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Hi Everyone,
Last week I told you about delivering a heifer to a family in our church, and I included their YouTube channel address so that you could see the video of their new arrival—but the video didn’t come out until today, so here is the link again “Maynard Family Homestead”. You can even catch a glimpse of Papa playing rodeo as he worked to get the cow to calm down before he let go of the rope on her halter. When a cow is being led on a halter and she takes off, the goal is to rein her in so that she knows that you are boss—but that isn’t always possible. Sometimes you have to let go of the rope or you will eat dirt.
The green beans are producing abundantly in the garden tunnel. We harvested two baskets full on Monday, and spent Wednesday afternoon snapping them and then we canned them up and got 20 pints. We were not able to harvest again until Friday, and we spent Saturday afternoon snapping and canning them. We got 15 pints plus 6 quarts from that picking. The plants are still loaded and blooming so hopefully we will get many more pickings. We have found that fall grown green beans produce the best and the bugs are not bad either.
Monday was really spent in the garden. I had more plants to transplant—Swiss chard, broccoli, lettuce, and another batch of zinnias. There was a lot to do though before we could start transplanting. The side fence of the garden tunnel had disconnected and the bottom of it was buried two inches in the dirt. So Steve pulled the metal fence panels out of the dirt, and then he helped Mom zip-tie the fence back to the metal braces. Then he helped me zip-tie the chicken wire to the metal panels. With the fence all secure we could finally focus on prepping the beds. Steve broadforked the rows and I went behind him with the tilther and then the gridder. There was four beds to prepare, and we did them all one after the other. Then Mom dug up the little plants and I tucked them into their new beds. Time was up by the time we got the Swiss chard, broccoli and lettuce planted—so we had to wait until Tuesday before we could transplant the zinnias. The zinnias were to be planted in the bed where we had started all the seedlings, so they had to be the last to transplant. I got the bed weeded and then I composted, broadforked, and tilthed it. Mom and I worked together to get the zinnias transplanted and then we could say that we had finally accomplished transplanting all the fall crops. I have new seedlings coming up in the greenhouse—lettuce and cabbage. Once we harvest the sweet potatoes then we will have more growing space for the tunnels are maxed out right now. For the life of me though—I cannot get the celery or the chamomile to sprout. I love to grow celery and the variety I grew from seed last year was very sweet and tender. The kind I grew the year before we bought as Bonnie plants and they were very strong flavored and tough—so I really want my seeds to sprout, but I have planted them four times now and even bought fresh seed!
Mom has been trying to get our hay delivered for a month now—but the delivery man keeps putting her off. So last Monday she came up with a game plan. Mom went over to my sister Nichole’s and asked Gary, my brother-in-law, if he and my brother Charles could each drive one of Gary’s flatbed trailers over to the hay farm—and Papa would go too with our trailer. Then they could all bring back a load of hay. It sounded real simple, and really shouldn’t take that long—or so we thought. The hay farmer wouldn’t be home before 4:00, so the guys left here around 3:30 (it is a 45 minute drive). They were able to load a total of 28 bales of hay on the three trailers—just 2 less than the hay delivery guy can put on his one trailer. The drive home was much slower because they couldn’t drive faster than 40 mph. It was going on 8:00 by the time they all got home. Papa unloaded his trailer and then since it was late he decided to wait until Tuesday to load the rest of the hay in the barn for stacking hay in the barn in the dark (well, by tractor lights) isn’t the easiest thing to do. Everybody decided that they could make a trip to bring back hay once a week until our barn is full—and it would save us around $1700 in delivery fees. If we had a big trailer Papa could make the trips by himself, but we are thankful that we have family that can help.
The cows have officially eaten all the peas that we planted for them back in July. It took them three weeks to work their way around the farm as we gave them one section at a time. I am not sure that I can say that the peas actually made more milk this year—but I can say that they made more poo. We had to put out a bale of hay in order to help thicken the cows’ poo. They loved the peas—but we didn’t enjoy the “end” results. Mom teases that I have not potty trained my cows—for it seems that more cows on my side go potty in the milking parlor than on her side. Some of them go a few times. I guess they think, “You want let down? Okay, I will give you let down—I will let down my milk, my poo and my pee.” On Tuesday I had three cows left to milk when our neighbor showed up to put some furniture in our barn lean-to for the 1915’s house we are working on restoring. Mom left the parlor to go help (for Mom only has 3 cows to milk right now, for 7 of hers are dried off waiting to calve). I am milking 9 cows right now and have one cow due any day now—she has been due any day now for the last month. I think that I had Emma in one stall and Bonnie in the other. I got Bonnie hooked up, and before I could get Emma’s udder prepped for milking she poo-ed. I cleaned up the mess, sat down—and Emma poo-ed again. I cleaned up the mess, started to clean Emma’s udder—and Emma poo-ed again! I could not get Emma hooked up to the milking machine because I had to keep jumping up to catch poo, or cleaning up because I missed it. I finally reached my emotional limit and went and told Mom—“I NEED HELP!!!!!!!!” With Mom there to catch the poo I was finally able to get Emma hooked up and milked. Emma—do you remember her? She is the cow that got bit by the rattlesnake the beginning of summer. We were not sure if she would make it, but by faith I kept milking her in hopes that she would recover. It took a few months before she ever put any weight on that foot. She hobbled around on three legs for months—but believe it or not she could run pretty well on those three legs. The sore on her foot was very nasty and we soaked it in charcoal and Epson salt for weeks—until Emma said “no more”. Slowly the wound healed, and slowly Emma began to put weight on that foot. Today Emma gets around pretty good—on all fours. She has a slight limp because her foot is still slightly swollen, but her get up and go is back and her appetite is too—and best of all she is still producing a lot of milk (and sometimes a lot of poo)! I finally got through that poopy day of milking—but my poo troubles were not over yet. Friday we were milking and I believe that I was milking Ella when I noticed her tail going up. I quickly jumped up and grabbed the five gallon bucket to catch the poo. All was going well until . . . she coughed! When she coughed the poo went flying, and when she coughed she adjusted how she was standing—therefore the poo did not go in the bucket but it shot out down the side of the bucket and covered my arm with about two inches of poo and it went down the front of my dress too! I screamed!!!! Mom’s first response was, “Don’t scream like that it sounds like you got hurt.” Then I turned around and she saw me and we both started laughing as she said, “O my, I would have screamed too!” Needless to say I needed a change of clothing before I could finish milking that day.
Poo troubles are not fun—but I will take them any day over garden troubles. Wednesday we were walking through the garden and realized that the deer had returned. We hadn’t seen hide or hair of her since last year—but she was back! She walked all through the bok choy, kale and onions that are planted in “Martha’s Vineyard” and ate a few bok choy plants. We have not been able to deer proof the garden yet because duty called us elsewhere—and the deer returned last night and ate some kale. I am not the happiest of campers (gardeners)! Then over in the West Tunnel I think that a rabbit somehow found its way in and one night ate half the broccoli starts and the next night finished off the other half. I have been able to cage half of them, but I have to build another cage for the other half. The plants are still there so if we can protect the regrowth then we should still have broccoli.
In order to get the barn ready for hay we had to rent a dumpster for all the “trash” that had collected over the years. Once the barn was cleaned up there was still a lot of space left so we spent all day Thursday down at the 1915 house cleaning up all the trash in the woods and in the old barn. The previous “squatters”—for that is all they were (they didn’t own the place nor did they pay rent), they trashed the place. I will admit that they had “organized” trash piles. All the old batteries here, the old PVC pipes there, old fence here, and old computer parts there. There was broken glass, old dishes, old nails, tin cans, and other junk by the bookoodles. The old barn was about 2 feet deep in trash. On the property was also an old truck bed liner—and Papa took that and rigged it up to the tractor bucket. Then we could fill up the bed liner and Papa would drive it back down the road to the house and dump it in the dumpster. It saved us many trips and many bags. By the end of the day the barn was emptied and the south portion of the woods was all clean. It looked a lot better!
Friday Mom and I spent our afternoon running errands while Papa cleaned up a few areas on the farm and filled the dumpster with some farm trash—old fence pieces, old molasses containers, etc. When Mom and I got home it was time to start dinner and time for Papa to do the chores. It was dark by the time I served up some hamburgers and white sweet potato fries—but I needed some more milk before we sat down to eat. So I ran over to the milk house and grabbed a gallon of milk. On my way back I heard a calf bellow awfully close to the milking parlor. I went back inside and asked Papa if he was able to separate all the calves—and he said yes. Then I told him that I had heard a calf at the milking parlor. He then remembered that he had been gathering trash around the sheep barn and he had forgotten to close the panels back, and that was where the calves were spending the night—or should I say were supposed to be spending the night. We all grabbed flashlights and headed out back to check on the calves. All eight of them were out—and it was pitch black—and the opening that they had to go back through was small—and it was thru a bunch of tall grass. The calves took off running from the back yard to the front. I tried to run past them in order to turn them around before they got close to the road, but they just ran faster. I finally managed to get in front of them and I turned my flashlight on their faces—and they came to an abrupt stop. Then they turned around and ran back to the back yard. I remember saying, “THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE!” We had a few more back and forth and then to my surprise they ran back through the panels into the barn area where they belonged. I thought it was impossible—but with God all things are POSSIBLE and He directed those calves right back where they belonged even though it was pitch dark outside and we really couldn’t see much.
Life on the farm lately has been so busy from sun up to sun down, and the list of things to do is so long and big. We live from day to day, moment by moment, doing a little here and there, accomplishing only what the Lord allows us to accomplish each day—and only what He gives us the strength to do. Mom is still struggling with her back after falling off the lawn mower—but she does what she can and I promise you she does more than she should, but there is work to be done on the farm and we all do whatever we can, even though sometimes it isn’t everything we want or need to do.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare