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Hi Everyone,
Monday morning started off quite normal, and little did we know when we began milking that by noon we would have four less cows on our farm. Two of our cows had developed a bad case of mastitis—which meant that we could not use their milk. One we had dealt with for a month and the other for two months. Having mastitis actually gave us a second excuse to cull Penny and June. Penny was known to come after us if we got too close to her in the field—once she snuck up behind me and gave me a good shove in the backend. If we had visitors—it wasn’t safe to let them walk around the herd. June was not mean—she just believed in the boogey-man! There were days that we couldn’t get June to come in—for no explainable reason at all. Once we had to chase her all over the farm just because we bought a new milking machine—and it wasn’t louder than the last one, it was quieter. Another negative of June was that she only had three working teats, and her calf Jenny has only two. I cannot sell her babies because I do not know what condition their udders will be in. When June got mastitis in two of her three teats—it just wasn’t worth milking her anymore. So as soon as we finished milking on Monday Mom called the cattle auction and they said that we had until noon to get the cows there. Our biggest trouble was figuring out which bull calf was Jenny’s and which heifer calf was Penny’s. Thankfully Penny’s calf was nursing—and it had an ear tag, so we could easily figure her out. Both June and Ellie Mae have bull calves around the same age—and they are both all brown. When we let the calves out, June called hers over to her, and then we just had to load the two pairs up. Now in case you think that we are heartless for taking our milk cows that were born and raised on our farm to the auction—may I tell you about Ellie Mae. Penny was 6 years old, June was 10, but Ellie Mae is 12 to 13 years old and is quite the character. She has never before had mastitis, had given us a calf every year, her calves are excellent, and she is very sweet and tender hearted. When she calved a few months ago, she went down one week after she calved. Due to her age, it very well could have been milk fever. We treated her and she got back up, and in a few days she was back to her normal self—trying to barge in to the milking parlor to be fed. To our dismay though, another cow got in a fight with Ellie Mae and bruised her udder up really bad—so that she ended up with what is called “strawberry milk”. One quarter of her udder is probably ruined, and has a bad case of mastitis. “Real dairy farmers” would have taken Ellie Mae off to the auction along with June and Penny—but I just couldn’t do that. Ellie Mae has a piece of our heart (June and Penny did not). So, I am pretty sure that Ellie Mae will one day be buried here on the farm, and until then we shall continue to rejoice when we call her name and see her coming running lickity-split to get her morning rations.
After lunch on Monday I ran out to the garden to harvest some ginger, cayenne peppers and okra. As soon as I got back inside it was time for Papa and I to head to Gainesville to pick up a few supplies. One of those supplies was some beeswax. I have not been able to make any salves or lotion bars for months because our local beekeeper was out of beeswax. When they told me last week that it would be a few more months before they rendered it, I had to start looking elsewhere. I could find it cheap—if I bought $300 worth. I could find it reasonable—until I had to pay the shipping costs. Then I found a company in Illinois who had a branch in High Springs—just 20 minutes from my house (which is closer than my local beekeeper). I was excited! I was able to get 6 one pound blocks and now I am back in business—that is as soon as I can find the time to make the salves and lotion bars. On our way home from Gainesville Papa swung by the cattle auction to pick up our check. He was very pleased to find out that the cows brought in enough money to get our Gravely fixed—it has been broke for months.
Tuesday morning milking was very relaxed. I bring in 10 to 12 cows on my side—but only three have milk, the rest their calves drink them dry. So while my cows eat I can do other things like: water the greenhouse, pot up plants in the green house, or weed the courtyard. Well, on Tuesday the greenhouse was watered, all the plants were potted up, and the courtyard was weeded. So I grabbed chapter 2 of Joel Salatin’s newest book “Polyface Micro” and sat down between the cows and read. Talk about peaceful! The milking machine wasn’t on, so the only noises that I could hear were the birds chirping, the cows munching, and the little bulls grunting. When the milking was all done—or should I say when Mom finished milking the cows (we laugh because we are getting about 10 gallons of milk a day, and I only contribute a gallon of that from my cows)—then I headed inside the milk house to bottle the kefir. Then to my delight Mom offered for her and Steve to come to the garden with me so that we could pull up all the peas in the second caterpillar tunnel so that they could start to decompose before we have to plant the collards, kale, broccoli, and cabbage in about two weeks. An hour later I was totally amazed when all the peas were flattened. It took me two whole days to do that same amount by myself.
When we got back from the garden it was time to make the yogurt, eat lunch and have an egg party. Mom and Steve joined the egg party for a little bit—because it was raining, but once the skies cleared they headed to the garden to mow. Papa was busy in the backyard mowing with the bush hog attached to the tractor. The grass got too tall to use the zero turn lawn mower.
It’s beginning to rain! Those words were mentioned quite a few times on Wednesday. Brenna was back to help us out with packing the orders. She packed the milk products while I packed the meat, and Mom arranged flowers. Then I got a last minute flower order (yes I am crazy enough to fill them) and Brenna and I jumped in the golf-cart and took off for the garden. Brenna said that Mom drives much slower than I do, but it isn’t fair that the only time she has rode with me was twice when I only had 10 to 15 minutes to harvest last minute flowers, and the only time she rode with Mom was to go rake up grass in the pasture when they had all the time in the world. As we got in the golf-cart I noticed that the clouds were getting blacker and blacker—but I needed to pick 40 plus flowers (mostly zinnias). I cut the flowers and Brenna stripped the leaves off and counted them. We were about 2/3 of the way done when it began to sprinkle, and almost done when it began to pour. The poor child was wet—with no change of clothing. When she got back inside she told her mother that she would have to start checking the weather before she came so that she knew whether or not to bring a change of clothing. A friend told her that this is Florida—she had better just bring a change of clothing.
Later that day Mom and I had to head out to lock up the turkeys. When we got outside a customer was pulling up—and it was the lady who had wrecked her car leaving our driveway a month ago and whose husband died of Covid the next week. So we stood around talking with her for a while. When she left I looked through the trees to the neighbor’s field and saw a white wall of rain. I told Mom that we had better go back inside—but she was determined to get those turkeys locked up. Mom was driving, and as soon as we got around the barn she took off through the pasture (when we are in a hurry we do not drive in the lane because it is too full of pot holes). Mom was not driving slowly—and I wished that Brenna was with us to see that there are times to drive fast and times to drive slow. When we arrived at the turkey pens we found the turkeys scattered all the way to Timbuctoo. I had to run two fields over to shoo them back up and around the fences and sometimes through the fence. Once all the turkeys were back in the field that we had to “chase them all around the mulberry bush”. Some go in the door, some go past. Some run around to the right, and some run around to the left—it took us a while to get them all locked up and by then it was raining.
Laughter doeth good like a medicine! On Thursday we got a good dose of laughter. We have these little red clips that we use in the milking parlor to hold the cows’ tails while we milk them. Mom also uses it to hold the stick that we use to control the cows from time to time. Mom went to hang her stick back up—but the red clip was gone. Upon further investigation she found it in our 6 month old bull calf, Mr. Red’s mouth. He was happily chewing on it. When she asked for it back he just pulled his head away. This was repeated a few times before Mr. Red stuck his tongue out bellowing. Papa came running to find out what was the matter—and he found Mom and me dying in laughter. Mr. Red had gotten the clip stuck on his tongue. My sister said that it reminded her of the time that she found her then two year old daughter screaming—because she had stuck a clothespin on her tongue. So I guess that you can compare a six month old calf to a 2 year old child—full of mischief! Thankfully Mr. Red managed to get the clip off—but the trauma didn’t prevent him from trying to chew on the clip another day. It is a shame we didn't get it caught on video!
To my delight, I was able to spend Thursday and Friday weeding and harvesting in the garden. Mom was able to plant some fall seed for the heifers to eat, and on Thursday Steve and Mom joined me in the garden. Mom and I weeded in the tunnel, while Steve weeded in the cut flower garden bed. Spanish needle and morning glories were taking over. Pulling up the Spanish needle was hard work—but there were no emotions involved. The morning glory was a different story. I had to use the saying that my Great-grandma always told my Grandma Anne—“Beauty is as beauty does”. While the morning glories are absolutely beautiful, they were taking over the fence and choking out the flowers—so most of them had to go. On Friday I worked by myself and spent some time strolling around the garden getting pictures for hopefully a future garden post. Then I harvested the cayenne peppers and the okra. I weeded a few walkways and covered them with woodchips and then it was time to come inside. Mom was busy painting in her bathroom. We have lived in this house for 23 years and Mom never could figure out how she wanted to decorate her room. Well—she has finally figured it out. Primitive is her style and white, barn red, black and old sage green is her colors.
Saturday morning found me reacquainted with an “old friend”. When I was 31 I became extremely allergic to corn, and after having a few anaphylactic episodes I ended up with shortness of breath for three months. Six years later after a very stressful experience I once again was faced with breathing problems—this time diagnosed as “air hunger”. That too lasted for about three months. Thursday night I experienced a little air hunger, and then again on Friday morning and Friday night, but by Saturday morning it had moved in to stay “for I don’t know how long”. On Wednesday we had started taking some Zinc and Quercetin as immune boosters—and I am wondering if by chance there was some type of corn in the product. I quit taking them, but the trouble had already begun. Thankfully milking was easy—because I don’t milk most of my cows. I didn’t have another chapter of “Polyface Micro” (I only had chapter 2 because Justin Rhodes included it in one of his emails), so I took my book “Little House on the Prairie” with me to read while I waited on the cows. I did learn not to leave my book lying on my seat while I got up to move out some cows—for while I was on Mom’s side moving her cows out, one of mine let loose and poop splattered everywhere. I didn’t dare run for the bucket, because that stuff was soupy and if I got near I would be well covered. I did stand there and watch as one splatter after another landed on my book. UGH! Thankfully it wiped off the cover real easy—the edges are a little spotted though. Once the milking was done and the orders were packed—I was done myself. Mom said that she needed a nap—and I joined right in. Forty-five minutes later I was jerked awake by the desperate quack of a duck. She had somehow got stuck in the water trough and had become a soaked duck—that wasn’t far from sinking. I rescued her out, and she happily waddled over to join her friends. I did manage to cook dinner, but by the time dinner was over my breathing was greatly labored. We made a late night trip to a respiratory therapist, and were able to get some relief. Today I am doing a lot better, but have managed to sleep a lot. As long as I stay calm—all is well, but I am thankful that it is nowhere near as bad as last night. I don’t know how this week will go—but I do not think that I shall be conquering the Spanish needle in the garden this week. I do know that relaxing while milking is over—because you cannot fill orders if you only get 10 gallons a day. Tonight Mom and Papa separated 10 of the calves from their mama’s—so I should get quite a bit of milk tomorrow.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare