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Hi Everyone,
Psalm 90:9 . . . we spend our years as a tale that is told.
Everyone enjoys a good storybook, and everyone knows that the best storybooks have pictures—so this week I will tell you the story of our week with pictures!
First off—HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! Without mothers not a one of us would be here. Here on the farm we have mothers everywhere—we have a mama cat, a mama goose, lots of mama sheep and it seems like every few weeks another cow is giving birth to another calf. Last week Bella gave birth to a little bull. Last fall all our calves were heifers, but ever since January we have had nothing but bulls.
Ana, doing what mothers do best—nurture their young’uns.
There is a very special mother on our farm—and she is mine! I am very thankful for my mother and all the years of love that she poured into my life. She taught me in the way that I should go: she taught me to love the Lord Jesus Christ with all my heart; she taught me to obey; she taught me how to sew, cook and clean house; she taught me how to garden, can, and milk a cow; she gave me a love for flowers and a desire to make things pretty—not just practical. Yes, you can grow rows of corn and beans, but it is so much prettier if there are sunflowers at the end of the corn rows, and zinnias growing in rows beside the green beans. Why have gardens with straight rows, when you can have a garden with paths that make a maze? Mom knows how to dream big, and she knows how to make those dreams come true—I am still learning these skills. I can never seem to dream big enough, and when my dreams begin to look impossible I have a tendency to give up. Mom on the other hand doesn’t let a mountain of weeds get in the way of her having a vegetable plot or a bunch of flowers.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. . . a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;”
Last September we started our fall garden. I started leeks and cabbage by seed in seed trays in the greenhouse. Then come December we transplanted those leeks to the garden, and probably around October we transplanted the cabbage to the garden. In November we planted 203 Vidalia onion starts in the garden, and started 3 seed trays of yellow onions by seed in the greenhouse. Come January we transplanted 264 yellow onions into the garden. Also in November I planted three rows of carrots, and come February we planted 54 white potatoes. Everything was planted over a six month period of time, but each crop grew at different speeds and would you believe it—all of them were ready for harvest last Monday. I dug up all the Vidalia onions and the carrots before lunch—but I had to do some cooking after lunch so I didn’t get to go back to the garden. Mom and Steve were able to harvest the cabbages, leeks, and potatoes—a whole wheel barrow full. The carrots were put in a tub in the cooler until Tuesday when we had more time to cut the tops off and tuck them into their bed of sand. The leeks were trimmed and placed in bags in the cooler, and the onions were laid out to cure on the floor in the empty brooder house. I spent every spare moment on Tuesday cleaning up the onions—cutting off the roots, and pulling off the sandy or deformed skins. While I trimmed and cleaned, Mom and Steve tore apart the greenhouse so that they could have the onion drying racks back—we had been using them as shelves in the green house. With all the onions we had that needed to be cured, we needed our racks back. On Tuesday some of the yellow onions were harvested, but late Wednesday evening Mom headed to the garden and harvested all the rest. When I went outside to help her hang all the onions on the drying racks I asked her if she had any idea how many onions there were. She did not, so I informed her that we had planted 264! I was really excited about the harvest and the size of the onions. This is our third attempt to grow yellow onions—our first two flopped by growing only stems and no bulbs. This time the yellow onions had bulbs the size of golf balls up to the size of soft balls. Mom is looking forward to braiding the onions together. The Vidalia onions grew as big as saucers—and are so sweet!
We are definitely seeing more than double! We have been blessed with our onion harvest.
Monday night my sister Nichole and her family came over along with my sister Samantha so that we could celebrate Papa’s 70th birthday and my sister Samantha’s birthday—they actually share the same day, just 34 years apart. While Mom and Steve harvested the rest of the vegetables, I made an angel food cake, coleslaw, and some baked beans. My brother-in-law brought over his smoker and he cooked a few chickens, and some onions, white potatoes and sweet potatoes. Then my sister made some potato salad and dinner was complete. A few weeks ago I made an angel food cake for some dinner guests that we had—but I used cold duck eggs and I thought that the egg whites would never become stiff and the cake didn’t rise very well. This time I used warm duck eggs and the batter just about overflowed the pan—it was much fluffier. We had strawberries to go on top of the cake, but some said that we just had to have whipped cream on top. Mom grabbed a gallon of milk and poked a hole in the bottom of it and drained out all the skim milk. She poured the cream into a bowl and added maple syrup and took the immersion blender to it—and made butter. Oops! We used the homemade butter for our potatoes, and Mom grabbed a pint of thick cream from when we creamed the other day and added some milk and maple syrup to it and made yummy whipped cream. Success!
My 70 year old cowboy Papa, and our Jersey bull, Dijon!
For the last week we have been seeing quite a bit of wildlife here on the farm. On Wednesday my piano student and I saw a wild turkey in our back field as we headed out to harvest some greens for the delivery. Then we have seen a bunny rabbit hoping around the duck house going back and forth from the duck house to the garden. The most interesting critter by far has been a skunk though. Mom is pretty sure that it is one of the triplets that were born in the elephant grass in our back yard a few years back—it has lots of white on it.
We wondered why the chicken house had a unique perfume!
Wednesday afternoon Mom and I spent cleaning up the green house. Since we took out the shelves (drying racks) we had to go and buy new shelving units to go in the green house. We bought two tall sets of shelves and then broke them down to two sets of shelves each. That gave us ten shelves which more than doubled our space. The two drying racks worked great, but I have to admit I did fill them up to full capacity last fall and I had to construct some makeshift shelves—and I still ran out of room with no more space to put another plant. I was beginning to dream of a bigger green house. With the new shelves I now have space for 40 seed trays—and I only own half that many right now. I guess I now have room to grow.
An organized greenhouse with plenty of room—for now!
On Thursday the Crane Contracting Crew returned from their vacation to finish up some little details on the milking parlor. On Thursday they put our shelves in our feed rooms—which is so nice! It is much easier to mix feed on a shelf than on the floor bent over. On Friday they finished the electrical—so we do not have to use an extension cord anymore.
A neat and tidy feed room—thanks to some shelves!
For many years Mom and I have dreamed of selling flowers—when they are growing in the garden you want to share. This year we decided to get serious about it and planted a huge garden for cut flowers. Those flowers are still “babies,” but the cottage garden is full of all kinds of flowers. We sold our first two floral bouquets for Mother’s Day. I had dreamed of putting gladiolas in the bouquets but alas some bug or the heat affected them drastically and although they haven’t fully opened they look as if they are totally spent. The gladiolas might have flopped, but there are sunflowers, gaillardias, Black-eyed Susan, coreopsis, Shasta daisies, poppies, snapdragons, and baby’s breath. Saturday afternoon Mom and I headed to town to look for flower vases. We knew that we wanted something country, simple, and rustic. We ended up with 6” clear glass milk bottles (why not, our biggest seller is milk)? Then we wrapped the neck of the jar in twine and tied a brown tag with our logo on it. Once we got home it was time to cook dinner—so I cooked and Mom headed to the garden to harvest flowers. When she came inside she had a nice assortment of flowers and after dinner she made two floral arrangements. We are selling the bouquets for $15 apiece, and the first two bouquets were a success. One man bought a bouquet for his grandmother, and the other bought one for his wife. Each arrangement was different. One had more of a variety of flowers and the other was much simpler but heavy on the sunflowers. To our delight the sunflower one went to the wife whose favorite flowers are sunflowers—and we didn’t even know!
Special bouquets for that special person!
Well the day has come to a close, and the night is creeping upon us. I hope that you have a wonderful week.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare