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Hi Everyone,
Last Monday I was so excited when Penny (our worker who washes up all our milking equipment everyday) showed up. She had been taking care of her Mother who has been very sick, and we were not sure when she would be back. I thought that having Penny back would mean that I would get to go to the garden sooner in the day—but alas the phone call came telling us that our taxes were done and they needed our signature. Mom thought that we would just run in to town as soon as we were done with the milking—which would have worked fine if Papa didn’t have to sign his name too. We thought that Papa would be back up to the house any minute, so I worked on answering emails and putting orders together. I am glad that I am a farmer and that Administration Work is only a small part of my job, for I could not spend all day on the computer—I need to be outside playing in the dirt or doing anything besides going crazy doing computer work. Two hours later Papa finally made it back to the house, and by this time I had talked Mom into eating lunch before we left. It was going on 1:00 by the time we finally headed to town. I had a small list of items that I needed at the grocery store—laundry detergent being one (I think I only had a few tablespoons left). So after we signed our names and picked up the tax paperwork we headed over to the grocery store and while Mom got the tax info ready to be mailed off, I ran into the store and grabbed what we needed. We then headed to the Post Office and then home. It was after 2:00 by the time we got home, and I had one desire: “TAKE ME TO THE GARDEN!” The Cottage Garden is in its glory right now and it is a joy to spend time there. The roses, gladiolas, oak leaf hydrangea, coreopsis, Gaillardia, Black-eyed Susan, snapdragons, chamomile, forget-me-nots, marigolds, showy pink primrose, Johnny Jump-ups, zinnias, and daylilies are all in bloom. The herbs are lush and the vegetables are so healthy and scrumptious looking. With the beauty all around us weeding is a work of love and not a chore. When the flowers are in their glory you want to make sure that the weed level is next to nothing and that the walkways are free of all dirt, leaves and weeds—and sometimes renegade wildflowers. When I can remember to take clippers with me to the garden I am sure to pick some flowers to bring into the house.
Knowing my time was short in the garden Monday afternoon I pulled weeds as fast as I could. Two hours later it was time to head inside to get dinner cooked so that we could be ready to leave the house by 6:00 in order to pick up our Azure order. Azure is “a family business in Oregon that provides a full complement of healthy organic foods and natural products throughout the United Sates. They are known as a natural health food distributor bringing bulk and specialty health foods to communities all across the nation. They provide families with the highest standard of whole foods at affordable prices, for they believe that everyone should have access to high-quality, organic, non-GMO foods to live long, strong, meaningful lives.” Thankfully everything went really smooth and dinner was done on time and we were done eating before 6:00, and we just knew that we would be on time—and Mom hoped the truck would be on time too. Then we lost 15 minutes somewhere and when we got in the van it was on empty and we had to stop for gas—and we knew that we would be late, and now Mom hoped the truck would be late too. We managed to only be about five minutes late—but the truck was twenty to thirty minutes late. We enjoyed visiting with people though and the time passed by quickly. Once we got our items loaded into the van, and the truck left we stood around talking for a while longer. A year ago we met one of the people that picks up an order at the drop and learned that he had a market garden. We really wanted to go visit his garden, but just never could find the time. Then Monday night we realized that he lived two houses down from the Azure drop off—so of course we had a garden rendezvous before we headed home.
The next morning as I was heading to milk the cows the phone rang. Someone we knew was picking up their Azure order at another drop and they found a little box with our name on it. I was so excited. We were missing one of our boxes the night before and I prayed that God would allow someone to find it. There wasn’t much in it—just garlic and garden gloves--but I was almost out of garlic, and Mom really needed a new pair of garden gloves (especially since the new pair she opened that morning had two right hand gloves). Since we were fixing to milk the cows, I wasn’t sure how we were going to go to town to pick up the box. Then one of our customers that we deliver to on Wednesdays overheard the conversation and said, “I have to pick up an order tomorrow, I can take them the box.” Not only did the Lord answer my pray to find the missing box, but He also provided a way for us to get the box. Yes, the Lord cares about even the small things in life.
Mom and I got the cows milked and then I bottled the kefir and she mowed the front lawn—for the first time in over a year since the lawn mower was broke last year. Well, I guess I cannot honestly say that it is the first time it has been mowed—because we have had the sheep grazing the yard off and on, but it is the first time that all the brown grass has been mowed down. Now it just needs to be raked up and taken off. We did manage to go to the garden and weed for a little while before we had to come inside to make the yogurt and eat lunch before our weekly egg packing party. When the egg party was done it was time to go to the garden and harvest carrots and collards for the Jacksonville delivery the next day. We have never sold carrots before, and I thought that it would be great to sell the carrots with the green tops still attached. Harvesting the collards was the easy part—just snap off ten leaves and stuff in a bag. Harvesting the carrots was a different story. The carrot bed is almost 3 feet wide and is a good 20 feet long. I have four rows of carrots planted in the bed—and I think that every carrot seed sprouted and the carrot tops grew extra-long to reach sunlight. Usually when you buy carrots with their tops on the green tops are only about a foot long. These carrot tops were over two feet long. It was very hard to separate the carrots one from the other, and once we brought them up to the house and washed them off Mom started to pack them—I headed inside to cook the short ribs that I had taken out for dinner on Saturday, but life ended up being way too busy to cook them. Once I got the short ribs cooking I decided to step back over to the milk house to see how Mom was coming along—and she wasn’t. Those greens were driving her crazy. We are selling the carrots by the pound and she didn’t want the weight of the greens included in the weight of the carrots—but how do you weigh just the carrots? Then to put them in a bag you needed a “turkey” bag in order to get the greens in to it. I needed close to 40 pounds of carrots and though I had a scale in the garden to weigh them as I harvested them, I still lacked quite a bit so right before dinner Mom and Papa ran back out to the garden to harvest more. After dinner I headed out to help Mom pack the rest of the carrots—and we decided that we would remove the greens this week.
While Mom and I were holding the “farm” down, poor Papa had to run the roads. We ran out of iodine to dip the cows’ teats with after we milk them—and that required going 40 minutes to the west. Then he had to go just a few miles down the road to get more alfalfa pellets—but they were out and he had to go back later that day after they got a shipment in. Then he had to go 20 minutes north to town to pick up some parts for the (once again) broken golf-cart and he had to get some ice for deliveries.
I have been out of slaves, lip balm, and lotion bars for about a month now—but finding time to make more is hard. Wednesday morning I had the thought that it would be a good day to start the salves. Then I got an email from two people wanting some Soothing Salve. Ugh! I waited too long! So as soon as I finished milking the cows, packing the Jacksonville order, finishing up the receipts and teaching piano lessons I headed to my herb closet and pulled out my jars of herbs that I had harvested from our garden and dried in order to preserve them. Then I grabbed some olive oil and my recipes and started putting the herbs into the oil and placed the pots in the oven at 150F for a few days. Now I have to remember to strain the herbs out of the oil and add the rest of the ingredients (like beeswax) and get them bottled.
It is definitely the time of the year when there is so much to do. We want to can some carrots for carrot soup, and we want to can some Cream of celery soup with the celery we have growing in the garden. I dry the celery tops to use in making broth. The two bushels of potatoes that we harvested need to be canned, and the parsley is almost ready to harvest and dry. In a few weeks the green beans will be ready to be harvested and canned too! Thursday when we headed to the garden I took the dehydrator trays with me, some clippers and a basket. First I weeded around the lemon tree and pruned some of its lower branches and some of its dead branches, then I grabbed the dehydrator trays and started harvesting mullein leaves and filling up the trays. We make an infusion with mullein when we get sick with respiratory problems. Once I had all the trays full I grabbed the clippers and the basket and headed to the East Tunnel and sat down by the Chamomile patch and plucked off the chamomile flowers so that I could dry them for future cups of tea. The smell of the chamomile was so apple-y sweet. Once I got all the trays on the dehydrator the house began to take on a very nice “chamomile” smell.
Three ladies had a treat on Friday—and I was one of them! My friend Lydia came up for a visit and she brought a friend with her. They arrived around 10:00 and they were first introduced to Merry—our little calf that was born Christmas Day and is so friendly that we decided to halter break her. Then since we were still milking cows they hung out with us in the milking parlor and Kathleen even got to try her hand at milking a cow by hand. Once the cows were done we started our day long “tour” of the farm. The first stop was the brooder house where we had a batch of week old broiler chicks and 100 egg layer chicks which were finally old enough to move out of the brooder and to the Poultry barn and compost yard. Lydia and Kathleen decided that they would love to help me move the chicks out of the brooder. So after we toured through the Poultry kitchen, we grabbed some cardboard boxes and filled them with chicks. It took us two trips to get all of them moved to their new home. They will live at the Poultry barn until they start to lay eggs, and then they will move out to pasture with the older chickens. After the chickens we meandered through the garden. We stopped at the trellis behind the gazebo in order to pick some sugar snap peas—and feast on them. We stopped to smell the roses, and to look at the tall dark purple gladiolas, and to feel the thick fuzzy leaves of the mullein. There was pineapple sage and lemon balm to smell, peppermint and garlic chives to taste. We looked at the onions growing in the “Food Pyramid” inside of “Martha’s Vineyard”. Then we took in the sights and smells of the East Tunnel and Kathleen got to pull her first carrot out of the ground in the West Tunnel. It was then time for lunch. When lunch was over we drove around the farm looking at the broilers, loving on Aliya and Yasha, finding eggs in the egg boxes, and checking in with the Jersey heifers. We drove through the Jersey cow field and introduced Kathleen to America, Sally, Dijon the bull, and many other cows. After the cows we headed to the pond and were serenaded by the wild Whistling ducks. Papa’s fish came up to the edge to see if we had any food—so we grabbed a handful of the goose feed and threw it in and watched the waters swirl. The beef cows were next on the drive and then we drove through the chestnut orchard which is so lush and green right now. We had lots of giggles and laughs throughout the day—and Lydia wants to come back and help us can and Kathleen wants to come back and help us process chickens. She says that her parents talk about doing it when they were children—and although she is in her fifties she says that it is time for her to experience it for herself. It was 5:30 when they left—and I can say that we had a lovely visit.
Saturday morning we milked the cows and then I had to bottle the kefir and harvest some more carrots for the Gainesville orders. Mom and I packed the orders and Papa headed out to deliver around 1:00. I ate some lunch and then practiced my piano before a family arrived at 2:30 for a short farm tour. I drove around the farm with them and then we walked through the garden. Papa was back from Gainesville by the time the tour was over. Mom wanted us to look at a table she had seen for the porch and Papa needed to get some alfalfa pellets so at 4:30 we headed to town. We passed on the table, got the feed and arrived back home around 6:00. We quickly got onto dinner—Swiss chard chicken casserole and a garden fresh salad. After dinner I sat up the ironing board and we listened to a book read on the radio. It was a late night—but I got everything done that needed to be done.
Now it is time for bed again—so Goodnight!
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare