will just be making a whole new garden—on top of the old one. My thoughts were—IMPOSSIBLE! It would take tons of cardboard—but we had a stash in the barn, and a lot of compost. So, on Monday Steve, Mom and I took the cardboard from the barn and laid it out in that garden bed. To our dismay it only covered one row—and there are five rows in that garden bed. I came inside and started calling people to get cardboard. Most big stores told me that they recycle theirs, and I would have loved to have convinced them that I would gladly recycle the cardboard for them in my garden. Dollar General told me they had a lot of cardboard so I jumped in the van and headed down the road. Sure enough—they had cardboard, but I wouldn’t have called it a lot, and it was nothing more than flattened little boxes (like what diapers or drinks come in). I took a buggy full just to be nice, but I knew that it wasn’t what I wanted. I needed big sheets of cardboard like the kind that comes on top of pallets for bulk shipments. I called one of the local feed stores—and they told me that they recycled their cardboard. I called another local feed store and she told me that she would have a stash come Thursday—GREAT! I came home and after lunch we headed back to the garden to weed in another bed where I hope to plant yellow squash. Last year I bought a broadfork and I have to say that it is the best tool I have ever bought-it is well worth every dollar I spent on it. Steve broadforked the row, and then the weeds came up so very easy. In a few hours that row was 100% done, and we were so excited. That night my sister Samantha came over for dinner—and we had a nice visit, for we hadn’t seen her since last June.
On Tuesday another cow, Miss Ella, caused a little rodeo. Our workers asked Papa if they should video—but Papa said no. It always amazes me how cows can be coming in perfectly, then one day they get this bug in their ear that they should not come in. Ella had started giving us the run around, but as soon as she saw the way clear she always made a bee-line for her milking stall. Tuesday was a different story though—she ran off the opposite direction and ended up down pasture. I grabbed the big yellow rope, walked out and managed to loop it over her head. I then headed off to find Papa—I had the cow “caught”, but I had no strength to “reel” her in. Mom thought that we could all just direct her back to the milking area, but after a few minutes it was like water on a basketball court so I left and went looking for Papa. I found Papa inside, and I told him we needed help. So we jumped in the Gravely and headed out. Papa had to follow behind Ella for a little while until he could grab hold of the rope. When he did he managed to pull her over to the Gravely—but low and behold there was no hook on the back to hook the rope on. Papa let go of Ella and I ran up to the house to get the hook off of the golf-cart. Once the hook was in place, Papa caught Ella again and headed for the Gravely. I was standing beside the Gravely and all of a sudden Ella was running right at me. I turned to jump in the Gravely but I found myself standing in front of the braces that were between the front seat and the back seat and I couldn’t figure out which way to turn to get into a seat. Thankfully I did get into the front seat before the cow got near, and a little later Mom joined me in the front seat and I slid over to the passenger side so that she could drive. As we headed toward the milking parlor with the cow in “tow”, Ella decided to run ahead of us—but since she was tied to the back of the Gravely she came to a quick stop and slammed into me. I scooted over to the middle of the seat then. The rest of the way went uneventful, and as soon as Ella was in the stall she put her head in the trough and began eating like nothing had happened. This morning she ran into her stall very eager to eat and be milked. I only have two more weeks to milk her though—for then we have to dry her off because she is due to calve in June.
Speaking of calving—Miss Emma (Ella’s sister) was due to calve last Friday, but she ended up being a little over a week late and this morning she blessed us with the cutest brown and white little bull. He is adorable, and is so big that he looks like he is already two weeks old.
When Papa went to get feed on Monday I called the feed store to ask if they had any sheets of cardboard—and they did, but not a lot. Papa came home with what they could spare, and told me that just a few days before they had given around 1000 sheets to another local feed store. UGH! On Thursday I had to head to the feed store that was supposed to have a stash for me, and when I got there she told me that Papa had been in there that morning and picked up their one piece, but they had two more now. All I could think was “One piece—how does that equal a stash.” I gladly took the extra two, and left. I needed cardboard by the bookoodles, and I only knew of one place that had it—that feed store that was given 1000 pieces. Hmm! I knew one of the manager’s real well and decided to take my chances of seeing if I could at least get 100 sheets of cardboard (3 ft. x 4 ft.) I headed over and since the Bonnie plant man was unloading I decided that it would be best to buy something before I asked for something. While I was looking at the petunias (yes, I have no self-control when it comes to flowers), my friendly manager came out to take care of the Bonnie Plant man. When he saw me he said, “Hi friend,” and I told him that I needed help. He got me a box to put my flowers in, and then I told him that I needed more help than just a box. He asked what he could do and I told him, “I am putting in a large cut flower garden in the weediest section of the garden and I am having the hardest time finding sheets of cardboard.” He told me to pull around to the back and he would load me up. I paid for my flowers and drove around and he came out with a couple hundred pieces of cardboard and told the workers to load up as much as I wanted—and my eager little heart took all of it. I was on cloud nine!!!!!!!!! When I got home it was lunch time, but after lunch we headed to the garden to put out cardboard. Once we had one row covered with cardboard then I marked the row and Steve began to bring in wheelbarrow loads of the compost mix that Papa had got that morning. I was happy that Papa had picked us up 4 yards of the mix—but after 17 wheelbarrow loads there was only about half a yard left. A friend did the math for me and it looked like it was going to take 14 yards to cover the five rows with compost—so we called to have them deliver eleven more loads tomorrow. We decided that we will only do one row a day—because it is a lot of work for Steve to push those wheelbarrows. We have two weeks to accomplish it, so I think that it will be possible. On Friday I wanted to lay all the cardboard out so that if I had too much I could return the extra. It was very windy, so we had to put t-posts on top of the cardboard to hold it down. At first it looked like we had tons of cardboard, and then as we came down the last row the pile shrunk quickly and we realized that we had just enough. It rained some Friday night, and then was VERY WINDY on Saturday. I headed out to harvest some veggies for the Gainesville delivery and found that the cardboard was starting to blow away. The surrounding fence was containing it for now—but who knew if it would always contain it. I tried to reposition the t-posts, but I soon saw that it was useless. I came inside and checked the weather, and saw that a huge storm was coming. I was afraid that the cardboard would get too soggy if we left it outside and then the wheelbarrow would cut holes it in when we covered it with dirt. I didn’t want to waste one piece of my precious cardboard, so I talked Mom into going out with me to pick it all back up and put it in the barn. It only took us thirty minutes, and I was grateful. The rains were due to arrive at 3:00, and it was only 2:30 and Mom wanted to transplant some roses. We checked the weather map and the rains looked like they were a ways away, so we headed back to the garden to dig up three roses. When I turned 40 and my friends were throwing me a party, a friend and I planted three roses on the side of the garden shed. They bloom, and are alive—but they never get very big because they only get watered when it rains, and the weeds usually take over them completely. Mom decided to move them up to the courtyard where they can be watered and have no competition with weeds. We got the first one dug up, and had started on the third one when it began to rain—just lightly thankfully. By that time we were committed and there was no turning back. We finished digging them up and I pruned them while Mom dug the holes—in the rain. We got them all transplanted, and we also transplanted a blue sage, three lollipop verbena’s and three love-in-a-mist plants. Mom also planted some liatris corms. The courtyard is coming along nicely.
On Friday we were able to make our delivery of one of our heifer calves to Morningside Nature Center in Gainesville. It thankfully was not rainy—like it was the last time we took them a cow. Therefore, we got to tour around the place a little. It is set up like an old Florida cracker homestead. There is an old log home that was built in 1840, with an old barn, blacksmith shop, outhouses, smoke house, and gardens. Around the house are blueberry plants, and in the garden they had a heritage mustard growing. They even grow sugarcane and have sugar grinding days in the fall.
Well, it is bedtime now and I must clock out before my eyes close on me—until next week.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare