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Hi Everyone,
Last week on the farm started out quite normal—Mom and I milked the cows, Steve took care of the meat chickens, Thanksgiving turkeys and the bulls and heifers, and Papa moved all the cows, laying hens and sheep to new pastures. When the milking was done Mom and I spent some time juicing a bushel of oranges that we had bought from Azure. While our day was going smoothly Papa and Clayton were having challenges of their own. Clayton had gone home for the weekend to spend time with his family and was on his way back to the farm Monday morning—but he wasn’t making good timing because it was a holiday and the traffic was pretty heavy. He did make it back around 2:00 and he didn’t waste any time in pitching in to help. I was in the middle of washing dishes (I had cleaned out the fridge), and he stepped up to the sink and began rinsing—what a blessing! When we were done with the dishes he asked if we were going to the garden—it was Monday after all. I thought that it was a good idea so we grabbed our water bottles and headed for the garden to pull weeds—really BIG weeds too. October is the time of year to clear out all the summer weeds so that the winter and spring blooming flowers can begin to sprout and grow in order to get ready for their floral display. Those summer weeds are five to seven feet tall (goldenrod and Spanish needle), along with some terrible cat-claw vine that required lots of muscle to remove. While we were in the garden, Mom and Steve were in the front yard mowing, and Papa was in town. Sunday afternoon when we returned from church Papa noticed that the golf-cart had a flat tire. When he went to do chores he tried to pump it up to no avail, so Monday morning when he was done with his chores he headed into town to buy a new tire—but they didn’t have any. Papa then drove out to Providence to the tire company and they said that they could fix it—but it would take two hours. So Papa sat, and sat, and sat and we wondered, and wondered, and wondered where he was. When he got home he put the tire back on the golf-cart and then he headed out to paint some more on the cattle trailer—but when he opened the can of paint he found it very, very oily and realized that the man at the store had not properly mixed the paint (properly shook it). So Papa headed back to town to the store to get the paint mixed, but by the time he got back home there was no time to set up to paint.
Tuesday morning did not start out normal, for Steve called us at 7:00 in the morning to tell us that one of his teeth was terribly abscessed and he was in so much pain that there was no way for him to come to work. Thankfully Clayton was back and he could do Steve’s chores—something he had never done by himself before. Clayton spends most of his mornings milking Mom’s cows so that she can do other things. At least twice a week he “helps” Steve with his morning chores and then on Sunday morning’s Papa and Clayton do the chores together—but on Tuesday he had it all by himself. Clayton stepped up to the plate and didn’t miss a beat. Before he could head out to the pasture there were chicks in the brooder house to feed and water, a milking parlor to set up with all the equipment and alfalfa feed so that Mom and I could milk, and the Gravely to load with all the feed and hay for the heifers, bulls, laying hens, turkeys, meat chickens, and ducks. Once Clayton made it to the pastures there were water troughs to scrub clean, feeders to fill, six chicken hoop houses to drag to fresh ground and two turkey hoop houses to drag. Moving the turkey houses is easier than the chicken houses—because you let the turkeys out to roam before you move their houses, and moving the duck house is easiest of all—because you let the ducks out and then you move the pen with the Gravely (it is twice the size of the chicken houses and therefore doesn’t move with muscle power). Then there is one more thing to remember—to water the garden. Monday, Wednesday and Friday the caterpillar tunnels get watered and then Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday the raised beds and the Mid-West garden bed get watered—and Clayton forgot not one thing!
Meantime, Mom and I were having serious trials in the milking parlor. Mom had just finished milking Honey and Analee. Honey was being a little stubborn about leaving so Mom was having to do a little extra encouraging to get her out of the parlor—and then Analee finished eating her last morsel of alfalfa and put herself in high-speed reverse. Mom was standing behind Analee and was soon knocked off her feet and sent flying into the metal post of my milking stall. The impact of the cow twisted her back and neck and the landing hurt her arm when she crashed into the post. I was busy milking my cow and all I knew was that all of a sudden my Mother was being thrown my way. I let out a scream when I realized what was happening—but although she was in quite some pain and a little shaken up she walked back over to her side of the parlor and began to fix up more feed for the next round of cows to be milked. Then if being ran over by a cow wasn’t enough, the next few cows decided that they needed to poo—not just once, but multiple times. May I say that we were very glad when the milking was all done? Then another trial began—getting the milk bottled. Clayton was still out in the pasture, Papa was busy elsewhere, and Steve was home—so that left Mom and me to bottle the milk. I already have enough neck problems so Mom wasn’t about to let me pour up the milk out of the milk cans, and Mom was in so much pain that I really didn’t want her to have to pour up the milk—but she did anyway. Once the milk was bottled and put away Mom headed inside to do what we have learned to call “Administrative” work (all the banking, receipts, taxes, and other paperwork that goes along with running a business). I bottled kefir and then when Clayton arrived back I helped him wash the milk hoses—or did he help me? Sending the cable with a brush on it through the milk hoses in order to wash them isn’t the easiest thing to do, and once the cable is fed through the hose, then you have to pull the brush through the hose—which can be very hard—so Steve always does it. So I gave Clayton the muscle job and I took the job of rinsing the hoses with HOT water after they were scrubbed clean. Then I headed inside where Mom “hired” me to do some administrative work. Since we have a “Pet Food License” we have to charge taxes on our products—which means that once a month we have to send those taxes to Tallahassee. Usually we mail them in—but the government said that we had to start paying them on-line come January. I decided that we should just go ahead and start paying on-line—but I had to figure out how. Many times Mom said that we could just go ahead and mail in the check—and a few times I was tempted to give up. I knew that I had to figure it out one day—so why not then! It took an hour—but I persevered and figured it all out, and made notes so that I could do it easier next month. It was then lunch time and I had to make yogurt. When 2:00 rolled around and everyone was ready to package eggs I had to bow out—because I didn’t get to answer all the order emails that morning since Steve was gone and I had spent an hour on paying the taxes. We had new customers and I couldn’t wait until 8:00 at night to get back with them—and if I didn’t take care of it then, it would be 8:00 at night before I would have another chance to sit down at the computer. So for the next hour and a half I answered emails, talked with the butcher, and took care of orders. As a farmer I admit I would rather be “farming”—but milking cows and pulling weeds doesn’t exactly make money, which is where all the “administrative work” comes in.
Wednesday night before Papa and Clayton came back from deliveries Mom and I headed outside to lock up the ducks and turkeys and to separate the calves for the evening. The ducks were in the yard around the brooder house and feed room—but they wouldn’t come when called. They just stood tall with their necks stretched out quaking as they stared into the pinecone ginger beside the brooder house. I counted the ducks—and there were eleven of them (so a duck was not in the ginger), but I saw something in the ginger. I walked closer to get a better look—and I saw an opossum! I ran inside and grabbed my camera and came back and took a few shots. Thankfully the opossum posed for the shots before he decided to get up and disappear into the ginger and underneath the brooder. We never did see him again.
Thursday morning we got our chores done and then Papa headed to town to buy some more ice for the chicken processing on Friday, and to pick up the last batch of chicks for this year from the Post Office. Mom, Steve, Clayton and I headed to the garden to harvest the calyxes off of half the Roselle bushes. We snipped the branches with the calyxes on them and loaded them into the Gravely and brought them up to the front porch. Then Mom and Clayton cut off all the other branches and Steve and Clayton took them down to the sheep to eat. Then we all worked on the porch clipping off the calyxes. We had hoped to harvest and make tea with them but time ran out. We finished clipping calyxes around 3:00, and by then it was time to clean up and get ourselves ready to go to our Pastor’s house for dinner. We left around 4:00, had a wonderful dinner and a lovely visit and then we got home shortly after 10:00 that night.
Friday morning dawned a little too early for me—for I was still quite tired but the day must begin and it wasn’t going to be an easy one. Mom was going to milk—but upon seeing all the dishes in the kitchen from breakfast and Thursday’s lunch that we didn’t have time to clean up from, she decided to let Clayton milk for her while she did dishes and made a new batch of chocolate syrup (for chocolate milk is usually our “lunch” on processing days. Then when the milking was done we set up for processing. We had 70 birds to process—and they were giants (5 to 8 pounds each). Once the chickens were done then race began to get a lot accomplished before we went to bed. Mom and I had signed up for a garden seminar on Saturday and Papa had told us that we could go as long as we didn’t inconvenience anyone. Saturday is a delivery day which meant that we had to have all the orders packed and the receipts done before we went to bed on Friday night—and the order ended up being quite large. Before dinner Clayton and I headed to the garden to harvest 7 bok choy plants. While dinner finished cooking I set up the milking equipment to help save us time in the morning—for we have never been able to leave the farm before 9:00 in the morning and we needed to be at the garden seminar at 9:00 which meant that we needed to leave a little after 8:00 in order to drive the forty minutes to get there. When dinner was over we headed back out to the garden to harvest 8 more bok choy because we had gotten another order in. Then we had to collect a few pumpkins, and there was Lemon Peel and Cayenne Pepper Powder to bottle. Once the dishes were done and the orders put in, Mom and I headed over to the milk house to pack all the meat, eggs and dairy products. It was around 9:15 by the time I finished the receipts and got them printed and emailed. Then there was breakfast to fix and a shower to take before I fell into bed an hour later.
The alarm went off at 5:00 in the morning and Mom and I headed outside to milk the cows. Mom went to the milk house to set up in there and I headed to the barn to get the Gravely and head down pasture to bring in the cows—I had never done this before (Papa always does it—but we were not inconveniencing him to get up at 5:00), but thankfully it went smoothly. When I got back to the milk house I helped Mom carry all the equipment to the milking parlor and we began to milk our cows. The cows were very cooperative and we were done by 7:30—just in time for breakfast for we had asked Clayton and Papa to have breakfast done by 7:30. While we were still milking Clayton had come out and asked me if there was more chicken broth anywhere, for there was only about two cups left in the house. Some people drink coffee in the morning—we drink a cup of hot chicken broth, and I like it a whole lot better. Well, since we had gone to our Pastor’s house for dinner on Thursday night that meant that I didn’t cook a chicken Thursday night and make two more gallons of broth (my typical Thursday night chore)—which meant we ran out! When I was finished milking I grabbed a frozen chicken back and a few packs of heads and feet, and as soon as I got inside I put them all in the stock pot and added some dried carrots and onions and some fresh celery and some salt and herbs. Then I filled the pot with water and put it in the oven at 250 F to cook all day while I was gone. I knew that if I didn’t get it done then—I would have to live without broth until Tuesday because I wouldn’t have any more time to deal with it until then. Once breakfast was over we packed up and headed out—just 10 minutes later then we had planned. To Mom’s dismay we did not have time to do the breakfast dishes. Clayton headed out to help Steve bottle the milk and do all the morning chores, and Papa headed out to do his chores. Mom and I spent the day learning little tidbits about gardening and I got my first introduction into Permaculture. I had heard about it, but really didn’t know much about it. I still couldn’t give a speech of my own on it—but I at least have points to study. We arrived home around 5:00 and I started cooking dinner right away and Mom started doing the dishes. Once dinner was over and all the dishes were done I headed to bed—for truth be told being gone all day usually causes me to get a headache.
It looks like it will get pretty cold this week—yes; high 30’s is too cold for me and Mom. The Roselle’s need to be harvested, turned into tea and canned for making jello and the rest of the pumpkins need to be harvested. We may even dig into the sweet potato plants and see if we have been blessed or the rats were blessed this year. It seems that everyone I talk to is dealing with “pests” this year in the garden (deer, rabbits, worms, rats, wandering cows, raccoons, armadillos—you name it!). Before I tackle all those adventures I think that I shall try and get a good night’s sleep—so long! Farewell! Goodnight!
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare