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Hi Everyone,
Last week started with 2.25 inches of rain Sunday night and it ended with 2 more inches of rain Saturday night. I think that summer is here in Florida—for the afternoon rains have begun. Thanks to that rain last Sunday the sky was too cloudy to see the Blood Moon/Full Moon rise, but by the time I went to bed the sky was beginning to clear and I had high hopes of seeing the lunar eclipse. There was one problem though—the eclipse was to begin at 10:30 p.m. that night, peak at midnight and be over by 2:00 a.m. and that is in the middle of my sleep! I was too tired to stay up and watch it—but I really wanted to see it. When I climbed in bed I realized that I could look out my window and see the moon—and then I fell asleep. I woke up at midnight—and rolled over and looked out my window and saw the eclipse at about 95%. Most of the moon was dark with only a sliver still white. I was satisfied, and fell back fast asleep.
Exhausted—but finding something to keep me relaxingly busy!
Monday morning I was still tired—but what do you expect after going all day Friday with the Chicken Processing Class, all day Saturday with the You Can Farm in Florida Seminar, and then church all day on Sunday. Thankfully milking the cows is something that you have to do every day so that gives you some motivation to get up and going even when you do not feel like it—but after the cows are milked and you are tired it becomes a little hard to motivate yourself to do something. That is when answering emails and putting together orders becomes a great “chore.” I had wanted to harvest the herbs, but I just couldn’t motivate myself to go to the garden and harvest—which would have then required getting them all on the dehydrator. Mom managed to work in the courtyard all day planting a rose and weeding along the fence. I planted some marigolds and zinnias where the narcissuses were growing and then I spent the rest of the afternoon in the greenhouse potting up basil.
Junk or Treasure
When I woke up Tuesday morning I made a list of things that just HAD to be done before Friday—and we really only had Tuesday and Thursday to do it all in. I had planned on harvesting the rest of the carrots, the yellow onions and the garlic this coming week, but when I looked at the weather and saw that the afternoon rains would arrive on Friday I just knew that I had to get them out of the ground before Friday and the rains arrived. I also wanted to get the zinnias, marigolds, balsam and celosias transplanted to the garden before the rains began. So I thought that we could harvest on Tuesday and transplant on Thursday—but we had two tons of chicken feed being delivered in totes and we had no place to put them. The price of chicken feed and shipping is constantly going up—but we found out that we could save $600 if we ordered it in totes instead of 50 pound bags. The feed was scheduled to be delivered on Tuesday--but —the only place to put it was in the garage and the garage was full to the max. We have a shed that is supposed to be converted to a “Tool Shed”—but it really isn’t ready yet to move the tools from the garage to the shed. We had no choice though—we had to make room in the garage. The hardest thing was that I do not like to deal with spiders and spider webs—and I am totally lost when it comes to organizing anything that has to do with carpentry. If nails and screws are not in their boxes, then they must be trash—right? What do you do with: small scraps of wood? Little chains? Pieces of metal? I can organize a kitchen, a sewing room, a garden shed, a garden, a bedroom, a closet—but a garage or a tool shed I have no desire to deal with. I really wanted to be harvesting in the garden—not rearranging the garage! Lunch time arrived and we really hadn’t accomplished much—but as soon as lunch was over I was more than happy to head over to the milk house to join the egg party. Packaging eggs was more to my liking. We were half way through the eggs when the party was interrupted by something I saw coming down the road—a semi-truck freight delivery with two one ton totes on it for us! There was still no room for them in the garage! We quickly headed over to the garage and pushed this that way, and moved that over there, and shoved things out of the way as fast as we could. Then we quickly ran the broom around and when the truck was parked the area was ready—even though the rest of the garage looked like a disaster. I then headed back to the egg party, and after that I had to teach piano lessons. When 4:00 rolled around I was hoping to head to the garden to harvest the veggies for the Jacksonville delivery—but Mom and Steve were ready to move everything that was on the shelfing unit in the garage into the tool shed. We made trip after trip emptying the golf-cart and Gravely of everything that had been on the shelfing unit and taking it into the shed—and putting most of in on the floor in the back corner until Mom and I can find the time to organize it all on the shelfing unit. On Thursday poor Papa was trying to build some wooden dollies for two chest freezers we use on chicken processing days—and he couldn’t find his tools, wheels, or screws! Thankfully we had an idea of where they were.
Harvesting, Harvesting, 1 – 2 – 3
Tuesday night I shared with mom how hard it had been for me to work in the garage when there was so much to harvest in the garden before the rains came. She totally understood and she thought that she would have time on Wednesday to harvest the carrots, onions and garlic while I taught piano lessons—and that is exactly what happened. Later that day we both hung the onions to cure on the drying rack in the barn. We laid out the elephant garlic there too. The carrots were thrown in a big plastic tub with their tops still on them and placed in the walk-in cooler. It was such a relief to know that they were all harvested before they got water logged.
To plant or not to plant—that is the question of the day!
I had four trays of flowers in the greenhouse that were past ready to be transplanted to the garden. I hadn’t potted them up because I thought for sure that I would be transplanting them straight to the garden immediately—and that was weeks ago. I wanted as many of those flowers in the garden before it rained, so after milking on Thursday we headed to the garden. The question was where to plant them—because nothing was really ready for them. As we walked around the garden all Mom could see was weeds everywhere that would engulf the vegetables if they were not taken care of very soon. The question was: Do we weed the veggies? (or) Do we transplant flowers? Tough questions I know, especially since once the rains begin the weeds grow by leaps and bounds. I knew the condition of my flowers—tall and spindly and if not planted soon would be good for nothing but the compost pile. So we decided to spend the day preparing a few beds for the flowers—and it just so happened that the beds we chose were practically weed free because we had just harvested the carrots, onions and garlic out of them. Half the time was spent prepping the beds (weeding, composting and broadforking) and then the rest of the time was spent planting over 100 flowers (zinnias, cosmos, balsam, marigolds, and about four different kinds of celosia). It was after 5:00 that night when we finished—but I was well pleased!
Helping others become Farmers!
When you have animals it is inevitable that they will multiply—and you cannot keep every single one of them. When our milk cows calve we let the mama cows raise the heifers, and sometimes we let them raise the bulls. Typically though, we sell the bulls when they are one to two weeks old—after they have gotten all the nourishment from their mama’s colostrum. Honey had a bull calf three weeks ago and we advertised him, and many people called and wrote acting like they were interested in him—but not one person showed up to pick him up. Then Thursday morning I updated the ad and a few hours later we got a phone call from a husband whose wife had called him from work to tell him that she wanted the calf. When Mom went to catch the calf it was lying down, but when Mom reached down to grab it the calf jumped up and with both back feet kicked Mom in both knees. Steve and Mom finally caught it and then they put it in the hoop house with our new puppy Aliya—but Aliya is terrified of cows (even two foot tall calves). All looked well when we left the hoop house, but we were not inside very long before we heard Aliya whining, yapping, barking, and howling like she was being killed. We went running and found Aliya huddled up in the corner and the little bull calf kept going up to investigate her. We don’t know if he butted her or just got near her—but she needed to be rescued. So we took her to the brooder house and put her in the empty front room. There were chicks in the middle room and she stood there barking at them forever—and they huddled in the back corner wanting her to be quiet. Aliya finally calmed down and all was well—until she decided to flood the place by playing in her big water tub. We then took her to the duck house in the pasture and put her in there—the ducks were out roaming the farm. It was around 3:30 when the couple arrived to pick up the calf—and when the calf was loaded and gone Papa said that he was never so glad to sell a calf as he was that one. That calf was very lively!!!! When Papa went to get him out of the hoop house the calf bounced off the walls. Then when they got him in the back end of the truck he escaped and ran around the yard. Papa caught him up after he got himself stuck in the fence, but as he was holding him the little calf gave Papa the one, two with his hooves and left quite a few bruises on Papa. AS I said—he was a feisty little fella!
On Friday we had another family come over to pick up one of our bred heifers—because they were ready to start their own dairy (one cow dairy that is for their own consumption). Summer is due in August—so they have a few months to get used to her and her get used to them.
Preventing Giants!
The week before when we processed the chickens they weighed 6, 7 and 8 pounds—our normal poundage is 4, 5, and 6 pounders. We decided to process the next batch one week early, so we processed chickens again last Friday. Those chickens were in the 4, 5 and 6 pound range which was much better—although we do have quite a few people who want the largest chickens, but then we also have people that want the smallest chickens. It is hard to please everyone—especially when you have no control over how fat a chicken gets (except to process them a week early). Each batch grows differently so we have to judge whether they will be big or small as each one approaches 7 weeks of age.
Rain at last!
We are ever grateful that we have survived the drought and are entering into the rainy season—if you get the chance take some time to play in the rain. I am sure that we will have our days of working in it!
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare