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Hi Everyone,
Happy 4th of July! How thankful I am for the freedoms that we still get to enjoy here in America—the land of Hope! Where else can people dream big, work hard and see their dreams come true. It was 245 years ago when Thomas Jefferson penned the words to the Declaration of Independence declaring: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” One of the signers of the Declaration was John Adams and after the congress voted to declare their independence from Great Britain; John Adams excitedly wrote his wife and said, “The Second Day of July 1776 will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival…It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.” The motion to become independent was made on July 2, and that is why Adams said that it would be the day to be celebrated, but since the Declaration was signed on the 4th, that is when we celebrate—just the way Adams said we should (picnics, parades, games and fireworks). Did you get to see any fireworks this weekend? Our neighbors put on a very good show Saturday night, and we were able to enjoy them from the comfort of our living room sofa.
Last week’s weather forecast was “rain” and this week’s weather forecast is “rain and wind.” It is getting pretty wet around here—and from time to time we get pretty wet too. Papa has come in soaked from doing his chores of moving the animals to new pastures and letting the chickens out to roam. Mom has found herself drenched twice because she was mowing when the rains came down all of a sudden. Once she was way out in the fields mowing down the grasses that the heifers had not eaten—and the rain came down so hard and quick that she was well drenched by the time she made it up to the house. Thankfully our lawn mowers are working this year, because with the rains the grasses are growing real fast. Every time the sun pops its head out—or the rains pause, someone is grabbing a lawn mower of some kind (push mower for the garden, riding mower for the yard and small pasture lots, and the big bush hog mower that the tractor pulls to mow the fields). On Monday the rains started falling very early in the day causing us to set up shop in the kitchen—canning potatoes and making pickles. Steve is our faithful potato peeler while Mom and I cut up the potatoes and get them into the jars and canner. Once Steve had a huge pile of potatoes peeled he noticed that the rain had stopped and he petitioned to be turned loose to mow in the garden. We gladly let him go and we continued packing potatoes and then we made the pickles. A few hours later Steve was one happy man—he had gotten the whole garden mowed!
It is truly calving season! By the middle of August we will have had 13 cows give birth. We have officially dried off the pregnant cows, and have started adding some back into the milking routine as they have already calved. Two weeks ago I was only milking 3 cows, and then Analee calved (a bull) and I added her to my side to milk since I had an empty milk tank. A few days later Rosepetal calved (a heifer--Rosetta), and she joined my “colostrum” team. Just when Analee’s calf was a week old, and her milk was in, Gail gave birth to a little bull. Analee is usually Mom’s cow to milk, so she took her back and I added Gail to my “colostrum” tank. Then today I was able to put Rosepetal in the milk tank, but I also added another cow to the “colostrum” tank. Ella would not come in yesterday to eat, and I figured out that she was in labor. Later that afternoon I had gone out to the milking parlor where I keep a calendar so that I can mark when a cow delivers, needs weaned, is in heat (being bred), or any other info that I do not want to forget to write down. Every few months I transfer the info to a paper calendar so that it is permanent. So, yesterday was the day to update my paper calendar. When I got finished transferring all the new birth dates I remembered that Ella had been in labor that morning—and I wanted to see what she had. I jumped in the golf-cart and headed down field to where the Jerseys were grazing. Ella met me at the fence with a look of “where’s my calf”. I walked all over the field and the calf was nowhere to be found. Mama cows are very good at finding their calves, and since Ella seemed determined that her calf was not in the field I opened the wires and let her out. She ran up the lane and to the milking parlor area. There in the midst of some tall thorny pigweed was a little brown Jersey calf. No one knew that she had given birth before the cows were sent back down field after milking. I lifted up the little calf’s leg and found it to be a heifer—and with a Tropical Storm heading our way we decided to name the calf after it, because the name fit just too well. The mama’s name is Ella, so why not name the calf “Elsa”? I helped little Elsa stand up and get out of the thorns, and it wasn’t long before she was enjoying a dinner of warm milk—straight from her mama.
On Thursday Steve said we were crazy! He said that it was impossible—and he was right! That didn’t stop us from attempting our “To Do List”. We had a farm tour at 10:00, curds and whey needed to be strained, the knives needed to be sharpened, we needed to buy ice, mow and weed eat around the poultry kitchen, print labels, buy gloves, go to the bank, organize the freezer and the walk in cooler, make sure that we had propane, clean up the poultry kitchen: hang all the onions and then move them to the FROG (finished room over garage), sweep up the floor of all the onion skins, wash the floors, rearrange the “junk” that had accumulated in there, wash down the tables and sinks, clean up the scalder, and to top it all off my friend Lydia came over to spend the afternoon with me. I will admit—not everything on the list got done that day, but if it pertained to being ready to process chickens it was done by noon on Friday. I really enjoyed my visit with Lydia. We spent most of our time in the kitchen cutting up and dehydrating the onions that would not last, and cooking dinner.
Friday we processed chickens. It was our first batch for the year, and they grew gigantic. They were so big that we actually had an argument as to how old they were. One said they were 8 weeks, and another said that they were 9 weeks. The paperwork agreed that they were 8 weeks old, but you could understand why the other thought that they were 9 weeks because the chickens weighed in from 6 to 8.5 pounds—most of them being 7 pound chickens! The family that helps us package eggs came to help us process the chickens—and they were GRAND help. Last year I was the only person who cut up the chickens, but this year I gladly turned that job over to their two teenage sons. Cutting up 6 and 7 pound chickens is a heavy job—especially when one side of the breast could weigh 1.5 pounds! The family also helps another farmer process chicken, so they already had experience, and that helped a lot. It didn’t take long for everyone to find their place and an assembly line to be formed. We were done by 4:00 with everything including packaging and cleanup. The one thing that slowed us down the most was trying to figure out which ones to cut up and which ones to package whole. Usually everything over 6 pounds we cut up, and the ones under 6 pounds we package whole. Out of 33 birds though there was only 2 birds under 6 pounds, the rest were over 6 pounds with three being over 8 pounds.
Well . . . finishing up this journal has been a little hard as I keep running to the window every time I hear a loud boom. At one point Mom and I even went and set out on the porch and watched fireworks go off all around us. We could see fireworks from about ten different locations. I hope that you have had a great 4th of July!
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare