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Hi Everyone,
There is no such thing as a free lunch . . . and around here that applies to breakfast and dinner to! While we do not have to buy milk, meat, eggs, and most of our vegetables at the grocery store, those things do not appear on our table without a price. Our days are not spent sitting on the sofa eating bonbons and reading Fairy Tales, but are spent outside working hard—ever heard the saying, “Will work for Food?" We never get to choose what weather we work in either, and sometimes it is not in the most perfect weather—and this week is a perfect example of that.
We worked in the rain many days last week—some because we had to, and some because we wanted to. Tonight was no exception! Papa had prayer meeting at church, so I had to do the evening chores. At 4:00 the weather was perfect, but I thought that it was too early to separate the calves for the night—so I decided to do the breakfast and lunch dishes. It was close to 5:00 when I headed outside and I do believe that as soon as I opened the door to head outside it started to rain. Ugh! I could have taken the truck, but it doesn’t have four-wheel drive—and with all the rain there is a lot of mud. While I might have stayed dryer in the truck, I hate climbing in and out of the truck—and there are a lot of gates. So, I took the Gravely (it would have been nicer if it had a windshield), but most of the work I had to do required walking anyway. I grabbed the dog food for Jill and Yasha, the ducks food, alfalfa hay and pellets for the calves, and a bucket with a lid to get the eggs—and keep them dry. After going through two gates and feeding the ducks, I stopped to feed Jill—who had abandoned her chickens and joined the heifers. I opened all the wires so that she could get back into the chicken field—and then I stood in her dog house and called her in for dinner. Then I headed down to feed Yasha—who was very smart and was sleeping in her dog house. On my way back up the lane I stopped at the barn to set up the gate panels to direct the calves into the barn instead of down the lane to the pond. I fed them, gave them fresh water—and realized that I forget to bring them some Bermuda hay. I decided to go ahead and bring in the calves—which meant walking out in the pasture to shoo them in. Then I headed back to the barn to get a few flakes of hay for the calves, and I also realized that I forgot to get a square bale of hay for the heifers. That thing must weigh about 50 pounds—but I did manage to get it in the back of the Gravely. I headed back through the gates and stopped at the heifers’ barn to give them hay. I carried the hay bale to the barn door and set it down to open the door. When I got the door open I was surprised to see that they had not eaten the bale of hay that Papa had given them this morning. I did not want to take the hay bale back to the hay barn, so I just set it in the back of the hay ring. Then I headed back to the calves to give them their hay. The last thing I had to do was collect the eggs. I decided to walk through the field to get the eggs at the first house—because I didn’t want to open the wires and drive through (it is easier to step over them). Then I headed to the last chicken house and was very grateful that I am not afraid of chickens—for all but two of the twelve nesting boxes had chickens sitting on eggs. If I had a go-pro on my head I could have had a pretty good video of those chickens fluffing up at me and squawking at the top of their lungs. I just reached in and picked up each chicken and took them out so that I could gather the eggs in peace—and only one pecked me. When all the eggs were gathered I headed back outside and was amazed to find that the rain had practically quit. It had started when I began, and it quit when I was done. If I had been Papa I would have checked the weather radar before I went outside—for Papa will not work in the rain if there is any way around it.
The milking parlor is approximately 90% done—and getting it there required us to start our days very early. While we get up every morning at 6:00 anyway, usually we get dressed, make our beds and spend time reading our Bibles. Mom and Papa head to the kitchen to work on breakfast at 7:00, and I head to the milk house to put all the milking equipment together. We eat breakfast around 7:30, and then at 8:00 Papa heads out to do his chores and we start milking around 8:30. Since our contractors show up to work between 8:00 and 8:30 we needed to be done milking the cows by then so that they could get to work—cows do not appreciate hammering and welding while they are being milked. Therefore, when we got up at 6:00 we headed outside to milk the cows. We were done anywhere from 8:30 to 9:00, and ate breakfast anywhere from 9:00 to 10:00—depending on how cooperative the cows were that day. Once breakfast was over we did the dishes, a little bit of paperwork, and then we headed to the garden. The nice thing about the “new” schedule was that we got to spend a lot more time in the garden, and this was very helpful since we had one week to get five rows cardboarded, covered with 6 inches of compost, topped with weed cloth and the walkways mulched. Last Thursday we got the first row done, and since it required 17 wheel barrow loads of compost we decided to do no more than one a day—we didn’t want to kill our worker, Steve. On Monday though, Steve had a different idea—he wanted to do as many as he could. So we got one done before lunch, and one done after lunch. On Tuesday we covered the rows with weed cloth and mulched the walkways. After lunch it was time for an egg party, but by 2:00 our helpers had not showed up—instead we got a phone call saying that they had a flat tire and needed us to come help. They were only a few miles from our house, so while Steve and Mom started on the eggs, Papa and I headed out to find the stranded helpers. Papa decided that it would be best if he and the oldest son stayed behind and changed the tire and I bring the rest of the family back to the farm in the van—they all thought that it was a great idea for it was hot sitting on the side of the road. By the time the eggs were done, Steve was so exhausted that he clocked out early for the day—Mom and I were pretty exhausted too so we didn’t mind one bit. No one really wanted to go back and work in the garden. I did manage to get a little rest, but then I did have to go back to the garden to harvest veggies for the Jacksonville delivery and to pick some sweet pea flowers for a friend. The sweet peas are so gorgeous, and I believe that this is only the second time I have ever grown them. We are in love with them, and have decided that next year we need 50 feet of sweet peas, instead of two feet.
Since we milked so early on Wednesday that gave Mom and Steve extra time to go and work in the garden—which allowed them to get one more row done. Usually there is no time for gardening on Wednesday’s, so it was a blessing to be able to get some gardening done. I was busy packing the orders and teaching piano lessons. Our washing machine broke Tuesday morning—thankfully on the last spin out, so we just had to hang the sopping wet clothes on the clothesline instead of putting them in the dryer. We only have enough cow towels to last us two days, and with Tuesday being egg day we had used all the towels and rags on the shelf. We expected to have to spend our Wednesday afternoon at the laundry mat, because when the repair man came by that morning to fix our washing machine he didn’t have the part to fix it (the belt was broke, and because we have a Speed Queen the repair man didn’t have the part since things do not usually break on Speed Queen’s). He said that he hoped to have the part by Friday—but that delivery wasn’t very dependable anymore. I was sharing our dilemma with my piano students’ mother and she suggested that we come and do our laundry at her house—or better yet, why don’t I send our laundry home with her and they would do it and we could pick it up latter. I didn’t feel like all my laundry needed to be done, but the cows towels really needed to be washed. I figured that the rest could wait until Friday—and we made sure to pray that the delivery of the part would be in a timely manner so that the repair man could still have time to come and fix our washing machine before Friday was over. It was a blessing to go over and pick up our washed, dried and even folded towels later that evening.
Thursday we were able to finish the last of the garden rows before lunch. Then it looked like it was going to rain so we let Steve go home early, and then instead of having a short day on Friday he would have a short Thursday and a long Friday. Papa had spent his morning moving sheep, but they didn’t stay in their new field so after lunch Papa went out to put up some hot-wire netting and to round the sheep back up. While we were rounding up the sheep I saw a white truck in the yard—and I had high hopes. When we were all done and heading back to the house I saw the person get into the truck and I knew that we had a fixed washing machine. The Lord had heard our prayers and had answered them better than we had asked—it was fixed 24 hours sooner than we thought. I spent the rest of the day washing our laundry and relaxing between loads.
Friday was a rainy day—oops! Steve works 40 hours every week—but he lacked many hours due to exhaustion one day and expected rain another day, so he had to work Friday. It thankfully didn’t start to rain until 12:30—and then it was very light. The first project was to sell sheep. Papa rounded up all the sheep into the sheep barn and at 12:15 two people showed up to get four lambs. Then another customer showed up to get eleven lambs. Papa delivered the first four after the people picked them up, which left Mom to catch the next eleven. These two customers had made appointments to buy sheep, and after they left we turned the sheep back out to pasture. We started to walk up to the house when we noticed about four Spanish people walking our way—they had a birthday party and some friends told them we had sheep. We told them that we had just turned them loose, and we were not sure that we could round them back up—but they needed a sheep that day. I told Mom that we should give it a try. I grabbed a bucket of feed and we set everything back up to funnel them into the barn. We then headed out into the lush green field to call the sheep back into the barn. Fat chance! Thankfully Papa got home about that time, and Mom was able to get an old bottle fed sheep (Smokey) to stick her head in the bucket of alfalfa. Once she did that, then all the other sheep wanted to know what she had—and they all followed Mom to the barn to get to whatever was in that bucket. That is why it is good to have a lead sheep that was a bottle baby. We caught a sheep up for the people and then we let the sheep loose again. Steve, Mom and I then headed to the garden. When the rain got heavy, Steve weeded in the tunnels. I was determined to get some areas ready to plant, and Mom was determined to get the fence line around the cut-flower bed all weeded. In the end—Mom and I were soaked and dirty, but Steve was dry and dirty.
Come Saturday I will have to admit I was very, very tired—and was so thankful to be able to sleep in until 7:00. It was 11:30 by the time we finished milking, and then we had to pack the order and harvest some veggies for the Gainesville order. After lunch we relaxed for a little and then Mom headed outside to transplant a bleeding heart vine into the courtyard. I needed to get my ironing done, I needed to bottle the kombucha, I wanted to take a nap—but I had this grand desire to get the last of the vegetables planted for the spring garden. My body told me to wait until Monday when Steve could help me by doing the heavy work of moving the wheel barrow loads of mushroom compost and composted chicken manure. My mind told me that it was going to rain and that I needed to get those seeds in the ground before the rains arrived. Therefore, I headed to the garden. I got a wheel barrow load of chicken compost and took it around to the 24 holes and put a shovel full in every whole. Then I got a wheel barrow load of compost and took it around to the 24 holes and put a shovel full in every hole. Then I took another wheel barrow load to finish off the 24 holes and to top dress a bed where I plan to grow some Hyacinth bean vine. Once all the holes were filled then I covered them back over with the dirt I dug out and then I planted seeds—12 holes for Lemon squash, 12 holes for butternut squash, and I planted 12 holes of yellow squash in 12 holes that I had prepared a few days before. Then I planted some broom corn and replanted the spots where the acorn squash didn’t come up. It was 3:45 when I was done—and I was done! I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the sofa, as the rain came down outside.
We only have one thing left to plant in the garden—all the cut-flower starts that I have growing in the green house. The first thing we have to do is burn holes in the weed cloth so that we have a way to get them into the dirt—but burning holes is a scary thing! I will tell you how it goes next week.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare