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Hi Everyone,
Well, it is 7:22 and I just got inside from doing the evening chores. Papa is at the Men’s Prayer Meeting at church, so Mom and I had to do his chores. A few months ago Mom and I took the camera with us when we did Papa’s chores and we finally got around to editing it. You can check it out on our YouTube channel at Shepherd’s Hill Farm under Evening Chores and don’t forget to Like and Subscribe!
Spring at Last
It is official—spring has sprung forth all around us, and the calendar even agrees, for today is the first day of spring! The grasses are turning green; the oaks are pollinating and pushing forth new green leaves. The cherry, sycamore and maple trees are all decking themselves with new green leaves too. The pecan trees haven’t even attempted to send out any green leaves for they know that more cold weather could appear at any time between now and Easter. Yes, you can always know that the last frost is past when the pecan trees leaf out. Not only are things turning green but as I drive around I notice that the dogwoods and azaleas are blooming too. It is also time to start preparing for the spring garden. On Monday I was finally able to transplant the broccoli out to the East Garden tunnel. Steve and I had spent some time before lunch harvesting the lettuce before it bolted and the ripe cabbages. That left us with two empty beds—just what I needed to plant 32 broccoli plants. The beds were not 100% empty though—for they did have a light covering of weeds that needed to be removed. We were not able to get back to the garden before 3:30—and at 4:00 we were supposed to take the calves back to the barn and take the milk cows back to the “hay” field (they had all spent the day in green grass fields). I almost gave up on the idea of planting the broccoli—but I just had to! I figured that dinner could be late, I didn’t have to come in early, and I would work until it was done! So I put on my high speed shoes and bee lined it to the garden. Steve took one bed and I took the other. My bucket quickly filled up with weeds and as I reached the last two feet of the bed I sent Steve for a wheelbarrow full of top soil/mushroom compost mix. Then I finished the bed and leveled it out and Steve covered it with a few inches of compost mix. While he went back and forth with full and empty wheelbarrows, I went back and forth from leveling the compost mix on the bed and weeding in Steve’s bed—his was weedier than mine. When the first bed was all done, then he started to cover the second bed with a layer of compost while I continued to weed. Once the weeded part was covered, then we both worked to finish the last few feet of weeds. Then he covered the rest with the compost, I leveled it out with the garden rake. It was going on 4:30 and while Steve cleaned up all the tools I ran the gridder down the beds to mark where to plant the broccolis and then I distributed the little pots of broccoli into the designated new spots. We then hoped into the Gravely and headed out to put the heifer calves and Jersey cows to bed. Once the animals were tucked in for the night then Steve headed home and I went back to the garden to plant all 32 broccoli plants. It was after 5:00, when I made it back into the house, and I do not believe that dinner was too late. Come Tuesday I was able to work in the greenhouse and start some lettuce seeds, a few flower seeds and a whole tray of roselle hibiscus seeds. I had wanted to plant some cantaloupe and yellow squash seeds in the tunnels in order to get a head start—but those beds were not ready yet.
When God does your Marketing
We have had five calves born so far this year—three bulls and two heifers. Sometimes we will let the mama cow raise her bull calf, and sometimes we will sell them when they are a week or two old—after they have had their fill of colostrum. The first two bull calves to be born we did not want to raise to be bulls—so we posted them on Craigslist and about six people called wanting them. Needless to say not all six got a calf. Then one of our young 15 month old heifers gave birth to a little heifer calf. She was as cute as a button and was only as tall as my knees. Jerseys are known for breeding too early, and every once in a while one of our six, seven or eight month old calves gets bred. If you leave the calf on the mama you sacrifice the health and size of the mama—so it is best to pull the calf after a few weeks and let the mama dry off and continue to grow. My Mom really wanted to bottle feed the calf and let her become a big pet—or should I say a little pet. Yet at the same time we all knew that we didn’t have any time (or strength lately) to bottle feed a calf for six months. For two weeks we went back and forth trying to figure out what to do with Autumn’s little heifer calf—then one day the phone rang. A lady was looking for a gentle milk cow—and was really interested in starting with a bottle calf. She had dreamed about it for years—and even had the name of her “future” cow picked out. Mom told her about the little heifer, and the lady was at our farm to pick her up in less than 24 hours. “Clover” as the lady named her is being spoiled, and hopefully one day she will grow up and spoil them with milk that they can drink and make butter, yogurt, cream, kefir, cheese and ice cream with. In the meantime, Penelope had given birth to an adorable little heifer calf and Ana had given birth to a handsome bull calf. We were going to let Penelope raise her calf, but we were not sure what to do with Ana’s bull calf. Did we want to sell it now, or raise it up to six months or older. Ana usually produces really nice quality bulls—but you are not guaranteed a buyer when they are older. A week later we got another phone call—a friend of the lady who had bought Clover was looking for a calf. At first we thought that she wanted a heifer calf like her friend, then we found out that she already had a milk cow and it was giving her so much milk that she had too much to drink and had already made all the cheese that she wanted—she needed a bull calf to help drink the excess milk. Yes, you really do get to the point where you cow is giving you more milk than you can possibly use. So, we sold her Ana’s calf. It was about an hour later when the first lady called back because her friend that was buying the bull calf told her that we had another heifer calf—and she wanted it. Now she has two bottle calves—another woman who prefers cows over diamonds! I do not blame her one bit. Therefore, we sold two calves with a little ad, and three calves because God sent them calling.
Blogging and Vlogging
Wednesday Mom and I worked on editing two videos. One I had done the day before I came down sick with Covid, and the other we had done sometime during our Covid recovery. I had managed to work on editing once—but was not able to finish. So on Wednesday we tackled the job, and accomplished it. In the first video I baked a Custard Pie and then I wrote the recipe out on my Recipe blog page on our website: Easy-Creamy Custard Pie. The other video was on Mom and I doing the Evening Chores.
Canning 101
Not everyone grew up preserving food, and not everyone who grew up doing it continued doing it. Enter Covid and food shortages and supply chain problems—and now there is a surge in people wanting to learn the “old-fashioned” skills. Mom has been canning for a little over 40 years, and all my siblings had to learn how to work the canner too. I will admit that I was in my thirties before I decided that I had better learn instead of depending on my Mom and little sister. Some friends of ours decided it was time that they learned how to can also, and so on Thursday afternoon they came over and spent the afternoon canning with us. The first thing we taught them how to can was dried beans—for a jar of canned beans is so much quicker and easier to cook for a meal than a bag of dried beans. The second thing we taught them how to can was white potatoes. We had harvested some from our garden in January—and they were patiently waiting for us to can them into jars so that they would last longer. Mom taught them the ins and outs and the ups and downs.
Helping One Another
When I was done milking Friday morning I set up camp in the kitchen and set to work baking some pumpkin muffins and cooking some rice and carrots for a special meal for our friend Emily. She was blessed with another baby, and we were taking her dinner. Before we took her dinner though, we were blessed to have four of her children come over after lunch and help us in the garden. They helped with weeding and mulching—and they were great helpers. It was around 4:00 when we packed up the meal and headed to their home—with a handful of fresh flowers too. I was talking with two of the boys about different flowers growing in the area of the garden where we were weeding. I told them about the patch of forget-me-nots that I kept forgetting what they were called, and mentioned that I would like to take their Mom a bouquet of them—if I could remember. Before we were all done in the garden a customer showed up and I had to leave and come up and take care of her. I never went back to the garden because by the time I was done they all were coming up. I went ahead and packed up the food and as I was getting me some water I looked out the window toward the garden and remembered the forget-me-nots. I figured that it was too late, so I surrendered to the fact of having no flowers. As I walked out the door one of the boys met with, “Don’t forget the forget-me-nots!” I couldn’t let them down, so I grabbed the clippers and quickly walked back out to the garden. Once I gathered a handful of forget-me nots I was heading back to the house when Mom yelled at me to tell me the children wanted some of the red roses too. I turned around and headed back to the garden—but the red roses stems were only about two inches long and floppy. So I headed over to the climbing Cecil Brunner pink roses that had huge long stem sprays and picked some of them. On my way out I clipped a daffodil and the bouquet was complete. We had a lovely visit with Emily—and her baby girl is most precious!
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare