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Hi Everyone,
Yes, I know that the grasses are still brown and the trees still look dead—but I have heard the call of the Meadowlark. While the Phoebe bird marks the beginning of fall, the call of the Meadowlark only means one thing—spring is here! The nights will still get cool, but the days are starting to warm up. In one week it shall be March and we will be exchanging the winter décor for spring décor. In just a few weeks I will be starting the spring garden by planting some things in the garden and starting some things in the greenhouse, but enough dreaming of the future—let me tell you what happened here on the farm last week.
We are slowly getting better after being knocked down by Covid, but our energy is still on vacation. If anyone happens to find it running races somewhere, would you please tell it to come home—we have lots of things to do, but we lack the energy to do them. They say that slow and steady wins the race, and that is exactly how we are accomplishing the little things that we do.
Monday morning we milked the cows and then after a little bit of computer work we headed to the garden. Steve weeded where we plan on planting the spring crop of red potatoes, Mom weeded the walkway beside the Swiss chard and the bed of Swiss chard, and I weeded the kale and lettuce rows. The kale looks much better now that it is weeded and all the old leaves have been removed—now if only the aphids would go on vacation we could have kale to sell again. I haven’t exactly figured out how to deal with aphids on green leafy vegetables. You can spray them with essential oils—but do I want my kale to taste like peppermint or cayenne pepper? You can spray them with soapy water—but I am allergic to corn and I do not know of any dish soap that doesn’t have corn and chemicals in it. So—the kale grows pretty, and the chickens have a feast. We weeded until lunch time, and then after lunch Mom and Steve helped Papa repair the chicken tractor and I stayed inside to turn the dehydrated lemon peels into powder. I probably spent an hour converting 15 trays of lemon peels into two quarts of powder.
Tuesday I had one goal. Since I have been sick I do not get to accomplish much in a day, and I am pretty much limited to one exhausting thing a day. My energy level determines whether that one thing is milking, or whether I get to milk and do one more thing. I have not been able to attend the egg party for a month, and since I was no longer contagious and I had some more energy, that Tuesday’s “big” job would be packaging eggs. After milking I didn’t head to the garden with Mom and Steve, instead I sat on the floor by my garden desk going through my seed collection taking note of what I had, what I needed, what I wanted, and what I wanted to grow. Shortly after 1:00 I headed to the kitchen to finish making the yogurt. I also called the “weeding” crew in for lunch. It was a good thing that I didn’t go to the garden, for I could feel my energy waning—but I was determined to help with the eggs. I will admit, I was late for the egg party, but I did make it. The Tavernari family is so faithful to show up every week to help us package the eggs—and they cheerfully package them even if we cannot help. Shortly after 3:00 the eggs were all packaged and the cleanup was almost done. By then I was very grateful that I had cancelled my piano lessons for the day—my student’s playing might have lulled me to sleep for I was so tired. So I spent the rest of my afternoon working on the orders and receipts for Wednesday’s Jacksonville delivery and reading a book—before it was time to start dinner.
Wednesday morning is always a very busy time for us as we have the cows to milk and all the orders to pack before Papa has to leave at noon. Once that is done then we can relax—and relax we do. I did manage to find a little bit of energy to head outside to the greenhouse for a little bit to pot up some broccoli plants. They were just starting to sprout when the hard freeze hit a month ago so I brought them inside to protect them from the freeze—then I forgot about them. The poor little seedlings were reaching for the sun the next time I saw them and I quickly whisked them back outside to the sunny greenhouse. Since they were quite “leggy” I was determined to pot them up just as soon as they produced their first true leaves—and Wednesday was the day. They are much happier now, and should grow good and strong stems now that they are buried deep in the dirt and have plenty of sunshine.
Valentine’s Day happens in February, and one of the most popular Valentine‘s gifts is roses—but you won’t find roses blooming on any of our rose bushes in February. That is why February is a great month to prune roses. The freezes have stopped the blooming process, and the roses are just starting to send out little buds—the beginning bumps of new growth. I am no pro when it comes to pruning, but I do know that you should cut at an angle just above one of those buds—preferably the third or fourth bud up a cane. You do not want to prune the rose shorter than 8 inches high, but 10 to 18 inches high is great. I was just reading about how to prune a rose and it said, “Cuts should be no more than 5mm (¼ in) above a bud and should slope downwards away from it, so that water does not collect on the bud. Be safe and wear thick gardening gloves to protect your hands and arms from thorns while working with roses.” Well . . . I cannot say that all my cuts were ¼ in above the bud—and I bet that some of them slope downwards toward the bud. Oops! The second half of the instructions I didn’t follow either—but I had a good excuse for ignoring that one. I do not own a pair of thick gardening gloves that go up to my elbows. The only pair of leather gloves that I own only covers my hands but they are so stiff that I cannot make a fist in them—which means I cannot close the pruners in order to prune the roses. I could wear a long sleeve shirt—but I do not have any shirts that I wanted to rip holes in. I have ruined a few dresses during pruning season in the past. Yes, I will admit, that by the time I was done pruning 21 rose bushes that my arms and hands looked like I had been in a fight with a cat and lost—and they didn’t feel very good either. I didn’t even get to the eight Louis Philippe roses that border one side of the garden, the Alachua rose that climbs one of the arbors in the garden, and the Dr. Van Fleet rose that covers the arbor in our back yard. I literally spent my day pruning roses, and by 4:00 I was done in. Mom and Steve were weeding in the garden and Papa was fixing some of the garden sprinklers.
Friday was a rainy day and I spent most of the day going through the seed catalogs. A few weeks ago I had gone through them marking seeds that I wanted to grow, and then on Friday I made a list of everything and did the “math” of how much they would all cost. Then came the cross off this and cross off that until the price didn’t look so bad. I will have to admit that this year I am thinking more along the lines of: What do I really want to grow? What do I really want to deal with? I am reining in some of my dreams, but must have flowers. I am trying to stay simple and practical—but still have beauty.
Saturday morning we had a family come over while we were milking that wanted to ask questions concerning our Jersey cows. Years ago we had Dexter cattle, and the mother bought some of our Dexter’s—and she still has one of them that is now 21 years old. Her son is grown and has some acreage and he wants some Jersey cows to mow his grass. I cannot blame him for who could not fall in love with the scooped nose of the Jersey and the big black eyes. We had a good visit, and I do believe that they fell in love with a few cows.
When we were done milking we packed the order for Gainesville and got the receipts made. Then I spent my afternoon reading and relaxing. I finally was able to purchase Joel Salatin’s new book Polyface Micro and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I don’t care how long you farm—there is always something to learn.
Praise the Lord we made it through another week—and Lord willing next Sunday I will tell you about next week.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare