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Hi Everyone,
As last week began we all had one thing on our minds—Tropical Storm Elsa. We wondered if she would become a hurricane—of which she did for a few hours. We wondered where she would make land fall and what path she would take. From the very beginning the middle of the storm was projected to come right over us, but as the days and hours passed by, her course began to head more and more west. They were predicting that we would have steady 35 mph winds, with gusts up to 45 mph. A few weeks back we had a rain storm come through that had gusts of 35 mph and we almost lost our rose arbor in the backyard, our trellis in the front courtyard fell over and smashed some zinnias, some of the sunflowers in the garden were blown down, the cayenne peppers got a good beating and some stems were broken, and the plastic covering on the caterpillar garden tunnels was attempting to take flight—and that was just with a 35 mph gust of wind and the weatherman was predicting steady 35 mph winds. We also knew that if the storm did come right over us we could expect 65 mph winds—so we prepared.
First things first though, hurricane or no hurricane it was the 4th of July and that meant that it was time to plant sweet potatoes. I had planted some seed potatoes back in March and they were happily producing vines. I had originally planned on planting three 45 ft. long rows of sweet potatoes but they were still thick with weeds and would take a day or two or three to prepare. I knew that I only had a few hours to get some sweet potatoes planted—or I would have to give up for the year. Monday morning, while still in bed, I scanned over the garden with my mind’s eye. I was looking for a large raised bed that was empty—or easy to weed. I realized that in the middle section in the back near the wildflower section was a bed that I try to grow Mullein in, but Showy Pink Primrose and Evening Primrose always seem to take over. The nice thing about Evening Primrose is that it grows like a carpet and once you pull up the roots you actually clear a 3 foot section easily—and the thick carpet smothers out most of the other weeds. This bed was 6 feet wide, and 8 feet long and so I decided that it was my best bet to use for a sweet potato bed. Once we were done milking I headed to the garden to conquer the weeds, Steve bottled the milk, and Mom headed to the back 40 to mow behind the heifers (it makes for healthier grass). I grabbed the wheelbarrow, the broadfork, some gloves, a weed bucket (for invasive weeds), a cushion to kneel on, and a few hand tools. Once I arrived at my destination I began to work on the walkway around the bed, and then I began to pull the tall spindly weeds out of the bed. It was very hard to keep my mind focused on the bed in front of me because it is summer and the summer weeds grow by leaps and bounds and were taking over the garden. I just wanted to go all around pulling up weeds so that the flowers and bushes could shine forth in their beauty—but that will have to wait until another day. Once I had all the “big” weeds out of the bed, I started on the Evening Primrose—but the “carpet” was so thick that I could not manage to pick it up. While each plant may cover 3 square feet, there may be six other plants just as big in that 3 sq. ft. I was glad when Steve was done in the milk house and I could use his muscles. He is tall, and he is strong—and he just walked right up to that bed and reached over and grabbed a whole armful and pulled it up and placed it in the wheelbarrow. In about ten minutes—or less, the bed was cleared and all I had left to do is get out all the small weeds that were left behind. While I worked on the small weeds, Steve walked around removing as many of those tall summer weeds as he had time to remove. Shortly before 1:00 Papa came out to garden to round us up so that we could go help him round up the sheep. We had a family coming to buy 11 lambs—and the sheep were all at the south end of the property (and the sheep barn is at the north end). When we drove back through the yard we found our customers already here, so we all loaded into the Gravely and drove down to get a look at the sheep—to make sure they really wanted sheep! They had goats, but were tired of their antics (constantly getting out for there is no fence that can keep a goat in). Once we were given the okay then the family and I headed back up to the house to get their vehicle and a bucket of alfalfa pellets to help “bribe” the sheep into the barn. Papa ran all the way up the lane with the sheep following right behind him—that is until the sheep could finally hear Mom calling them and shaking the bucket. Then the sheep ran on past Papa, and he could walk up the rest of the way. An hour or so later, with shirts soaked with sweat, eleven sheep had been chosen and loaded into their trailer heading to a new home. We headed inside to get a quick lunch—it was 3:00 and I still had yogurt to make. It was 4:00 by the time we made it back to the garden to finish weeding so that we could broadfork the bed and plant the sweet potatoes—and we did accomplish it!
That was the last normal day on the farm for come Tuesday we had to do some of the things that we usually do on Wednesday, plus get ready for the storm. One of those things that everyone around seemed to be doing was mowing their lawn before the rains arrived and made it even taller and thicker. Thankfully Papa was able to get the lawn mowed; and Steve got the garden mowed. We were also thankful that our faithful egg packaging family was able to come and have an egg party—without us. It was such a blessing, for in the past when life has gotten so hectic and we couldn’t get to the eggs, we would end up with 14 buckets to package the next week instead of just 7. They did such a great job, and when I entered the milk house the next morning I found everything in perfect order. In the meantime we had porches to empty of their furniture, and tarps to put up on the sides of the milking parlor to keep the rain off the cows while we milked them (yes we milk cows during hurricanes). We checked the weather a million times trying to find the correct projected wind speed for our area—because the caterpillar tunnel plastic covers needed to come down if the wind was going to be too fierce, but they could stay up if the wind was going to be mild. We just couldn’t find any straight answers though—so Papa said, “If we are going to do something in error, would we rather error in leaving the plastic up or error in taking the plastic down?” We decided to go ahead and take the plastic down. While we were in the garden I took some time to secure the cayenne pepper plants so that they would not get windblown. I also had to rearrange the plants, seed trays and pots in the greenhouse so that nothing could blow away. Another thing we had to do was move all the animals to high ground and the milk cows to the pasture beside the milking parlor—no one wants to walk a mile to bring in the cows when it is pouring down rain.
When we woke up Wednesday morning the storm was beginning to rage—well actually it never did rage. If the weatherman had not told us that there was a tropical storm in the area I am not sure that we would have known it. We decided to quickly eat breakfast and head outside to do our chores before the worst of it arrived. Our workers came in about 35 minutes late—because if it was going to be bad we had all agreed that they should stay home and we would tackle the farm chores in the storm by ourselves. It was nice that they were able to come in and help. All the chores were done by 11:15 and they were on their way back home before the heavier winds arrived. We did receive 5 inches of rain from 5:00 in the morning to 1:00 in the afternoon. The wind ranged from 10 to 18 mph, with a short period of wind gusts up to 22 mph. The storm had moved so far west that we really did not get the brunt of it. We did take advantage of a rainy day though and spent our afternoon watching an old movie, “The Yearling”. It is a story based on life right here in Florida back in the late 1800’s. As the storm came through in the movie and they had to harvest all their crops in the rain and mud, I could sympathize as they had lost so much due to the rain causing the vegetables to mold and rot. Yet, I knew full well that over 100 years ago when your crops failed you very likely could face starvation because you couldn’t just run to the local grocery store and buy what you needed. Today when our sweet potatoes are eaten by rats or worms, or the carrots and garlic rot in the ground, or the worms eat all the squash plants we moan and groan—but spend the next year buying those items at the grocery store.
It was a little after 5:00 when our relaxing time came to an end, and it was time for the evening chores and time to cook dinner (chicken noodle soup was on the menu for the rainy day). An hour or so later when we were just fixing to serve up dinner Mom looked out the window and saw that the milk cows had grown tired of their pasture and some had climbed over a fence into an area where the weeds are 4 and 5 ft. tall and really too thick to walk through. Part of the area housed our drain field to our septic, and since we just had it fixed the fence to the yard was still lying on the ground—which meant that the cows were coming into the yard. We pulled on our boots and raincoats and headed outside to round up cows. We tried to send them back the way they came—but a cow will only step over a fence to get out, and never to get back in and especially when you are looking. We forged our way through the briars (blackberries), thorns (thorny pigweed), and all the other woody and bushy weeds in order to shoo the cows through the panel pens, out into the lane and back into the pasture. It wasn’t long before they hopped another fence and Papa had to move them to a brand new pasture so that we didn’t have to worry about them getting out while we slept that night. While we were out in the lane Papa showed us the aftermath of Tropical Storm Elsa. While everything was still standing—even the sunflowers and zinnias, there were a few problems from the storm. The first one we found was that the cellar under the milk house had several inches of water in it—happens after a lot of rain, the second problem was that the lane around the pond was flooded making the pond even bigger and preventing us from driving around the pond to get to the southern pastures. The third problem was what Papa wanted to show us—the lane that goes down the center of our property had been turned into a raging river, and once the rain stopped and the water quit travelling, deep trenches were left behind leaving water pipes exposed and the road impassible. I posted a video of it on our Facebook page. Bringing the cows in to be milked and taking them back out to graze has been quite a challenge as Papa has had to move them east and west through the pastures around fences, up hills, down hills, into one field and then into another as he snakes their way from one end of the farm to the other—it used to be a straight shot!
Thursday dawned like a Wednesday, but it was hard to comprehend. We usually make deliveries on Wednesday’s but with the storm we postponed it to Thursday. I almost kept forgetting that I had to pack and do receipts. Once Papa was on his way to Jacksonville Mom and I worked on raising the tarps on my side of the milking parlor. Working in a closed in box during a storm is one thing, but once the sun comes back out and the humidity begins to rise—I want some air flow. Then we spent some time putting things back where they belonged and cleaning more water out of the cellar.
The next two days were spent weeding, putting things back, cleaning for company, and harvesting cucumbers, okra and pumpkins out of the garden. To my surprise the okra did outgrow the pumpkin vines and since I planted them near the fence I can just reach over and pick the okra without having to go inside the garden bed and dodge all the pumpkin vines which have solidly covered the whole area. Fifteen of the Seminole Pumpkins were ready so I harvested them and have them curing in the sun for a few weeks—well, that is when the sun shines.
I hope that you survived the storm well, and that you didn’t have any damage from it.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare