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Hi Everyone,
“The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” Job 1:21
There is nothing like death to help you have a deeper appreciation for what you have. Friday night just as dinner was over the weather alarm went off notifying us that a storm was pretty much just a few blocks away from us. Papa and I headed outside on the porch to watch the storm roll in as the breeze picked up and the gray clouds blew over. Some blacker clouds rolled to the east, while some lighter gray clouds rolled to the west. The scene was beautiful and the weather was fresh—and we were fixing to get some much needed rain. After a little while Mom joined us and we all enjoyed the beauty of the storm. I was curled up on the swing, and Papa was relaxing in a chair. Mom walked from one porch railing to the other trying to stay out of the rain and trying to see what the cows and sheep were doing. It seemed that all the cows were under the trees—instead of under the portable shade that Papa had built for them. The sheep were huddled in the sheep barn—including the newborn little lamb that was just born a few hours earlier. Aliya, the livestock guard dog, was hanging out with the bulls under the trees and once in a while she would take off running lickity-split all over the pasture enjoying the rain to the fullest. Before we came back inside the milk cows had deserted the trees and were finally hanging out under the portable shade. All around us the lightning was flashing and the thunder was echoing through the clouds. Some rumbles were louder than others, and some rumbled forever. Papa said that the thunder was bouncing off the clouds. One lightning flash came with an interesting pop that gave us the impression that it had hit something very close. An hour later we headed inside to do the dinner dishes and get the receipts done for the Gainesville delivery Saturday afternoon. When we got to the kitchen we realized that we had no water. Who wanted to do dishes anyway? We had processed chickens earlier, after we had milked our cows and moved all the animals to new pastures—we were ready to just relax with a good book. Once the rains stopped Papa headed outside to lock the chickens up for the night. The rain hadn’t done any damage that he could see, and although we had over an inch and a half of rain in a few hours no lanes were washed exposing any water pipes. We had reported our power outage—the well is on a different electrical pole than our house—and by bedtime we still did not have any water. No showers that night—but I was too tired to care and at least we still had air-conditioning. When we woke up Saturday morning we still didn’t have water so Papa walked down to the well and found out that the switch was flipped in the electrical breaker box. So with the flip of a switch we had water again! We did not have an electrical fence energizer anymore though. The lightning had struck, and while it just flipped the switch to our well, it fried our hot wire energizer box. All our animals are kept in their respectable fields by hot-wire—and now we had no way to make it hot. Papa came back to the house and we got ready for the day, ate breakfast and headed out to do our morning chores. I was setting up the milking equipment when I saw Papa come back up to the house in the golf-cart. A little while later I looked out the window and saw that Papa was sitting in the golf-cart waiting. I thought that was odd, and figured something must be wrong. I then saw Mom come out to join him. I stepped out the door and asked what was wrong—and to my horror I heard that Papa had just found two dead cows out under the trees. The lightning had struck more than our hot-wire charger—it had killed two of our precious milk cows. Not two old ones, and thankfully not two with newborn calves—but two of our milk cows in their prime with nice big udders that between the two of them supplied us with 3 to 4 gallons of milk a day. We were already low on milk—and now we will be 21 to 28 gallons of milk a week shorter. Decci and Mabel will definitely be missed. I will say that we were grateful for every cow that came into our milking parlor this morning. Evidently all the cows were under the trees when the lightning struck, so we are very grateful that the whole herd did not die under those trees. I will admit that it is hard to not focus on the 21 to 28 gallons that we will be lacking every week, but God does tell us to give thanks in all things so I turn my focus on being grateful for all the gallons of milk we will get each day and all the cows that I do have to milk every morning.
So that is really how our week ended—but the rest of the week was pretty busy. There are projects that I have procrastinated on and last week I was determined to plan my days with the goal of accomplishing as many of these projects as possible. Mom, Steve, and Papa spent every spare moment in the garden deer proofing “Martha’s Vineyard”. Papa strung high tensile wire about five feet off the ground and a foot or so above the top of the fence that goes around “Martha’s Vineyard”. They also got the gates hung. Mom worked at transplanting some zinnias, Rudbeckia, celosia, and Tithonias that were coming up wild in different parts of the gardens—she transplanted them to the flower border in “Martha’s Vineyard”.
While they spent their week outside, I spent my week in the kitchen. As usual there was yogurt to make and meals to cook—but last week I focused on making some more salves, lotion bars, and lip balms. When they were done I turned to canning the vegetables in the garden. When Clayton and I planted green beans in the garden tunnel last fall, they grew great and produced so abundantly that we were able to can over 100 pints of green beans. This spring Mom and I planted a row of green beans—well two rows in a 30 inch wide section, and those plants grew to be huge, but the production is low because the growth is too thick. I am okay with that—because we have carrots, celery, onions and potatoes that all need to be canned and there are only so many hours in a day and I do plan to get my sleep every night. So while we are not getting enough green beans to can, I am thankful for the opportunity to be able to eat fresh green beans. I enjoy it while the supply lasts. For years Mom has wanted to can carrots—but the idea grosses me out for I am not fond of mushy canned carrots. I like my carrots fresh, and sautéed in butter with salt and fresh parsley or dill. Once I learned to store carrots in sand I had my solution to have fresh carrots year round and therefore I saw no need to can any carrots. Then last year I grew more carrots than would fit in the totes with sand—so Mom suggested canning them. I knew that I would never eat a canned carrot, so I thought that it would be a waste of my time and energy. I urgently searched for another alternative to preserve carrots—and found that we could dehydrate them. The method was easy for all we had to do was peel, wash, and slice and put on the dehydrator trays. I used them whenever I would make broth—and most importantly—I USED THEM!!! Then this year rolled around and we grew a batch of carrots last fall—and filled a tote. Then there was more—so I dehydrated them. Then I grew more this spring—but we found out we hadn’t eaten any of the stored carrots due to a supply of fresh carrots. So I didn’t need to store anymore in the sand. I already had a bigger stash of dehydrated carrots than I had last year. So we decided to sell carrots—and that was a BIG success, though I will admit that selling carrots involves a lot more work than selling lettuce or cabbage or collards. Then something else happened—I made a batch of carrot soup! It was a creamy soup—Mom’s favorite kind. I began to think about canning carrots after all. If I sautéed the onions (of which we had an abundance of just harvested sweet onions) in butter, and put a half cup of the onions in the bottom of a canning jar and then filled it up with peeled and chopped carrots, and then added ½ teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of lemon juice and a dash of pepper and poured hot chicken broth over all of it I could pressure can it all for 30 minutes. All we would have to do is heat the contents of the jar up and puree it in the blender and we would have instant carrot soup. Mom thought that it was a great idea—for she finally got to can carrots and I thought that it was a great idea because it would be a jar of canned carrots that I would actually eat. So I spent Thursday afternoon canning six jars of carrot soup, and Mom and I spent a few hours Saturday afternoon canning seven more jars of carrot soup. We have a few carrots left and lots of celery and onions—so this week I am hoping to can some beef stew with the rest of the carrots. I had also thought of canning some cream of celery soup, but after realizing that cream of celery soup really isn’t an ingredient that we cook with—I decided that it would be better to can celery and onions together in chicken broth so that we can use it as a base for making chicken noodle soup. Then somehow we have to figure out how to get some potatoes canned. I can handle carrots, and onions, and celery—but my little hands do not handle peeling LOTS of potatoes. While it is easy to “lock myself” in the house for a week, it is not too easy to trap everyone else in the kitchen when the weather outside is so inviting and there is so much to do outside.
Saturday evening was spent with our neighbors—but not in the most delightful way though we did have some good talks. The two cows were found dead Saturday morning, and while Papa has been used to digging holes to bury a cow here and there—the holes usually are not that deep. We had two large cows that needed to be buried deep and we don’t have a back hoe—but our neighbor does. So around 5:00 Saturday night he came over with his back hoe to dig a big hole so that we could bury our cows. We are very grateful for good neighbors. Years ago we had another neighbor offer to dig a huge trench for us when some stray dogs got into our sheep flock and killed 20 rams. Yes, death is part of life—but sometimes it comes in bigger portions than we want to deal with.
I hope that you have had a good week, and if you are going through trials may you take the Lord’s advice and be thankful for God has promised in Isaiah 61:3 “To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.”
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare