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Hi everyone,
Just when we thought that spring was already here we have to say, “Good-bye Spring!” and “Hello Winter!” As Mom and I drove around tonight in the golf-cart doing the evening chores, Mom asked, “When is spring?” and I replied, “Last week!” Yes, the wind has howled all day and while it has been in the 60’s most of the day it has been quite chilly with the wind chill. We are not looking forward to the next few days as the highs are only in the 50’s and the nights dip down into the 30’s. One of the things that we have been busy with the past few weeks is getting the barns set up so that the calves, heifers and the sheep have a way to get out of the rain and cold, and have a nice dry place to eat all the hay they want. Our latest YouTube video gives a brief view of some of the building, moo-ving, and putting out hay for the heifers. You can watch it here.
If we are not busy working on barns, then we are busy weeding and preparing the garden for the spring bloom and harvest. For the last two weeks I have had one goal—get the flower seedlings transplanted from the greenhouse to the garden and plant the sweet peas and sugar snap pea’s seeds. We worked hard, we had volunteers come in to help—and they worked hard. All day Monday we weeded in the garden, and then on Tuesday we weeded some more, and on Wednesday Steve finished the last little corner. Come Thursday we didn’t get to weed as much as we had planned—because life happened!
Yes, let me tell you all about Thursday. It was not a typical Thursday because Wednesday was not a typical Wednesday. Usually we make deliveries to Jacksonville every Wednesday, but last week Papa had a meeting at church that night and he wouldn’t be able to get from Jacksonville to Williston on time—so we postponed the delivery to Thursday. We were most confused both days—it was strange to have Papa home on a Wednesday, plus I had to remember to make the receipts on Wednesday night. I harvested the collards on Tuesday night—forgetting that we were not delivering on Wednesday. Mom wanted to tell Steve to back the van up so that we could pack it—but we didn’t need to pack. Then Thursday arrived and my sister Samantha came out to spend the day with us. The morning was spent packing the orders and then Papa left a little after noon. The goal was to then spend the afternoon weeding in the garden—but first, we had sold one of our heifers and her new family arrived at noon to pick her up. Thankfully the heifer loaded onto their trailer like she had done it 100 times—even though it was her first time. We visited with them for about an hour—a lovely family who left L.A. in California and moved to the countryside in Florida to take up farming. We hear about it happening all the time. Once they were on their way we sent Steve to take the cows back to their field (they spend about 2 hours a day in a green winter grass field, and then they go back to the hay field). Then we broke for lunch. Just as I was fixing to sit down to eat I looked out the window and saw cows running around in the wrong field. The hot wires into the bull field had been left down and when the cows came down the lane they entered the first opened field that they came to. Steve had managed to herd most of the cows back out of the field, but the difficult part was approaching the wires fast. We had weaned the young bull, Milkyway a week ago, and he was very excited to see his mama—and nurse. The trick was to get his mama—Emma out of the field without Milkyway following. I quickly put on my shoes and ran across the front yard and down pasture to help Steve sort out the cows. It wasn’t too hard—with two people, but there were still two calves way back in the tree line that needed to go with the cows. We walked to the other end of the two acres, and walked the two calves back across the two acres to the wire entrance. I ran ahead to open the wires and we managed to get one of the calves out—but we couldn’t separate Liberty from Milkyway and they ran all the way back to the tree line. So we got the golf-cart and drove back across the two acres again. We rounded them up and drove them back down toward the gate. I once again ran ahead so I could open the wires. Liberty and Milkyway were both running toward me, and Liberty was in the lead. It was like a horse race—we cheered her on and on as she got closer and closer (I needed her to be in the lead so that after she ran out of the field I could close the wire behind her and keep Milkyway in the field)—but she began to slow down and Milkyway picked up speed and passed her, and we lost them again and had to head back to the trees. I decided to try to put Milkyway in the next pasture over with the sheep—but he determined that he was too exhausted to go anywhere. That was good, for then we could calmly walk Liberty back across the field—and out into the lane so that she could go join her mama with the other milk cows. We had one more problem though—Milkyway was not supposed to be the only bull in the field, Patriot was supposed to be his buddy—but Patriot took the last cow train south with the rest of the herd. Mom decided that we would retrieve him later—and we would close the wires behind the cows later, for it was past our lunch time. When lunch was over Steve had to empty the truck of alfalfa feed and then come and help us in the garden—but as we were heading out to the garden we noticed that one of the cows whose calf we had just weaned had come back up the lane looking for her calf. Thankfully the wires were closed that would allow her to get to her calf, which made it easy for Steve to run her back down the lane to join the rest of the cows. It took us a while—but by 3:00 we finally arrived in the garden. By 5:00 we had the four beds and walkways of the East Tunnel garden bed all weeded.
Friday was the day that I had planned to transplant all the flowers and plant the sweet peas and sugar snap peas—but I still had some work to do in the garden, and I had no help. Mom and Papa had to work on the sheep barn and fencing so that we could get the sheep and their lambs some shelter from the rain and cold. Half of the barn had been turned into a hay rack and shelter for the calves to have shelter when we separate them at nighttime, but the other half had no entrance and in order to get the sheep into the barn they had to cut a “door” into the barn wall. Then the field that borders the barn had to have some fences taken down and some fences put up in order to secure the sheep into the field. Mom and Papa spent Friday and Saturday working on the barn and the fence. I spent Friday in the garden by myself. I could have used lots of help—and definitely some stronger muscles, but alas I persevered and accomplished quite a lot. The first thing that I did was to weed the bed where I was going to plant the broccoli and lettuce. I have had the hardest time with broccoli this year. I tried a new kind, and it was a flop. I tried to plant the normal kind—but only a few seeds sprouted. Then I also had some “surprise” lettuce that needed to be planted in the garden. Evidently I had started lettuce back in the summer—and they didn’t sprout, then I used the same soil to plant leeks—and they did sprout, and about a month ago little green leaves started to appear in the tray with the leeks. I didn’t know what they were at first, but as they got bigger I realized that they were lettuce—of which I have no idea what kind of lettuce it is. Once I had the broccoli and lettuce bed weeded, then I mulched the walkway, and with the bed all prepared I transplanted the broccoli and lettuce. They went in the West Tunnel garden bed. I then headed over to the East Tunnel garden bed and grabbed my measuring tape and some rebar stakes so that I could mark the rows and the walkways. Once all the rows were marked, then I hooked a cable to each rebar on either side of a walkway so that I could form the walkways. Once I got the first walkway formed with the rake, then I moved a cable to the next rebar and smoothed out the bed, moved the other cable and formed a walkway, and moved the first cable and smoothed out a bed. Once all four beds were smoothed out and the three walkways were formed I started filling six, five gallon buckets full of mulch and carrying it to the tunnel and dumping them in the walkways. I got two walkways done and then I had not one ounce of energy left—and I still needed to cook dinner. As much as I wanted to finish the last walkway I just couldn’t and had to admit defeat. I just couldn’t go any more, and I would not have all the flowers transplanted by Friday night—because it was Friday night and I was still far from being ready. I can honestly say that I gave it my best shot, and we really did get a lot accomplished.
Saturday morning when Steve was done with his morning chores and we were still milking, I asked him to please go and cover the tops of the newly made “flower” beds with a thin layer of chicken manure compost. I had high hope of spending my afternoon transplanting flowers—but, life happened differently. While we were still milking one of our local customers showed up with his two small boys—they like to come while we are still milking so the boys can watch. Then another family showed up wanting some milk—and they had to wait until we were finished milking. Then just as we finished milking and were able to take care of the first customer, another local customer showed up, and then a new customer showed up. When I went to take care of the “2nd” set of customers that had arrived while we were milking, he asked if we had any calves for sale. He wanted to buy a little heifer and a little bull for his two children—and so he didn’t have to mow his property. It just so happened that we had a heifer that needed to be sold, and in a month I planned on advertising two bull calves—so I took the family out to see the little heifer, and to pick out which little bull they wanted. I wasn’t surprised that the daughter picked out the dark red one with a big white patch on his forehead. They were going home to get their truck—and I had orders to pack and collards to pick for the Gainesville order. Thankfully Mom was already working in the freezer packing the meat. By 1:00 we had the orders packed and Papa was on his way, and our calf buyers had returned. First thing we had to do was run all the cows out of the green field and back to their pasture—but leave the bull calf behind. I was thankful that the cows were eager to leave, and it wasn’t too hard to keep the bull calf to the back of the herd so that we could close the wires once the last cow left the field. While mom took the cows down the lane and closed them back up in their field, I set up the panels across the lane and we let the bull calf out of the field and as he came down the lane he went into the panel pens—and we had him caught. Then I had the man drive his truck and trailer into the pasture across from the panel pen and we set back up the panels across the lane so that we could go get the heifer. Separating the heifer from the other heifers was not as easy—for instead of running all the animals out and keeping her behind, this time we wanted to run just her out and keep the others behind. After a few “all around the mulberry bushes” we gave up and decided to take the whole herd—and that wasn’t hard at all. They gladly went bucking and running across the pasture, down the lane, and into the panel pens. Then we closed the gate and separated out the older heifers through another gate leaving only the young heifer in the pen. With both calves caught we backed the trailer up to the gate and loaded the calves up. It was around 2:00 by the time we got back to the house.
A week ago we had bought a whole case of broccoli, and our days had been so busy that we never had the chance to blanch them and get them to the freezer. So we spent the next two hours in the kitchen washing and cutting, blanching and cooling, packaging and vacuum sealing in order to get the broccoli to the freezer. By the time we were done in the kitchen, Papa was home from Gainesville. Mom and Papa then headed to the sheep barn to move the sheep from one pasture to the pasture where the barn was. This would give the sheep a way to get out of the cold rain and a place to keep their hay dry. I headed to the garden to empty the water out of the plastic on the sides of the garden tunnels—they are rolled up to let the hot air out, but the rain and sprinklers fill up the rolls with water. When that was done I headed over to the Ponderosa lemon tree to harvest the lemons before the freezes this week.
By the time dinner rolled around it was very evident that Mom was sick. Poor thing, she is usually not a very good patient because she has so many allergies to medicines and herbs that it is hard for her to treat a sickness—but with this sickness she has been a very good girl. We have made a very strong mullein tea to help with the lung congestion, and she has been brave enough to actually take the “fire cider” a couple times a day. Fire cider is onions, garlic, ginger, cayenne pepper, and horseradish fermented in apple cider vinegar for about six weeks. Then you strain out the herb and drink the vinegar when you feel like you are getting sick—or are sick. It helps greatly to open up the sinuses—horseradish usually does. Since Mom was sick we did not make it to church Sunday morning because when we woke up at 5:00 it was raining and cold—and we didn’t think that it would be a good idea for Mom to be out in the cold rain milking cows. So we slept in until 7:00, got up ate breakfast and then by the time we headed outside at 8:30 the rains had stopped. Yes, those rains brought in another cold front, and from the looks of it we shall be experiencing winter for the next few weeks at least. Brr!
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare