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Hi Everyone,

               Last Sunday night I went to bed determined once again to harvest green beans this fall. They only take 60 days—and if I planted them in the garden tunnel they would be protected from any early frosts. So before I climbed in bed I grabbed my bag of beans and placed them on my bathroom counter so that they would remind me in the morning of my plans. Monday morning just as soon as the milking was over Clayton and I headed to the garden to prepare two 25 foot long beds for green beans. We weeded them first and then Clayton covered them with a light covering of cow manure compost, and then a thicker layer of woodchip/mushroom compost. I broadforked all the layers together and then leveled out the dirt. The beds were now ready to plant—but I would wait for that until Tuesday. The rest of the day I weeded the tunnels and mulched them mostly by myself. Mom was working on weeding her “Martha’s Vineyard” and Clayton and Steve were raking up grass that Mom had mowed in one of the heifer fields. At 3:00 Mom and Clayton had to go pick up our Azure order, so Steve came and helped me put out woodchips. While he filled up the buckets with woodchips I would pull up as many weeds as I could in the East Tunnel and then when he came back with the buckets I would run over to the West Tunnel and dump the buckets in the walkways. We did this until about 3:45 when I was ready to drop with exhaustion. Steve was pretty exhausted too—but he usually works until 5:00 on Mondays but I just couldn’t go any longer. We decided to go ahead and clean up and then he helped move some feed troughs for the bulls since Papa had move the bulls to new pasture. I came in and got my shower and then I worked on dinner. Thankfully I got dinner done on time so that I had the evening to work on some sewing. Truth be told I would have rather just gone to bed—but 7:00 is awful early to retire to bed for the night. In the end I was grateful to have finished my new jumper—except for I have to hem it again because I made it too long.

               They say that the “Third Time’s a Charm” but they also say that “Three Strikes and You are Out!” It was close to noon on Tuesday by the time we made it back to the garden with a bag of green beans in hand. August 10th, Claytons first day on the farm we planted green beans—and a few weeks later the deer ate them. On September 1st I replanted green beans and roped Clayton into helping me “deer proof” them. A week later the beans were up—and the next day a rabbit had eaten them and so we “rabbit proofed” the green beans. They began to put on new leaves and then something ate them. I went outside one morning at 5:45 and with my flashlight looked for any signs of bugs. I saw no worms—but did find one slug. The poor green beans would put on new growth—then something would eat the leaves, and they would put on more new growth—and something would eat the leaves. The growth is stunted although they finally look like they are growing without being eaten. I decided though that it was time to plant green beans for the third time. We planted them in the tunnel—deer and rabbit proof, and with the cooler weather maybe there will be less worms. Time will tell, but this afternoon when I went out to the garden I did find a few of the new seeds beginning to sprout out of the ground with fresh green growth.

               Wednesday morning while Clayton and I were milking I noticed that Bonnie was in labor. She is one of our heifers that we just got trained to come into the milking parlor a few weeks ago—just in time for her to give birth. Clayton has never seen a calf born so he was really hoping to get to watch Bonnie give birth—and I was determined to do whatever I could to help him see this birth. Sometimes though things happen beyond our control! By the time we finished milking, Bonnie still had not given birth—but she had been doing a lot of pushing. Papa didn’t know that she was in labor and when he put all the cows back she went with him. Wednesday is our BIG delivery day and we needed to get busy packing and the milk needed to be bottled because we needed it for the delivery. Clayton and Samuel worked on bottling the milk and I started packing. Mom talked Papa into taking her down field to check on Bonnie—and while they were down there Mom had to help Bonnie deliver her chunky little bull calf. Since Hurricane Ian was close to making landfall and we were feeling the effect of his strength (wind), I thought that we just might call the bull calf “Ian”—but upon discussing name options “Clyde” was chosen. Have you ever heard of “Bonnie and Clyde”? The next day I got to milk Bonnie for the first time and I was amazed at how well she did. Some cows are pretty dangerous with their back foot the first time you milk them (and sometimes for the first week or two until they get used to it). Bonnie swung her leg a little—but she calmed right down and let her milk (colostrum) down.

               Usually it is me that bites off more than I can chew—but last Thursday Mom really did. Clayton and I milked the cows so that Mom could start washing canning jars. We had a case of peaches and a case of nectarines that needed to be canned, and a case of oranges that needed to be juiced. I would soon learn that Mom also planned on vacuum sealing a 50 pound bag of oatmeal into glass half gallon canning jars and a case of raisins into glass pint jars.  Mom washed close to 70 jars that day—because we still don’t have a working dishwasher. Clayton and I peeled and sliced all the peaches—but had no time to do the nectarines. Mom spent the afternoon running back and forth from the house kitchen to the poultry kitchen to help Steve vacuum seal the oats and raisins. We were all totally exhausted by the time the day was over. We processed chickens on Friday, so it was Saturday before we got around to slicing up the nectarines and canning them. When the canning process was all done Mom ran out of juice/syrup before she ran out of nectarines—so we opted to make a Fruit Cobbler with the remaining nectarines. You can check out my recipe here “Fruit Cobbler”.

               A few weeks ago as Hurricane Ian began to build out in the ocean the prediction was for it to come our way. I don’t know about you—but it is definitely instinct for people to pray that the storm will not come their way. I was struggling with that prayer, because if it doesn’t come my way—it will go someone else’s way and why would I want to wish it on them? I heard a few people’s prayers and I thought that they had it just right “Lord, please weaken this storm and have mercy on us.” Needless to say, the Lord did not see fit to weaken the storm, but He did see fit to have mercy on us—though we are so undeserving of it. For a few days Hurricane Ian was predicted to go right over us, but at the last minute it turned east and slammed into Fort Myers instead. We only received 15 to 30 mph winds—and not one drop of rain though we could have used a few inches for everything is so dry. The only damage the wind did for us was to topple one of our rose/grape arbors in the garden—it was rotten anyway.  As we looked at the pictures of the destruction that Hurricane Ian did down south our hearts go out to those people that one day had everything they needed and the next day owned nothing. It makes me extra grateful for God’s mercy on us and our farm. I hope that our friends here in Florida faired just as well.

Serving you with Gladness,

Tiare