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Hi Everyone,
Do you feel it? Can you smell it? Have you seen it? Fall is in the air! The sycamores are turning golden, and the nights are getting cooler. I think that this is honestly my most favorite time of the year—Autumn! There is one animal on the farm that symbolizes this time of the year more than any other and that is the Thanksgiving turkey! We had a little over 50 of them arrive the first week of August, and this Monday they were finally big enough to move out of the brooder house and out to pasture. They will spend the next few weeks in hoop houses being moved daily to fresh grass—they are still too small to roam free unless we want to feed the local hawks an early “Thanksgiving” dinner. Once they get some height to them then the doors will be opened during the day and the turkeys will roam the pastures all over the farm. It is always amazing how far away from their “home” they will actually roam. Thankfully come dark they find their way back to the hoop houses and they bed down behind closed doors to protect them from coyotes.
It is funny to think that up north everyone is harvesting their gardens to store them up for the winter—but down here in the south we are planning, preparing, and planting our fall gardens which will give us fresh greens all winter. It is also the time of year that we plant onions and carrots. Monday afternoon I headed to the garden to do some “preparing”. The area that I wanted to plant carrots in was overgrown with weeds—yes that is perfectly normal this time of the year. At the beginning of the year I was determined that this would be the year that we used our brains and not our brawn when it came to maintaining the garden—but alas reality hits, and life goes faster than you think, rainy season sets in and the weeds multiply when you cannot be out their watching. So—we are back to the brawn of gardening. I grabbed an old cushion for my knees, a large orange wagon for the abundance of weeds I was fixing to pull, a few buckets to carry the weeds from the garden to the wagon, a pair of gloves, a garden hand tool, and my broadfork. The first four feet was nothing more than nut grass. Once I loosened it with the broadfork it came up real easy—then I hit the crab grass area. It was thick and strongly anchored into the ground. I broadforked it, and began to pull it out when Mom and Steve arrived! They had been putting up new fence for the heifers, and decided to stop and help me before they moved the turkeys from the brooder to the pasture. In no time flat Steve had the area free of crab grass. Mom helped me get rid of a lot of the nut grass too. We finished there around 4:00 and I headed inside to clean up in order to cook dinner, and Mom and Steve moved the turkeys.
On Tuesday I was hoping to get back to the garden but I ended up spending my morning inside doing paperwork—or is it called computer work? I also had a lot of phone calls to make, and the positive of being inside all morning was that I sold a cow. It was then 1:00 and I headed outside to tell Mom—but she was in the garden mowing. I was supposed to start lunch at 1:00 so that we could eat at 1:30 and be ready to package eggs at 2:00. Well, when I went outside to find Mom I remembered that I had to bottle kefir—and then it was 1:45. Oops! Lunch was not on time, and once again we were late for egg packaging—let me rephrase that (we totally missed the egg party). Mom had to do some business, and when I went to head next door they only had two dozen eggs left to clean. I did help with that, and we had a lovely time of visiting for a while afterward. Then my piano student showed up and I was off to another duty. I had some flowers to harvest for the Jacksonville delivery—but it began to rain before I could get out there. The next morning I headed outside at 6:30 to set up the milking equipment so that I could harvest the flowers at 7:00. I was folding up the last of the cow towels (and was only seconds from heading to the garden) when it began to rain—heavy! UGH! How was I ever going to get those flowers? I went in for breakfast, put together some last minute orders, did the dishes and then I ran out the door, jumped in the golf-cart and headed for the garden—cause it wasn’t raining. I wasn’t in the garden very long before it started to sprinkle, but it thankfully didn’t last very long. Once I had all the flowers gathered I headed back inside to finish getting ready to milk. I was on the run, and was soon back outside ready to milk the cows.
For the last nine weeks we have creamed one to three times every week. Then this week the calves started drinking more and more of their mama’s milk. I sold out of cream before I could fill every order on Wednesday—and I hate saying “sorry sold out”. Come Wednesday morning as I looked into the cooler I realized that we already had a little bit more milk than we needed to fill the orders—but we still had all of Wednesday’s milk to bottle. Hmm! At the last minute I told everyone that we were going to cream. We have a rule—we never cream on Wednesday because we are too busy with packing to get Papa out by 12:00, and our workers get off early so they don’t have time to wash all 50 pieces of the cream machines. I needed cream though—and I didn’t need any more bottled milk. We set up and we creamed—and all went well. Once I got Papa on his way I headed back to the milk house to help Penny by washing up the cream equipment for her.
We have heard from one farmer who is really struggling with his health that he tried to make a 1% difference on his farm every day. As we look around our farm at all the things that need to be done it can be very overwhelming—but if we try to tackle a little bit each day, maybe one day it will get done. Our garage is one of those places that needed help, and Thursday morning as I was heading inside after milking I decided to stop and give the garage at least a good sweeping. It wasn’t long before that sweeping through the walkway lead to throwing out this box, and that box; putting this away, and then that away. Mom and I spent about an hour cleaning up in the garage—and while it is not perfect, it sure looks a whole lot better.
Just as soon as we finished lunch a family came over to look at our heifers. They bought one last year, and have decided that they want another one. There must be close to 24 heifers to choose from—and it isn’t very easy. Each heifer has a different personality, has short or long teats, is a different age (from a few weeks old to a few years old), pregnant or not, and has different genetics. Picking out which one will be the best for “you” isn’t always easy. Last time they came to pick out a heifer they chose the one that came up and let them pet her—Miss Nettle was a very curious calf, and you can’t go wrong picking a friendly one. Over ten years ago Dana was interning on a neighbors farm and she was able to farm sit for us so that we could go off to visit family. Dana went on to learn farming from some of the top teachers and worked at some of the best ranches. Now Dana is running her own farm—and is slowly building it using all the knowledge that she learned along the way. She has a very nice herd of beef cattle, and last year began her milking herd—and she has been bitten by the Jersey cow bug! Once you get a Jersey, it doesn’t take much to fall in love with them, and then one is not enough. Some women collect diamonds and pearls—others collect Jersey cows.
After Dana and her family left I headed to the green house to plant some bunching onion, leek and lettuce seeds. I had just finished planting the lettuce and since I didn’t have the water hose hooked up to the green house I took the tray over to the milking parlor to wet the soil. I set the lettuce tray on a very unstable piece of wood in order to turn off the water hose and to my dismay it fell off to the ground. All the dirt was rearranged and some even fell out. I scooped it all up putting it back in the empty holes and had Mom put it back in the green house while I cleaned up my mess. I’m not sure how they will turn out since lettuce seeds do not like to be buried very deep—but I am thankful to say that some are starting to sprout as of today.
When I was done planting, I then headed to the garden to harvest. The okra is producing—but not as much as I would like. I will admit though, I would get more if I could just remember to go harvest it. The cayenne peppers are prolific—and I have harvested three big baskets full already. The dehydrator is running non stop.
Friday I headed to the garden a little after noon—I had to take care of some things before I could go to the garden. The calendar said that it was a great day to plant carrots and replant some multiplying onions—and I still had to finish weeding, mark the rows, and add compost to the bed. I got the weeding done with no problem, and then I grabbed the tape measure and marked the rows with rebar and some cables. It was at that time that Mom and Steve once again came to my rescue. Steve was able to dump wheel barrow loads of compost onto the bed (he has the man power to easily maneuver the heavy load), and Mom was able to level it off (she has the artistic eye to do that perfectly). Then I spread wood ash over the whole bed and broadforked it all together. Once Mom leveled it off again then I marked the rows and Mom and I planted carrots—one seed every two inches because I do not want to come back out and thin the carrots.
I spent Saturday afternoon planning where to plant what so that as the seeds mature into plants I know where to plant them—and I know what beds I need to have weed free by then. There is a lot to do—but the weather is cooling down and the grass will not need to be mowed as much very soon. Therefore, we shall have much more time to spend in the garden.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare