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Hi Everyone,
If you ever find the solution to make your life go picture perfect and always as planned—let me know. Flexibility seems to be the number one key to life, and we had to exhibit it a lot last week. We had planned to spend Monday in the garden, but instead we spent it on the porch visiting with a very dear friend who had come over to share some news with us. She left around 3:00 in the afternoon and we didn’t quite know what to do from there. Papa had been working on the shade for the cows—after 20 years the pipes have rusted through and need to be replaced, and Steve had already taken the chicks out to pasture. We didn’t feel like gardening, so we called it a day and Steve headed home. Mom and I had a glass of chocolate milk for lunch—and please do not ask how many days last week we had chocolate milk for lunch. Then I decided to vacuum the house for we were starting to have a colony of rabbits hanging out in the house—a.k.a. dust bunnies! Mom worked on bank work—yes, farming is more than gathering eggs, milking cows, moving the animals and weeding the garden, it is also figuring out “who has paid” and “who has not paid” and balancing the books.
We did make it to the garden on Tuesday for a few hours after we milked the cows and bottled the milk and kefir. It is time to plant the spring garden—but none of the beds are really ready. Two rows under the garden tunnels were 90% weeded so all I had to do was finish up the last little bit. Then I marked the rows and walkways and we began adding compost to the rows and woodchips to the walkways. We didn’t get finished before it was time to come in for lunch (more chocolate milk). When we came in from the garden I finished making the yogurt and then it was time for the weekly egg party. Shortly after we were done with the eggs my piano student arrived and I spent the next 30 minutes going over her lesson with her. Then it was back to the garden where Steve and Mom were finishing up. I helped a little and then we harvested the vegetables for the Jacksonville delivery. When we came back to the house I realized that the plants in the greenhouse needed a good watering—and then it was time to fix dinner and work on the receipts and orders.
Creating YouTube videos I will admit is not the easiest thing to do—but I have also learned that Mom is better at talking on videos and I am better at writing. One of the hardest things is figuring out what to video. On Tuesday I woke up with the idea of a strawberry video where we show how we are using the GreenStalk towers to grow bug free strawberries. Mom thought that it was a great idea. Tuesday night after dinner I did a short little video, and then Wednesday morning Mom did a short little video, and then Wednesday afternoon I videoed Mom harvesting strawberries. Then we came inside and loaded up the videos and began the editing process. If you are feeling sad then you should run over to the farm and ask to see my version—it will make you roll in laughter. Let’s just say it didn’t make the cut. On the other hand, Mom’s video was great and you can see it here: https://youtu.be/bTaOawU-iqA
Abundance of milk is a blessing—it means we have enough to go around, but sometimes we have more than enough to go around and we have to cream. A few weeks ago we dried off four milk cows to give them a six to eight week vacation before they calve—and I was afraid that we might not have enough milk to go around. I was hoping that since we were creaming two days a week that the milk supply would just drop enough so that we didn’t have to cream—but for some reason it didn’t work that way. The cows that are in milk produced even more milk (thanks to the green grass), and on Thursday we found ourselves creaming again. That is good—because we have four more cows to dry off by May 1, and there are two more cows due to calve in the next two weeks, it is nice to know that possibly we will not run low on milk.
While Steve and I were busy creaming milk Thursday morning, Papa and Mom were busy rounding up the sheep so that they could pick out a few for someone who was coming by to buy some that afternoon. When we were done creaming I got some seeds planted in the seed trays in the greenhouse, and Steve mixed up a wheelbarrow load of potting soil for me and then refilled my soil can with it. After lunch that day Steve and I headed to the garden to start transplanting lettuce and planting some squash, cucumbers, cantaloupe and watermelon seeds. Since the spinach had gone to seed I had Steve pull up all the plants and add them to the compost heap in the chicken compost yard.
Do you ever have fifty things that you want to do all on the same day—but only have the time to do one? That is where we were on Friday. There is so much to do in the garden and greenhouse right now, we want to visit a rose nursery/garden (Mom decided that she wants to plant more roses and lilies in the courtyard—because perennials are less time consuming), and we have other projects to work on—but my sister and her family were working at the Clay County Fair in the early Florida section (lots of old Florida Cracker houses and gardens. Since there is only one day to go visit them at the fair, that is what we decided to do—everything else can be done on a different day. Papa had to work on getting things ready for the man to come on Monday to weld the cattle shade, the hay cutter and the cattle trailer hitch—so he couldn’t go. Mom and I left around 11:00 and drove the two hours there, spent two hours visiting and sightseeing, and then drove the two hours back home. We got to visit with my sister as her two children through half of the houses, then she had to go back to work and we looked at the other half of the houses with the two children. They had spent all week there, so they were very excited to show us their favorite parts. Makenna’s was the baby ducks, and both children loved the garden where they could pull up fresh carrots and eat them. I don’t know if any carrots were left in the ground by the time the fair closed on Sunday.
Saturday morning found us trying to do business without any internet. HELP!!!!! We couldn’t sign on to the internet for nothing. It all started Friday night, and when Papa called the company they said we needed a new sim card. Well, Papa got up early and did his morning chores so that as soon as breakfast was over he could head to town to get the part. He left home at 8:30—but low and behold the company didn’t open until 10:00. UGH! Papa still wasn’t home at 11:00 and we needed to pack for the Gainesville order, but we had one problem—we didn’t know who all had an order because we couldn’t check our email and 90% of our Gainesville customers send in their orders Friday night or Saturday morning. We only had one option—call our customers! So I spent about thirty minutes calling customers to see if they had placed an order or not. Then Papa came home and I thought that I would be able to check the emails to see if I missed anyone—but it still didn’t work, although the company said that our Wi-Fi hotspot was working perfectly. Once we got the orders packed and Papa on his way, we called our computer tech company. They told us the problem was with our internet company. I called the internet company and they said that they were closed—at least the business tech was closed for the weekend. So I called back to talk with anyone who would answer, and got the billing department. The man said that he used to be a tech so he should be able to help me. An hour later he admitted defeat and I hung up. Then I called my computer expert cousin in Tennessee and in five minutes he had my problem diagnosed. The Wi-Fi adapter was not working, and he said I probably needed to buy a new one. I found the gadget and pulled it out, then decided to plug it back in—and to my great delight it worked!!! I checked emails to see if I had missed anyone, and thankfully I had not missed any orders, and actually I gained a few by calling the people. It was late in the afternoon, and we still had to go move the sheep to the garden—so we didn’t get to go pick up a special surprise that I will tell you about next time.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare