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Hi Everyone,
“Ye are blessed of the LORD which made heaven and earth.” Psalm 115:15
Sometimes in life it is hard to see the blessing amidst the chaos. In the Bible we read in Romans 8:28 “that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” It isn’t always easy to spot that silver lining. I was talking with one of my Aunts this past week and was telling her about some of the “trials” we had experienced this week and she kept saying, “That was a blessing” and “you were so blessed”. It changed my outlook for the rest of the week. So I thought I would share with you how our week went—and the blessings that we received.
Two weeks ago I was crowned the “Poop Queen” of the milking parlor—thankfully the rest of that week did not go as bad. Come this Monday though—Mom stole my title, and if you are granted the “Crown” according to how much of you is covered in manure then I think that she earned it more than I did. She had just finished milking Gail—one of our very calm cows, when all of a sudden Gail started kicking. We tie one of their legs back so that we do not get kicked in the head—but Gail had no problem kicking backwards. The milking parlor frame is made of heavy duty metal pipes and Gail was giving it all she had. Mom tried to calm her down, but to no avail. Gail was getting stressed out and when a cow gets stressed—they poop, and poop, and poop, and each time it is looser than the last time. Mom tried to get the rope off of Gail’s leg—but it was too dangerous. Soon Gail managed to unhook the rope from the post, but now the rope was swinging all around every time Gail kicked. We stood back, then Mom tried to push Gail over so that she had to stand on the leg that she was kicking with—but Mom wasn’t strong enough. All the men folk were out to pasture doing the morning chores. Gail’s hoof was bleeding by now, but she refused to stop kicking. I ran for a crook so that we could hopefully manage to hook the rope and slip it off of her leg. Thankfully that worked, and Mom was very grateful that I had thought about the crook. The parlor was covered in manure and blood, and Mom was covered in manure from head to toe. Gail finally calmed down, and we were able to get her out of the parlor—but she walked with a major limp. We decided to add her to the “hospital” paddock where America and Jenny’s calf spend their days because they cannot handle the heat. The paddock in right beside the milking parlor—therefore, Gail doesn’t have far to walk. The next day Gail came in like nothing had happened—which was a blessing since sometimes a traumatic experience can cause an animal to not want to enter that area again. We never did figure out what made Gail go wild on us—for it isn’t her personality. We were blessed also that none of us got hurt—poop washes off, but broken bones take time to heal.
Later that day we had to catch a steer to take to the butcher. Papa had 16 buckets of skim milk to spread out, so I suggested that Mom, Steve and I round up the steer while Papa went round and round on the tractor. Mom disagreed saying that we needed Papa’s help—and I told her that four girls used to run this farm while Papa worked, so surely two girls and a man could catch a steer. Mom still disagreed. So we all headed outside to round up the steer. Papa walked to the corrals and Mom and Steve hooked the van up to the cattle trailer. The Gravely is broke, so I got in the golf-cart—but it made a horrible noise when I backed up so I parked it, grabbed a stick and took off walking. May I say that walking through grass that is over your knees is not the easiest thing in the world, but we are blessed to have lots of grass for it gives the animals plenty to eat and it is easier to walk through than deep mud. I met Papa down pasture and then Steve and Mom joined us. I opened the hotwires, Mom and Steve stood off to the side to encourage the cows to come toward the opening, while Papa herded the cows toward the opening—he knows his cows well, and they know him. Once we had two bulls and a cow through the opening I closed the wires. Then we followed the cows through one two acre field, up the beach sand lane, and to the corral. Papa had everything set up so nicely that they just kept walking and soon found themselves confined behind cattle panels. We picked out the steer we wanted, let out the cow and the other steer and Papa headed back down the lane to put them back in the field. Mom backed the trailer up to the gate and Steve attempted to load the steer—ha! Ha! We did manage to get him in the chute, but we were blessed that Papa showed back up just in time to give his expertise to hook the gates just right and encourage the steer to load up onto the trailer. Yes, we were blessed that Papa was there to help. When we got back up to the house, Steve got in the truck to use it to move the duck house (because as I said, the gravely is broke)—but the truck wouldn’t start. No gravely, No golf-cart, and now no farm truck! We teased Steve that he was going to have to do chores the way my brothers did when we first moved here—with the wheelbarrow. My sisters used an old riding lawn mower with a little yard wagon attached to the back of it. Steve was not game—and said that he would use his truck. We were blessed that Papa was able to fix the golf-cart and get the truck to start—the Gravely is still broke though. Then Papa was finally able to drive his tractor round and round spraying out skim milk. I took the time to head upstairs to work on some sewing—and was blessed to get number two of three aprons finished.
Monday and Tuesday we had to cream the milk—but it didn’t go very well on Monday, and therefore I was really afraid to cream on Tuesday. Our cream machines are known for producing cream that is very heavy (like butter) or very gooey. Every once in a while it goes crazy and makes very thin cream which has some milk in it. We usually get anywhere from 9 to 14 pints of cream from about 18 to 20 gallons of milk. On Monday the machines went haywire and produced 21 pints of cream from about 18 gallons of milk—it was very thin! When this happens we have been blessed to be able to take it to another farmer and have him turn it into Ice Cream. On Tuesday I knew that I had more cream than I needed, but I also had more milk than I needed—so I had to cream again (but I was afraid to). We have no control over the machines and we get whatever they give. I took my chances and set up to cream—and the Lord blessed us with thick cream. Yeah!
While we creamed the milk, I multi-tasked and also bottled the kefir (Steve pours the milk into the cream machines, and I swap out the containers of cream and help him swap out the skim milk buckets—so I have a little bit of wait time between swaps). Just as we got done, a customer showed up and just as she left our worker Penny took a little break. Steve started washing some of the equipment and I got the cream parts wiped clean of all the cream and rinsed off and put in the sink to be washed. Then I headed over to the house to eat my lunch and make yogurt before the Tavernari’s arrived to help package eggs—but I didn’t make it to the house. Penny was coming up to tell me that our customer had just got hit by a truck as she was pulling out of our driveway. I ran inside to get Papa and we headed out to check on Mrs. Maggie. Our driveway has some blind spots, and she was inching out to see if anyone was coming, when a truck that was going well over the speed limit came barreling along and smashed right into the front of her car pushing her back into our driveway and causing the whole front of her car to fall off onto the ground. The blessing—no one was hurt, and Mrs. Maggie was here with friends and we were able to give her a ride home (for her car was totaled). The saddest part was that her husband was in the hospital with Covid and had been there for ten days already—how do you tell your sick husband that your car is totaled? While we were waiting for the police to arrive the Tavernari’s arrived and they gladly had the “egg party” without us. We have been so blessed this year by having the Tavernari’s help us out with the eggs and the chicken processing. There have been times in the past years when something would happen on an egg day and we wouldn’t be able to get around to packaging the eggs—and then every day that goes by another bucket is added to the stash (and sometimes we would not get another chance until the next week and then we would end up doing eggs all day, or having to give buckets away). Now we are blessed because even if life goes crazy, the Tavernari’s faithfully show up every Tuesday at 2:00 to package the eggs—and they do it with or without us.
I finally got to eat my lunch and make the yogurt, and then I had piano lessons to teach. Then at 4:00 I joined Mom and Papa on the porch for a little down time. After a while Papa got up to head to town to get some bags of ice for delivery. I told Mom that I needed to vacuum the house, I needed to harvest okra and cayenne peppers—but I really didn’t feel like doing any of it. Mom asked if I wanted to help her put a post in the ground for a new fence—and I honestly did not. Then I remembered that I needed to get ahold of the “ice cream” farmer to see about picking up our last batch of ice cream and taking over some more cream. While I was checking in to that, Mom came inside and said that she wanted to go to town with Papa and have him drop her off to Hobby Lobby so that she could buy some yarn to make a lap blanket. I then told her that I needed groceries (I had been trying to figure out when I would be able to go to town and get some groceries). So we grabbed our purses, a grocery list and we all headed to town. Papa dropped Mom off at Hobby Lobby and me off at Publix. He then headed to get some ice—and I flew through the store to get everything that I needed as fast as I could. What a blessing it was to be able to get to town sooner than I ever thought possible.
For two months we have creamed our milk two to three days a week—and a lot around the farm has not gotten done because we have had to spend hours more in the milk house instead of going to the garden, or Papa has had to spend hours more on the tractor spreading out skim milk instead of planting the fall pea crop. I knew that the milk surplus would not last forever—but we were ready for it to slow down. Then we had a huge milk order and we found ourselves with only a quarter of a gallon of milk left in the cooler. Then the calves started drinking more of their mama’s milk and we went from getting 20 gallons of milk a day to 15 to 16 gallons. With school back in the milk and egg sales will go up, and if the cows do not produce enough milk all we have to do is separate the calves at night time and we will get more milk. So on Thursday, we didn’t have to cream which gave us a chance to do something else. Steve and Mom headed out to build some new fences and Papa mowed the lawn. I had a huge list of things to do. I had piles of laundry that needed to be folded and put away, strawberries that needed to be frozen and blueberries that I wanted to dehydrate. My rooms needed to be vacuumed and my bathroom needed to be cleaned. Out in the garden I needed to harvest the okra and the cayenne peppers. After vacuuming and cleaning I headed to the garden to harvest. When I was finished harvesting I decided to walk through the garden—and all I saw was weeds everywhere that needed to be eradicated from the garden. I stopped at the pink cottage roses that were solidly covered in wild morning glory vines—and took action! I pulled and pulled until the roses were all uncovered, and then I was ready to tackle another bed and hopefully another and another—BUT it began to rain. I headed back inside and later I realized that the rain was a BIG blessing, for my “To Do List” was becoming too much as I had strawberries, almonds, and blueberries to take care of, plus the okra and cayenne peppers that I had just harvested—not to mention I needed to cook dinner. I was getting more and more tired as the minutes ticked by, and the clock quickly approached 7:00 which is when I fall apart if my dinner isn’t done yet. Thankfully it was and we were able to sit down to eat. I had accomplished everything but the almonds and printing the labels for the chicken processing the next day. Had it not rained—I would never have gotten done, and I would have had no energy to cook dinner (for I would have used it all up weeding). Mom took care of the almonds and well, the labels had to wait until the next day. When it comes to somethings, you can truly say, “There is always tomorrow!”
Friday morning dawned early as Papa and Mom headed out to gather the chickens—for their one bad day had finally arrived. I got things started for breakfast and then I headed over to the milk house to set up for milking. When I was done there I headed to the garden to harvest some zinnias for a customer while Mom finished breakfast. After breakfast we milked the cows. Penny (Steve’s wife who washes all our milking equipment) arrives at 10:00, and we were talking about what cows we still had to milk and Mom listed off about five of them by name but one of them by initial’s “E.M.” Ellie Mae comes very fast when she is called and so we never say her name unless we are ready for her. When we told Penny about Ellie Mae she was very eager to see her come a running. At the time Ellie Mae was standing up staring at us wondering if it was her turn yet. About thirty minutes later it was her turn and Penny was standing by to see Ellie Mae come running when called—but Ellie Mae didn’t come when called. Ellie Mae was lying down, so we called her again—but she made no movement to get up. We called and called, Papa went out and pushed on her, I went out to encourage her—but she paid no attention to us. Ellie Mae had a calf a week ago, and we feared that she had gone down with milk fever. Ellie Mae is an older cow (thirteen years old), but she has been a great cow. We gave her a tube of Calcium/Magnesium (the cure for milk fever), and then we put some water and feed by her. It took about 40 minutes, but she finally got up. We added her and her calf to the “hospital” field so that she didn’t have to walk very far. We were blessed that today she seems to be doing a lot better. It is always sad when you lose one of your favorite cows, but hopefully we will get to enjoy Ellie Mae a while longer.
Saturday came and we were all pretty exhausted. Once the milking was done and the orders packed I played the piano, did some laundry, piddled here and piddled there and was blessed to be able to use my “down” time to finished the third apron that I had promised to sew for someone. Mom on the other hand headed outside to mow some pasture and rake up some grass—I knew that if I headed outside to work, that I would have no energy to cook dinner. No one had to be told to go to bed that night—but we didn’t get to sleep all night. At 2:00 in the morning we were all awakened by someone pounding on our front door and ringing our doorbell. Papa got up to answer the door and found a police man on the other side. I would have to say that being a policeman in the middle of the night must get boring at times—but that policeman had a little bit of farm excitement on his shift. As he was out patrolling around he found a small herd of cattle coming down the road toward him. Thankfully the cows turned around and he followed them down the road and up our driveway—and that is when he came and woke us up. There were only about 8 cows out Papa said—but one of them was Dijon the Jersey bull. We were blessed that all Papa had to do was go and shine the light on the gate that they had escaped from, and they all went back through it. The chain that holds the gate shut was missing, so Papa got a rope and tied it shut. Mom had a flashlight checking out the courtyard flowers—of which didn’t look too pretty after the cows had gone through. Papa told her not to worry about anything for it would wake her up too much—but we had seen enough already. The whiskey barrel that the raspberry plant was growing in was pushed off the concrete pad that it had been sitting on. The zinnia bed was greatly divided as a cow had walked through the middle of it. The garden fence was bent up, and the birdhouse that my youngest sister had given Mom for Mother’s Day one year was demolished and the post totally pulled out of the ground—the bull had found a few too many things to “bully” around. Going back to sleep did take some time for me—but Mom never did manage it. Come morning we could get a better view of the damage and realized that the bull must have thought that the holly tree was perfect to scratch his back on and he must have gone around it a few times—for the branches were all broke off of the bottom. While the cows had trampled through the pinecone ginger and the zinnias, the rest was still in tack. We were blessed that the bull didn’t decide to rub on the rose fence, and we were blessed that they didn’t find our new strawberry tower. The biggest blessing though was the weeding that they did—they mowed in the courtyard, they ate every piece of Spanish needle and harry indigo that they could find, they edged around the greenhouse, they cleared out beside the barn, and they fertilized parts of the yard when they left their “calling cards” behind.
Yes it was an interesting week, but we were blessed in many ways.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare