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Hi Everyone,
Can you believe that February is almost gone? The month has been so beautiful here in Florida. I have to say that February really is my favorite month as everything starts blooming and turning green and the days are warmer and longer (but not too long). The bad part about February is that it is followed by March which has a tendency to be cold and windy. I do not mind a south wind, but those cold north winds are never welcomed.
Last fall Clayton and I planted a bed of carrots and before he left in January we harvested half of them—the other half was not ready. Spring planting is around the corner and it is time to empty some of the beds to prepare them for green beans, lettuce, cabbage, herbs, and flowers. That meant it was time to harvest the rest of the carrots—of which most had finally reached their mature size. So on Monday I pulled up the rest of the carrots and got their tops cut off. Then I set up my washing station and cleaned them up before I brought them in the house to peel, slice and dehydrate. Last year we ended up with too many carrots. Our sand totes were full and Mom was considering canning the extra carrots—but canned carrots are so bland and mushy that I totally hate the idea. We finally came up with the idea to dehydrate them and it was a total success. Sometimes you preserve your harvest in a way that you do not use—which would be the case if we canned them, but when you can find a quick and easy way to preserve your harvest and use it then that is great. I found that the best way to use the dehydrated carrots was to throw a handful in my stock pot every time I made a batch of chicken broth. So I was able to peel, slice and dehydrate half of the carrots on Monday, and then Mom and I were able to get the other half done on Saturday.
While I was dealing with carrots the builder was out at the barn prepping the ground to begin building the lean-to on the barn Tuesday morning. Later that afternoon one of our customers who owns a tree trimming company came over to prune the Meyers lemon tree in our courtyard. It got hit really hard in the freezes and a good portion of it was dead. We really were not looking forward to pruning it so when the customer showed up for some milk Mom asked him to take a look at the lemon tree. We found out that he used to live in California and his job out there was pruning lemon trees. We hired him! Our massive lemon tree was reduced to a small tree, but it is shaped really nice and the dead parts were removed.
Another thing that got hit pretty hard every time we had a bad freeze was my stash of pumpkins. I had them in the FROG (finished room over garage) with the heater/air-conditioner going as needed but it never failed that when I would go up and check a portion of them would be melting—turning to mush. We had sold the majority of the Seminole pumpkins and I had only a small amount left—and we only had a few jars of canned pumpkin left so if we were going to have any more pumpkin soup or muffins we had best get the remaining pumpkins canned before we lost them all. So as soon as I was done milking the cows Tuesday morning I headed upstairs and brought down all the pumpkins and headed for the kitchen where I began to cut into them, remove the seeds (for I was also out of pumpkin seeds for planting), peel them and cut them up and put them in wide mouth quart jars. It was noon by the time I really got set up and started, which meant that I had two hours before I had to be in the milk house to package eggs. I thought that it would only take me 30 minutes to peel and cut up the pumpkins and fill 14 jars. Then I would get them in the canner and be done by 2:00—for the pumpkin has to can for 90 minutes. May I say that I totally under estimated the amount of time that it would take? I managed to have one canner full and processing by 2:00—but it still had 60 more minutes to go and I still had seven more jars to fill. So Mom headed next door to process eggs for 30 minutes and then we would swap places the remaining 30 minutes. I started peeling and cutting more pumpkins in order to fill the last seven jars, and then when I went to package eggs Mom worked on the pumpkins. When the eggs were done I came back to the kitchen to help Mom finish up. I am pretty sure that it was after 4:00 before we got the second batch in the canner. There was a little bit of pumpkin left over once the jars were full so I sliced it up and laid them out in a casserole dish and topped them with butter, cinnamon, salt and maple sugar and popped them in the over. Mom was monitoring the canner, so I headed to the garden to harvest broccoli greens for the Jacksonville delivery the next day. When I got back it was time to fix dinner. Right before dinner was done Papa had to head outside to do something and I got a whiff of something. I let out a scream and ran for the oven in the pantry and to my horror I found the sliced pumpkins burnt black. I didn’t set a timer and totally forgot about them. The worst part was that for the next 24 hours the laundry room/pantry had the most delicious smell of sweetened pumpkin—as if to tantalize me by reminding me of what I had ruined.
Sometimes things happen on the farm and the only way to respond to the trial is to say, “This will be a great story for the journal.” In the midst of the trial I actually find my mind “writing the journal” as the story unfolds. Wednesday night it is my job to do the evening chores. There really isn’t much to do right now since we have no calves to separate, and Steve gathers the eggs before he leaves to go home. I have to lock up the ducks and feed them, bring the sheep in out of the pasture, feed the dogs and lock the doors behind the chickens when they go to bed. What could go wrong? Well, to start I went outside a little too late. Mom and I were finishing up a farming video, and as soon as the last word was said I flew outside. It was dusk—but not dark. The ducks went to bed perfectly. The sheep were waiting at the wire ready to come across the lane to the barn for the night . . . but---this is where the story begins! I pulled the hot wire netting across the drive lane and opened the gate into the barn area. Then I opened the hot wire to the field that the sheep were in and began to call them. Have you ever heard the saying, “My sheep hear my voice”? Well, sheep know their masters voice and do not pay attention to anybody else. Papa usually takes care of the sheep—but he was gone. To my dismay Smokey had died a few months back of old age. She was the leader of the pack and always came when you called and all the sheep would follow her. It was getting a little dark, and the sheep were not too sure about the whole ordeal. Just when they started to come, Yasha (the sheep’s guard dog), came running out of the barn field to say high to me, and then darted in with the sheep scaring them back. That happened a few times and then I had to lock her up in the barn. I couldn’t get the sheep to come, so I walked into the field to shoo them out. It took some effort, but they finally headed out of the field and into the lane—but instead of going straight across and into the sheep barn area they decided to head south down the lane (they couldn’t go north because of the netting). One little red lamb got tumbled under foot so I grabbed her up and started walking down the lane after the sheep. I was hoping to get around them before they hit the pond field—but it was dark, I had no flashlight (I left it in the golf-cart) and thanks to all the rain washing the top soil and grass away, the lane is all sand and it is like walking on the beach. I didn’t make it to the sheep before they got to the pond field—but thankfully they turned into another pasture instead of heading on to the pond. That pasture had a steep hill and at the top was a lane that headed to the chestnuts, the beef cattle and into the back field that would have led to the other side of the pond. Now I needed to get to the top of the hill before they did—but first I had to hook the wires across the lane so that when I did get them to come back out of the field they would go north toward the sheep barn. I headed up the hill with a bucket of feed in one arm and the little lamb in the other—in the dark! It wasn’t the first time I had marched through the fields in the dark, and it probably will not be the last time. Once when my Grandma was visiting, a sheep was in labor and Mom and my sisters had headed up in the golf-cart. Grandma and I were finishing up the dishes and then we headed out by foot. When we reached the front gate I realized that I had forgotten the flashlight, but I didn’t want to go back for it and decided that we would be just fine walking in the dark—I knew where everything was. We got to the bottom of the field just fine and through another gate. It was pretty dark and we really couldn’t see and then all of a sudden the bull sounded off his alarm. In our panic we took off running up the hill to where Mom and the sheep were. Then I remembered that somewhere across the field was a string of hot wire—and we were running straight for it and couldn’t see a thing. We came to an abrupt stop, and just then Mom came over the hill in the golf-cart and the lights shone down on us. We had managed to stop just two feet away from the hot wire. My Grandma was ready to kill me—adventures in the dark are not her cup of tea, and a bull and hot wire only made it worse. So here I was again just one field over from the last dark thirty escapades. I managed to get to the top of the hill before the sheep did and get them turned back around—but getting them to go back out the gate in the dark required going up and down the field a few times. I rejoiced when one finally headed out and all the others followed—sometimes it is good to follow the crowd. They walked back up the lane a whole lot slower than they had walked down it, but we finally made it back to the sheep barn. Then I got the golf-cart and drove back down to the field and drove around it to make sure that I didn’t miss anyone in the dark. I didn’t miss any sheep—but neither did I miss a few holes in the pasture. The next day Papa was looking for some alligator clips for the hot wire—but they were not in the golf-cart where he had left them. He asked me where all I had drove the golf-cart the night before and I told him. Mom asked about my driving . . . and Papa was able to find the clips around one of the holes in the middle of the pasture.
The builders showed up Tuesday morning to put in eighteen really big and really tall wooden posts to support the lean-to on the side of the hay barn. They have a crew of six men and all the post holes were dug and the posts were set by 2:00. They returned Wednesday morning to put up the framing for the roof—and that was done by noon and then the metal roof was completely installed by 2:00. They are perfectionists—so the job looks excellent when they are done, and they are professionals—they know how to use their time very wisely. We expect them back in a few weeks to pour the concrete and then they will return to close in the feed room. My Mom is working on a YouTube video of the construction—so stay tuned!
We were able to work in the garden tunnels on Thursday weeding and removing spent plants. Forget-me-nots are growing like weeds in the East tunnel, but I do not like to throw away flowers unless I have to. So I weeded a section in the corners and transplanted the little plants that were in the way to their new homes. We are working hard to get some beds ready to transplant some cabbage, herbs, lettuce, and flowers from the greenhouse to the garden. Since I rat proofed the greenhouse things are actually growing. You can check out the video I took of the greenhouse plants here. It was 5:00 that night when we finished in the garden and since I had just transplanted I decided to turn on the garden water to that tunnel. I then went inside and cooked dinner, ate, did the dishes, got ready for bed, went through some seed catalogues and pick out what seeds I needed to order, and curled up and read a book until I got so tired that I went to bed. The next thing I knew it was 2:30 in the morning and the first thought that hit my mind was “I forgot to turn off the garden water!” I laid there and thought a little, groaning as I remembered that the other times someone forgot to turn off the water we usually ended up with a slug problem. I groaned, but didn’t know what to do about the problem. Then I remembered that there was 50 feet of potatoes planted in the tunnel and I wasn’t sure how they would fair being waterlogged. I sat up with a screech, “HOW WAS I TO FIX THIS PROBLEM!!!” Mom is afraid of the dark—so I am not supposed to go outside after dark unless they are up. Well, of course they were not up at 2:30 in the morning, but that water needed to be turned off. I walked out to the living room in hopes that I would find one of them not able to sleep (older people seem to have that problem)—but not that night. I walked back to their bedroom and quietly asked if anyone was awake—no answer. I hate to wake Mom up because she has a hard time going back to sleep, but that water needed to be turned off. I called “Mom” a little louder—no answer. Did I say that she is a little hard of hearing? Well, the third time I spoke a little louder and she answered me back—she was awake after all. I told her my problem and tried to get her to let me go by myself to the garden—but that was more fearful to her than going out into the dark with me. So we grabbed our flashlights and headed out the back door and through the back gate toward the garden to turn off the water. It didn’t take long before we were back inside and back in bed and thankfully fast asleep. I didn’t get a chance to check out the tunnel until Saturday afternoon—and everything looked okay, but the transplanted forget-me-nots were pretty droopy. I am not sure if they will survive or not, time will tell. Some of the other forget-me-nots are blooming, and they are so dainty and blue.
Well, I guess I have been quite wordy tonight—but that happens when we have adventures in the dark.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare