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Hi Everyone,

                        Fair weather farmers—is there really such a thing? When the temps drop down into the teens and twenties, and the north winds are blowing you really wish that you could just snuggle down deeper in your bed and stay warm and cozy for a few more hours. Reality is that the animals need to be fed; the chickens need to be let out before they become cannibals, and the cows must be milked. I remember when a friend of ours got her first milk cow—a dream come true. Well, that milk cow delivered her calf in January and our friend was pregnant herself, and had the flu and it was cold outside—and that cow that she had dreamed about needed to be milked no matter what. I remember her calling and telling us, “This isn’t as romantic as the magazines make it out to be.” Yes, farming can be made to look glamorous in the magazines—but in reality there are invasive weeds to pull, extreme heat and extreme cold to deal with, storms—of which I will admit I would much rather milk the cows on a hot rainy summer day, than on a cold sunshiny winter day. There are deaths of animals to deal with (and usually it is your favorite one), midnight escapades when the cows get out and run down the road, drought, floods, more products than you can sell, or not enough products to meet the demand. Yet, there is the other side too—a glass of cold milk on a hot day, or a cup of hot coco on a cold day; a little lamb nibbling on your chin, a cow licking you; meat from animals that you know how they were raised and what they were fed; a newborn calf sucking on your fingers, seeing a chicken actually lay an egg; and harvesting fresh veggies from your own garden. When Clayton came to intern with us five months ago he had never worked in a garden and the first afternoon he was here we planted green beans. The deer ate those green beans, and we replanted—and the rabbits ate those green beans so we replanted the third time but this time in the garden tunnels and in December he helped us harvest and eat those green beans. The second crop that Clayton helped me plant in the garden was carrots. He helped me prepare the soil by adding compost and wood ash and then he broadforked it all in. I made five rows and we both filled the rows with carrot seeds—one or two seeds every inch or so. We had five twenty foot long rows and so we sowed a lot of carrot seeds. Once those seeds had sprouted and got big enough we weeded them and then last Wednesday we had the joy of harvesting most of the carrots. Before lunch we pulled up the carrots—and a lot of them Clayton had to pull up because they were so long that you had to pull with a good amount of strength. As he was attempting to pull up one carrot I teased him that someone in China was on the other end of the carrot pulling it down. When the carrot finally came up I think that it was a good foot long. After lunch we cut the tops off of the carrots and fed them to the sheep. Then we rinsed the dirt off of the carrots and let them dry in the sun for a little bit before we packed them in a tote and covered them with sand. If you want to see how we harvest and pack carrots for long term storage you can check out the YouTube video I did last year—“Harvesting the Fall Carrots”.

                        Last Monday we got up at 5:00 in the morning to milk the cows, because we were scheduled to go over to our friends and learn how to cut up the lambs that we had harvested on Friday.  Mom asked me if I was as excited about learning how to cut up as I was about learning how to skin and gut—and I told her I wasn’t. The first half of the day Mom and I packaged the meat after our friend cut it up. Then about half way through the day I got the chance to pick up the knife and learn how to cut the lamb half into chops, steaks, ribs and roasts—and I learned where the skirt steak and the flank steak are located. I really enjoyed it! Cutting up the lamb went so much quicker than skinning and gutting—we were all done by 3:15.

                        Last week was Clayton’s last week with us—but we really only got to spend two and a half days together. He spent last weekend with his family and then his Dad brought him back to the farm early Tuesday afternoon. It was nice to meet his Dad, and Clayton had the joy of giving his Dad a tour of the farm. With only a few days left on the farm there was a lot of “last time’s”. The last time to visit our church, the last time to do deliveries with Papa, the last time to milk the cows with me, the last time to do the afternoon chores, the last time to pet the dogs, and the last time to eat someone else’s cooking. Clayton accepted a job at a dairy in Pennsylvania—and he will be bacheloring it for most of his meals. I let him plan the menu for the last three dinners that he would be with us, and since I had talked about chocolate pudding for so long—but had never made it, I decided that it was most necessary to make the talk a reality. When you make things from scratch they take a lot longer than when you make something from a package. I do not make pudding very often, which means that I forget that it takes about 45 minutes to stir it before it is done. It turned out delicious though and we ate on it for three nights—I made a big batch because I wasn’t going to have all that work gobbled up in one night. We had lamb roast one night, meat and gravy on rice another, fresh carrots and fresh broccoli from the garden, and Chicken Piccata another night—check out my recipe here! Thursday was the last day and since Clayton would be leaving first thing Friday morning he had to be completely packed before he went to bed that night. We all pitched in and helped him get packed, and it was 11:00 by the time we headed to bed. Friday morning arrived too soon, but we had to have breakfast done by 6:30. Wally was coming for breakfast and then once they loaded all of Clayton’s belongings into the back of Wally’s truck they headed north around 7:45. It was sad to see Clayton leave for he has been such a joy and such a help these last five months. We shall have to see what the Lord has in store for us next. We have dreams and ideas—but as Proverbs 16:9 says . . . “A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.”

Serving you with Gladness,

Tiare