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Hi Everyone,
Today’s my Papa’s birthday, and although he just turned 71—he says he feels no different than he did at 51. Yes, he is still the strength of our farm. When Papa first graduated from high school he thought that he wanted to work in the Forestry department—you know Smokey the Bear, but when he finished Forestry College he decided that measuring the height of trees was not for him. The Vietnam War was in full swing by then and the draft was strong—so Papa decided to beat the draft and join the Navy. He then spent the next four years travelling around the world on a ship looking at the radar screen—talk about boring! He then exchanged his sea legs for mountain legs and went to college to be a Geologist, and after graduation he became one of the Geologists at a phosphate mine north of White Springs, Florida. For the next thirty-five years Papa worked at the mines mapping out where to dig for the phosphate and figuring that out gave him many opportunities to go mud bogging on the dirt roads after a rain and “mountain climbing” as he walked up and down the phosphate pits. The sides were steep, and the bottoms of the pits were soupy which allowed for the telling of stories of lost socks and boots filled with mud. Occasionally an alligator was spotted swimming around, once a bobcat was seen on top of an electrical pole, and sometimes bears caught them—you know the kind that attack you on hot summer days when you over heat and need more water to drink. Papa enjoyed his job—he was following in the footsteps of his Great-Grandfather on his father’s side who mined silver in Colorado, and his Great-Grandfather on his Mother’s side who mined phosphate south of us in a little town called Fort White—way back in the 1890’s. Papa’s favorite tools were hand lenses so that he could closely examine rocks, minerals, sediments, soils, sands, and other materials for proper identification. He still keeps one on his key ring today. If he wasn’t closely eye-balling things then he would check them out by tasting them. Did you know that different kinds of rocks and minerals taste differently? Ask Papa what copper sulfate tastes like, and he will tell you that it is hot and spicy. When Papa was 40 his life began to change a little every year—as in every year we added some new kind of animal to our five acres. You are not farmers if all you have are horses—but once you get chickens, sheep, cows, and turkeys then you definitely are a farmer. By the time Papa was in his late forties we had maxed out our five acres and we moved to 65 acres. Papa was a geologist by day and a farmer in the early mornings, late afternoon and evenings, and on weekends. Then at the age of 62 the Phosphate mine retired Papa and he became a full time farmer—and Mom and I have enjoyed having him home with us ever since. Now if you come by the farm in the morning you will find Papa riding all over the farm in his green John Deere tractor as he moves the cows, sheep and chickens to new pastures. You also might find him wrestling a heifer cow in training, jumping fences, tearing off old roofs in order to put a new one on, fixing broken equipment, gathering eggs and playing with the dogs. You wouldn’t know that he was in his 70’s if his hair wasn’t turning white.
When last week began I was hopeless of getting the rest of the squashes and pumpkins planted in the garden before May 1—when it really is officially too late to start them. I had planned on spending all day Monday in the garden weeding—but alas half of the carrots were ready for harvesting. I pulled them up, but then to my dismay I found the wash sink barely being held up by its wooden frame. Mom has an old, large cast-iron sink inserted into a wooden table in the garden. It has been there for over ten years and the wood has finally rotten. The wood on one side of the sink had completely caved in—UGH! Now the dilemma was to figure out how to wash the dirt off the carrots and air-dry them in the sun so that we could store them in sand. I ended up setting some ½ inch hardware cloth over some old benches (so that I could dry the carrots) and then hooking the hose up on a spike over one corner of the hardware cloth (so that I could wash the carrots). The only problem was that the whole set up was about two feet too short and my back was killing me way before I was done—and boy was I glad when I was done! Then Mom and Steve came and helped stack them in a tote and cover them with sand. Then the whole tote was placed in the cool storage.
I was desperate to get some Seminole pumpkins planted—but I didn’t know where to plant it. Pumpkins and squash take up a lot of growing space—and then you also do not want to plant the same species next to each other (pepo, moschata, maxima). We have three garden beds to grow squash in—but they were full with zucchini, yellow squash, butternut squash, spaghetti squash and acorn squash so I had no idea where to plant the pumpkin. Mom and I finally came up with the idea of growing them on the side of the barn. On Tuesday we were able to start weeding on one bed, and then I was able to plant in two other beds. I also transplanted some flowers that were coming up as weeds in the walkways—how many people get to call zinnias, sunflowers and celosia “weeds”? Come Thursday we finished weeding the last bed and I was able to plant some butternut squash. Then we headed over to the barn to mow down some winter grasses, weed out the roots and add some chicken compost and plant some pumpkin seeds.
We are trying to accomplish at least one YouTube video a week and last week we were able to edit the video clips of Mom and me harvesting the onions the week before. The whole harvesting process (pulling them out of the ground, picking them up, setting up a drying rack, and hanging the onions on the drying rack only took one hour—but editing the videos took longer. You can watch the process here: https://youtu.be/IwWbegSHAQw. This is the first year that we are curing the onions in our barn. We have watched other farmers store their onions in their barn, a farmer here in town told us that he stored his in the barn—but we didn’t trust the rats. In the past we have used the brooder house—but this year it is full of baby chicks. Last year we used the Poultry Kitchen—but this year we are processing chickens in there every other week. Once we used the tool shed—but it is full of wood and is too hot in there. We couldn’t figure out where to cure the onions until I finally Googled—“Do rats like onions?” To my delight I read that rats hate onions and will die if they eat them—so we set up the drying rack in the barn.
Papa spent his week scaling to the top of the portable shade for the Jersey cows—the roof was falling apart and the skids had rusted through. The week before Papa had a welder come over and weld some new skids to the frame and then Papa worked at painting the weld spots. Then this week he started taking the roof off and replacing some of the frame boards before he and Steve start putting the new roof on this coming week.
We are blessed with the help that we get on processing day, and last week we had two extra hands. One young lady was not too sure about the process when she began—but by the time we were all done she was more than eager to come again the next time. It can get a little hot in the poultry kitchen, but we all got a nice cooling off when one of the helpers squatted down to help dump some icy water and her elbow bumped the on/off valve of a water pipe that is supposed to be hooked to a sink—but has not been hooked up. Her elbow turned the water pipe on and water began to shoot up spraying everyone. We all ran for cover and when she went to turn it off—it got turned on full blast and the handle broke off. It was a geyser—and we were getting soaked. Mom ran for the main water on/off valve and with the water off we were able to hook the handle back on and turn it off—then we removed the handle so no other accidents could occur. We all had some good laughs after that.
Saturday I took some time to walk through the garden and pick flower bouquets. The snapdragons, forget-me nots, roses, lilies, Love-in-a mist (bachelors buttons), gladiolas, Gaillardias, Showy pink primrose, poppies, strawflowers, statice and the Black-eyed Susan’s are all blooming. I picked enough flowers for three bouquets with each being different color coordination’s. There was a pink “Queen of Sweden” rose with green apple mint and white and pink “Apple blossom” snapdragons. Then I mixed a pale yellow “Poet’s Wife” rose with some green apple mint, some blue forget-me-nots and some yellow snapdragons. The last bouquet was full with blue forget-me-nots, apricot snapdragons, an apricot gladiola, and some strawflowers. They were all so beautiful—and still are.
This week we shall need to start getting some projects done so that we are ready for the “You Can Farm in Florida! Seminar” in two weeks. We have a board walk that is rotting and needs to be replaced and Mom says that there is a long list of things to do. If you are interested in attending, don’t forget to purchase your tickets at: https://youcanfarminflorida.rsvpify.com
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare