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Hi Everyone,
Today is the day that we are to be extra “Thankful” for our fathers. You know—without a father we would not exist. I am very thankful for my father—of whom I call Papa. My Papa is a rock, and I am amazed at how wise he is. I am thankful that since I am still single, that my Papa gladly continues to be my protector and provider. If I have a need or a want it is my Papa who does the research to find the very best for me—and I will say that what he finds always far exceeds my expectations. Over the years my Papa has worn many hats. When I was born he was wearing a navy hat, and then after his four years he exchanged that hat for a scholar hat. When his college years were over he donned a hard hat as he scaled the phosphate pits as the geologist at a phosphate mine. Papa spent the next 35 years as a geologist, but the last 15 years of that job he slowly began to wear another hat when he wasn’t at work—that of a farmer. When Papa retired seven years ago he became a full time farmer—and every morning you will find him riding around the farm on his big green John Deere tractor. My favorite “hat” of all though, is that of being my Papa! Happy Father’s Day!
Papa is the steady in our family, and I like that. He doesn’t change his mind on a dime, he doesn’t chase the rainbows, and he isn’t quick to make changes. Mom on the other hand is the visionary who adds creativity and beauty to our lives. Poor Papa—if Mom isn’t coming up with some new idea, then I am—and right now the “To Do List” is crazily long. We have so many projects going, with time lines shrinking by the day. I love to grow onions—and we harvested over 300 of them. The problem is where to store them so that they last. If it is too hot they sprout, too cold they get spongy. We want to build an above ground “root cellar”—but cost and time are against us. The onions are in our Poultry kitchen with a big fan blowing on them, but we have one or two weeks left until we start processing chickens again—and we cannot have the onions in there with all the moisture, nor can we have the onion skins blowing all over the place. Therefore—we have just a few days to move the onions and clean up the building. We also have the same amount of time to get the garden weeded where we plan on planting sweet potatoes. We won’t talk about all the other little projects that we have going—or just the daily and weekly chores that must get done (like milking, feeding, rotating the animals, packaging eggs, weeding the gardens, mowing the grass now that the rains have arrived, put up new fences and replacing old fences—just to name a few).
Last Monday we worked in the garden. Mom mowed the grass pathways, Steve weeded, and I planted iron clay peas and more okra. I am determined to garden wisely this year. I am not having 100% success—but every little bit helps. In the caterpillar tunnels we pulled up all the kale, collards, Swiss chard (and weeds) and I planted the beds with a cover crop of iron clay peas. Two of the beds I planted in okra—because the pumpkins are taking over my other okra bed. By Thursday those peas were up, and the okra was up on Saturday. One of the beds I planted three tomato plants in, and I transplanted a few marigolds in between them along with some basil seeds.
Tuesday found me hanging out in the kitchen. I had a large order for salves, and while I had most of them, I needed a few extra ones—plus I needed to restock the empty shelves. Mom was sick with a cold, and my thumb is still giving me problems so neither one of us attended the egg party, and O how thankful we were for a family who is so faithful to show up every week to help with the eggs. This week we were doubly grateful for them. I have pretty much determined that my thumb isn’t broke—but that the tendons have been stretched. Butchering chickens, pulling weeds, having a cow knock me down, and falling off a sidewalk while holding a door knob, and extra rubbing and pulling on it trying to figure out what was wrong with it have all added up to one sore thumb. The cure is—don’t use it, rest it, relax. Is that easy—not on your life! There are chickens to process, weeds to pull, meals to cook, clothes to fold and iron—and these all use those little muscles that go to my thumb. I can say that I am most thankful that it doesn’t affect my piano playing!
When the egg party was over on Tuesday the winds began to blow and the heavens let loose. In about an hour we had 1.35 inches of rain and the wind speed had peaked at 35 mph. We thought that Steve had gone home, but toward the end of the storm he popped into the house—soak and wet. He had been trying to get the brooder house ready for the next batch of chickens (150 layer pullets). The bedding was in one building, and the brooder was in another. He said that the wind was so bad that sometimes he could hardly get the doors open. After the rain stopped we ventured outside to see the damage. In the front courtyard our pyramid trellis fell over and smashed quite a few of our white zinnia plants. Most of them were salvageable, but we did end up with a big bouquet of white zinnias. Out in the garden some sunflowers toppled over—and one landed on the cayenne peppers. They survived just fine though. Everything else looked just fine, even though many of the plants were standing on their heads.
Thursday Papa and I ran errands in town. I needed to get more iron clay peas—because one pound was supposed to cover 1000 square feet. I only had 600 square feet, but I ran out of my pound of peas before I finished all 600 square feet. I also had to mail the salves and we had to pick up our new laying hen chicks from the Post Office. We have two houses of egg layers, and every year we replace one of them. Therefore, each house gets new chickens every two years. That night we watched a very good movie on regenerative farming called “Kiss the Ground”. It is based on the research of Allan Savory who once thought that the grasslands in Africa were turning into desert because there were too many elephants—so he petitioned the government and had 40,000 elephants killed. To his horror this caused the deserts to spread faster. It was through this mistake that he realized that grazing actually reverses deserts—the problem was not too many animals, but not enough animals. Allan Savory now has the Savory Institute where he teaches people how to properly graze the land in order to build the soil and grow more grass.
Saturday found Mom and me enjoying the great outdoors. Mom worked in the courtyard so that she could get some more flowers transplanted in. I worked in the greenhouse planting more seeds. I started more zinnias, gomphrena, lettuce, amaranth and cosmos. I am trying to see how long I can grow lettuce—it doesn’t like heat, but I am going to try anyway.
Well, the day is done, and I am too, so until next week I shall be . . .
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare