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Hi Everyone,
I got back inside about an hour ago from doing the evening chores for Papa—he is gone to the Men’s Prayer Meeting at church. I took the chance to take the camera with me in hopes to get a fresh picture of Aliya. She is growing up so fast and is going to be such a large dog—for she is only five months old and is quite large already. I managed to get a picture of her and Yasha together. They seem to get along real well, and I do believe that Yasha is a good teacher and sometimes she has to keep her pupil in line. The other morning Aliya was chasing the chickens round and round the chicken house. It seemed like she wanted them all to stay real close to the chicken house and not wonder off too far. The chickens were cackling away and Mom tried to yell at her to stop—but with all the chicken noise she couldn’t hear (or maybe she didn’t want to hear). Then a little while later Yasha came running down the hill and took charge. She evidently told Aliya to cut it out and once order was restored to the hen house then Yasha went back up the hill to her dog house, and Aliya lay down with the chickens.
I’ll do—if you do
When I was in my teens and early twenties Mom would ask me, “Do you want to mow the lawn or dust the furniture, vacuum the floors and clean the bathrooms?” I would always choose the house work for I hated to sweat and didn’t really like working outside—although I did enjoy riding my horse. Mom loved it outside, so she was always eager to mow the lawn. As I reached my late twenties I began to fall in love with the garden, and as my siblings left home one by one I had to help with more and more of the outside chores. I was used to spending my days sewing, quilting, crocheting, playing the piano, cooking the meals, ironing, vacuuming, cleaning, filtering and bottling milk and writing. When I began to work in the garden I would spend my mornings working inside, and then my afternoons in the garden. Then the day came that the last of my siblings left home and I had to become a milk maid. To say that I fell in love with milking is an understatement. I absolutely enjoy milking cows! Now I prefer to be outside and there is plenty out there to keep me busy—gardening and milking keep my days filled to the fullest. I will admit that finding time to do EVERYTHING that I enjoy doing isn’t exactly the easiest—trying to balance inside joys and outside joys isn’t always easy. Taking care of what screams the loudest seems to be the rule of thumb—cows must be milked daily, gardens must be weeded and planted in order to stay on top of them and eat from them, our stomachs get hungry so meals must be cooked, and dishes have to be washed so that the kitchen is clean and we have pots to cook in and plates to eat off of—which brings me to tonight. Being Sunday the breakfast dishes were not done before we left for church, and when we came home we had lunch to cook and then we had two meals worth of dishes. Our dishwasher is broke so Mom and I have been working together as a team to wash and rinse all the dishes—but tonight Papa was going to be gone and eggs needed to be collected and the ducks locked up. Mom doesn’t exactly enjoy gathering eggs—and so I made Mom a proposition, “If you wash all the dishes I will go outside and do all the chores.” Mom was more than eager to do the dishes—and I was more than willing to gather the eggs. My how times have changed! I will say though that Mom still prefers working outside more than inside—and we would both rather be in the garden.
In the Garden
Steve says that the garden is his “Job Security” because there are always weeds to pull, but gardening is really more than just weeding. There are vegetables, flowers, herbs, and fruit to plant—and then later harvest. There is pruning and mulching, and lately there is designing and building. Mom has a goal to have her grapevines in the ground come fall—but a lot of fencing and post burying needs to be done. Last Thursday was a day that we really didn’t have an agenda, so Mom and Steve headed to the garden to work on some fencing. I was going to stay inside and maybe get some much needed sewing done, or even start canning some acorn squash—but then I heard some disturbing news and all of a sudden the house had four walls that I didn’t care to stay in. So I grabbed my gloves, a bottle of water, my hat, and some clippers and headed to the garden—where there were no walls, but where I was surrounded by beauty and where I could pray and sort through my thoughts in a place where troubles seem to disappear. The climbing rose had been putting forth tons of new growth, but the canes were just flopping on the ground and on top of some other flowers. So I spent my time pruning out some canes and tying up others. When the roses were all secure and tamed I headed over to the row of zinnias, marigolds, and celosia. The wind had blown them over into the tomato trellis and I guess that was a good thing because the tomatoes had no bugs on them since they were surrounded by bug repelling marigolds. I couldn’t walk down the pathway though and so I grabbed some stakes and some baling twine (a farmers fix all rope) and wove the twine in and out down the row of flowers attaching it to the stakes. I had everything staked, but was adjusting a few plants when it was going on 5:00 and a storm began to brew and it was time to call it quits in the garden. Sometime I need to stake up the tomato plants which were sprawling all over the ground too. When I went to the garden this evening I was glad to see that the staking of the flowers helped to hold them in place during a severe wind and rain storm that we had yesterday. Some other zinnias that I had not staked didn’t fair so well—but thankfully zinnias continue to bloom whether they are standing up or lying down.
The Cat with Nine Lives
Two weeks ago our orange tabby cat, Sunny Boy, was showing signs of some kind of neurological problems. He couldn’t walk straight, he could barely drag himself up on the bench—he looked much disoriented and just wasn’t his normal self. As each day went by he seemed to look a little more stable—but still not right. Then a few days passed and we realized that we hadn’t seen Sunny. All we could think was that he had eaten something poisonous or got hit—but he wasn’t bloody at all. Sunny is always showing up with a wounded ear or tail or shoulder—but he continues on with life. He was a stray that was dropped off two or three years ago and has no desire to be held or cuddled. He will sit near you and he will talk to you from time to time—but do not try to pet him for he will quickly scamper off. Papa can manage to stroke his back sometimes when he feeds Sunny—but that is the only time Sunny will let someone touch him. Sunny is a good ratter and I will say has even “blessed” Mom with a few dead rabbits on her side of the milking parlor. As I said, Sunny is always showing up with signs of being in some kind of “fight” and we just tease that he has “nine lives”. Well, when he disappeared this time we were pretty sure that he had lived his ninth life and he was gone. Then a few days ago Steve saw Sunny coming out of the garden, and then Mom saw him eating cat food in the garage, and I saw him lying on the carport. We were all so happy—and so shocked! He is walking much better—but I think that his head is still a little crooked. So I guess he still has at least one more life left.
Cover crops—for the cows and the garden!
The last few weeks Papa has been busy riding the tractor round and round the pastures. He hooks the mower deck on and mows a field, and then he hooks on the seeder and plants the field with some iron clay peas. By Tuesday night he had planted all the fields that needed to be planted and by Friday all the fields had sprouted. The peas are a fall forage for the milk cows when the grasses are not as nourishing and don’t make much milk. It is exciting to see the peas all sprouted and growing tall so quick.
In the garden we have also been weeding and planting cover crops in order to suppress the weeds and add nitrogen to the garden rows for the winter crops. Those peas are up also—and looking really good.
High-ho the Dairy-O a Milking we will Go!
Summer is in full swing and the cows are feasting on lots of green grass and we have had about ten little calves born in the last two months—which means we are practically swimming in milk. We went from 9 and 11 gallons of milk a day a few months ago, to 18 and 20 gallons a day now. Lots of milk means we have plenty to make yogurt and kefir with—and we have extra to cream. When we cream we use some of the skim milk to make quark (a soft cheese) and whey, and some of it is used to fertilize the pastures. We are spending a lot more time in the milk house lately as we cream the milk a couple days a week which means we then have curds and whey to hang, and then the next day we have whey to bottle and quark to package. I am determined this year not to complain for while abundance means more work—it also means that we have plenty to go around.
I hope that you are enjoying your summer—I know that we are (sweat and all).
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare