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Hi Everyone,
There were a few things last week that were daily occurrences: rain and laughter. It rained everyday but Thursday and my friend Lydia came in Tuesday morning and our days were filled with lots of laughter. If you couldn’t see us—you could find us pretty easy by the sounds of our giggles. Leaving the farm for a few days is not an option for me, and when your friend lives two hours away you have to come up with some creative ideas for getting together. So Lydia comes to visit me for a week twice a year: around my birthday the end of November and for a week of “Summer Friend Camp” in the summer. Everyone goes off to camp for the summer—so we decided to have our own “Friendship Camp” and just enjoy hanging out together. Thankfully Lydia is the type of friend who likes to be busy, and is willing to lend a helping hand in any way she can.
There was so much to do to prepare for Lydia’s arrival—but before I took the time to clean up my bedroom suite and bathrooms I had lots of other things on the “To Do List.” Of course every day we start the day milking the cows. The weather man said that it was supposed to rain at 1:00, but by 9:00 the clouds were rolling in black and it wasn’t long before the heavens opened up and it poured buckets of water. Papa was out in the fields moving the chickens and the shades for the cows—so he took shelter under the cow shade. Poor Steve was way down field giving the cows some minerals when it began to rain and he came up as fast as he could—but he got drenched in the process. Mom and I were in the milking parlor milking the cows. We had to stop for a little while because the wind was blowing so fiercely that the rain was blowing in on the cows. Mom was already on her second dress since the cow had pooped all over her first dress, so when the rain began to come down so heavy that it was raining into the garage (where we keep our chicken feed) and into the brooder house (where the baby chicks were) I decided to run for it and close the doors. Of course I got drenched too. When we were all done milking, the rain changed to a drizzle. We needed to do some rearranging in the walk-in freezer and move the chickens that we had processed from the walk-in cooler to the freezer—but that required warm, dry clothes and we had some much needed work to do in the garden. We needed to finish weeding the sweet potato rows and walkways in the West Tunnel, and since it was under shelter we had no problem working in the rain. Since we were already wet, Mom and I headed to the garden where it really was nice weather for weeding. When we finished weeding we came up to the house and hosed all the dirt off our clothes and headed for a warm shower and some dry clothes. After lunch Papa helped us organize in the freezer and cooler and then he took me grocery shopping and we had to pick up ice for the Wednesday delivery run. It was 5:30 by the time we got home and in all honesty all I wanted to do was curl up on the sofa and read—I was exhausted. Yet, there was still so much to do. I put away all the groceries and then I had to cook dinner. After we ate I begged out of dishes because I needed to do some cleaning. By the time I emptied all the seasonal décor out of Lydia’s closet, and cleaned off all of my gardening seeds and paperwork off of the desk and got the dusting and vacuuming done it was going on 9:30 and I was too tired to do more. When I got up the next morning I finished up by cleaning the bathrooms and wrapping a little gift to place on her bed which consisted of some socks from Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello gift shop. The reason I bought the socks was because one of them had one of Thomas Jefferson’s favorite quotes on it: “Life without friends is like a garden without flowers.” With everything clean and tidy I was now ready to welcome my friend. It was past time to be in the milking parlor, so I headed out to start on the milking. I was about a third of the way done milking when I headed into my feed room to mix up some more feed. To my grand astonishment the wall began to talk to me and I let out a scream—and not of delight but of fright. I then had a good laugh as I realized that Lydia had arrived! For the next five days we did everything together.
I had a list of projects to do that would keep us busy—but still have time to enjoy life. Lydia has helped me make lip balm before, but she never saw the process for making salves. I have been selling out pretty fast, so I have been pretty busy in the apothecary. Tuesday I had an herbal oil ready to add beeswax and Vitamin E oil. Then I placed the mixture in the oven in order to melt the beeswax. When all was liquefied I poured it into the little jars and when they were cooled Lydia put the lids on them and labeled them. We also pulled out all the herbs to make some more Relief Salve. We placed the herbs and some olive oil in an old-fashioned glass coffee pot and put it in the oven on low for 24 hours. Then come Thursday we took it out of the oven and drained the oil out of the herbs, and put another glass pot full of herbs and olive oil in the oven in order to make some more Soothing Salve.
Wednesday morning we headed to the garden at 6:30 in the morning in order to harvest the collards for the delivery. To my dismay I was only able to fill half of the orders for the collards had finally succumbed to the summer heat. Friday afternoon we headed to the garden to harvest the lettuce. I knew that one kind was struggling with the heat and it tasted very bitter. The other two kinds were questionable—but we picked about 20 heads anyway. When we got back to the milk house we all had a taste test (Mom, Lydia, and I) and we all decided that the chickens would enjoy the lettuce better than we would—or any of our customers. So it looks like the garden is growing okra, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, cayenne peppers and flowers—thanks to the Zinnias that Clayton (last year’s intern) planted last fall in the West Tunnel. They went to seed and came up as volunteers this summer.
One of the things that Lydia and I enjoy doing the most is making music together. She plays the violin and I play the piano. On Wednesday we played through her Classical books that have music for both the piano and the violin. Then on Saturday we played out of the hymnbook. One of the Classical pieces I was having such a hard time getting it going that at one point she teased that we should swap instruments—and for fun we did. I have no earthly idea how to play the violin—but Lydia does know how to play the piano. For the swap Lydia set up her camera and we had a blast as she played the piano and I made noise on the violin in rhythm with the song—I did not say in tune or in the same key—just noise. We laughed and laughed forever over that one.
Did you know that in order to organize something you first have to make a big mess? One of the projects on my list was to organize the herb and game closet. When little children get into a game closet it doesn’t always end up looking like it did before they took out a game to play, and when Tiare acquires more jars of herbs than will fit on two shelves the alphabetical order becomes chaos. So Wednesday afternoon we started organizing by emptying everything out of the closet. Could someone please explain how a closet that is four feet wide and two feet deep with four shelves and a floor could possibly empty out and cover two twin beds, one king size bed, the counters in the kitchen, and floor space in the bedrooms? Three rooms became a disaster zone and I couldn’t understand how all of it came out of the closet. Mom did manage to get the game boxes taped back together and the parts and pieces put back into their rightful games and the whole collection organized back on a shelf in the closet, but nothing else got accomplished because one of the shelves contained our picture albums—and need I say more?
When we were done milking on Thursday we helped bottle the milk and wash some of the equipment. Then Mom sent us to town to buy another truck load of woodchips. When we got home it was lunch time and then after lunch Mom and Steve headed to the garden to put down cardboard, chicken manure, and woodchips around the pumpkins—they are growing so fast it is hard to keep ahead of them. Papa headed out to pasture to plant some iron clay peas so that the cows will have some good forage come fall. Lydia and I put the jars of herbs back in the closet. We organized them into four groups: Medicinal Herbs, Culinary Herbs, Herbal Teas, and Herbs for Salves. In the Herbs for Salves group I put the herbs together according to the different salves—and I took inventory of what herbs I need to order more of. It was really neat to see that about half of the herbs are grown and harvested here on the farm: oregano, parsley, peppermint, sage, thyme, mullein, horehound, plantain, comfrey, chickweed, lemon grass, lemon balm, lemon verbena, spearmint, apple mint, lemon peel, cayenne pepper, roselle, and chamomile to name the ones I can remember off the top of my head.
Our cow Emma is still alive—but she still cannot walk on her foot. We called the vet out Friday and at least he told us we were doing the right thing. He did say that it would be nice if we could put some Black Drawing Salve on it—but wrapping a cow’s foot is a whole lot different than wrapping a horse’s foot. We can barely manage to get her foot into a bucket of charcoal, Epson salt and herbal tea in warm water in order to soak it for ten minutes. He did tell us that it was a snake that bit her—a ground rattlesnake is what he called it, but better known as a pygmy rattlesnake. I do not like the idea at all. The vet also said that the reason the foot was doing so poorly was because the snake bit her in the joint. He told us to give her about two more weeks and then we shall see how she is doing. If she is walking on her foot—she will be fine, but if not—we may have to put her down. After losing two cows to lightning, I really do not like the idea of losing another good milk cow.
Lydia headed home Saturday afternoon—after we took some time to play music together again. Lydia and I had a great week together—and are looking forward to my birthday when we can get together again. A lot could happen here on the farm by then and somethings that I know are in the works for the next few months I cannot wait to tell you about—but that will have to wait until another week.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare