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Hi Everyone,
In case you have lived inside for the last two weeks let me assure you that summer has arrived—and not just according to the calendar. The temps reached 100 last week and the heat index is definitely spiking up to almost 120. Yep, it is summer time in Florida where you can get your clothes drenched four different ways:
1. Working hard and building up a sweat
2. Getting caught in an afternoon rain storm
3. Going swimming
4. Just standing or sitting outside doing nothing
Yes, the humidity has been pretty thick of late and my clothes can get so wet while sitting in the parlor milking cows that you would think I soaked myself with the water hose. If we were normal people we would be outside in the early morning and the late evening, and inside the rest of the day—but I guess we are not normal for we are inside in the early morning and late evening and outside the rest of the day. Last Thursday was a long HOT day and when we were finished milking Mom headed to the mower and I headed to the garden to weed in one of the raised beds—under the oak tree. After lunch we weeded in the West Tunnel as we are trying to get the walkways weeded, dug out, and freshly mulched before the sweet potatoes take over. It seems like we are on a race with the sweet potatoes and the pumpkins to get their areas mulched before they take over—and they are growing super-fast. Inside the tunnels can get very hot when the breeze doesn’t blow through. At 4:30 we quit for the work day was over—and may I say I was done in. Papa was busy cutting up the tree branches that he had cut down last week, so Mom decided to stay and help him stack the firewood. I headed inside for a shower and to get dinner started. I decided to get the meatloaf in the oven before I took my shower—but before I got the meatloaf started a customer showed up. By the time I finished with the meatloaf Mom and Papa were done and Mom told me that she was going to the front porch to cool down and then she was going to the shower. I got the meatloaf in the oven and headed for the shower. Afterward I headed to the porch—but Mom wasn’t there, nor was she in the shower. I wondered where she was—and then I heard the lawn mower! By the time I finished up dinner it was 7:15 and I headed outside to call Mom inside. I found her clipping the grass and pulling up the weeds around the Poultry Kitchen’s air-conditioner unit. She had gone to check on a cow and heard the fan blades hitting on the grass like a baseball card in the spokes of a bicycle tire. Knowing that this could cause damage to the AC she decided to take care of it—and yes she was way past exhaustion by the time she came in that night.
Monday found me in the garden harvesting herbs—two months late. May is honestly the best time to harvest the herbs, but I have been so busy that I totally forgot to take the time to harvest. My plantain harvest was therefore pretty puny—I only managed to get two cups of dried herb. That will make two batches of Soothing Salve. I need a trip north beside some creek bed where the plantain grows wild and very BIG. The comfrey fared better—a whole quart of dried herb and it is still producing very well so I should be able to harvest more. The mullein I have been faithful to harvest over the past few months and I was able to add a few more quarts to my dried collection. The mullein is just beginning to flower so I harvested some of the flowers. I have a few sage plants so I cropped the tops of them and got a cup of dried sage—thankfully it goes a long way. I had about 20 parsley plants that I planned on dehydrating but the heat and the over grown zucchini plants made them not of the best drying quality—because I was two months late.
Have you ever wanted to celebrate a holiday in a BIG way—but found yourself facing a very boring day? About a month ago Mom and I were shopping in Hobby Lobby and we found a bag of six croaker sacks with an American flag on one side—you know the kind you have sack races in! We bought the bag and hoped to have some children over for the 4th of July and let them have a sack race. I wanted to have a family over and serve hamburgers, hotdogs, coleslaw, potato salad and apple pie and play lots of games like corn toss, croquet, three-legged races and the sack race—but Mom was not up to the food and we couldn’t figure out who to invite. I was kind of bummed and finally decided to ask the Lord to plan our 4th of July day for us. The day dawned HOT and sunny! We got the cows milked and all the morning chores done and then Mom headed out to pasture on the lawn mower to mow some of the fields behind the cows (it makes the grass all the same level so that when the cows come back through they will eat all of it instead of just the area where they ate last time). Papa headed up to the chestnuts to put up electrical fencing so that the beef cows could rotate through the chestnut orchard. I decided that it was time to tend to the collection of lemon, grapefruit and fig trees that I have. They are in pots and they needed to be weeded, have their water troughs cleaned out (the ducks like to turn the water to mud), and then fertilize them. That took me until 1:00. Shortly after everyone else came inside and we ate lunch and then we were thinking about watching some Patriotic movie (but never could find one) and we had to take care of customers—some who were on vacation to the springs and decided to look for raw milk in the area. Then Mom and Papa went to move the cows and do the evening chores while I talked with a friend on the phone. Around 5:00 we were finally finished with everything and we needed to go to town to get ice for the JAX delivery the next day—but first off we had to make a detour over to our friend Emily’s. They had been remodeling their boys’ bedroom and had finished it and wanted us to see it. Then they played their musical instruments for us and sang. They had cut up a watermelon for everyone to eat and then we headed outside for a little bit of fun. We watched the children on their swing and zip line, and we got to see the log cabin the boys had built out of small diameter oak trees that they had cut down by hand. We ate some fresh pears off their pear tree, and last but not least we got to cheer on the children as they had their first sack race (yes, we brought over our bag of croaker sacks). Those children had a blast with those sacks. We left there sometime after 7:00 and headed to town for the ice. It was going on 8:15 by the time we got home and we had just enough time to grab a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk and run back out the door and head toward Branford to see the fireworks. The Branford fireworks start at 9:30—and last a whole 30 minutes. You have to get there early so you can get a good parking spot. Yes—a parking spot! People just pull off in the ditches on the sides of the road and sit in the back of their trucks or on the grass or the hoods of their cars. There is a big open field that the fireworks are shot over so we can see the fireworks from the side of the road and we don’t have to get out and mingle with the crowds or walk a long distance away from our vehicle. We usually take the truck and sit in the back—but Mom and I still had it full of woodchips. Therefore we took the van and some wooden chairs. My sister and her family were actually able to pull up beside us and we grabbed out the two long ice chests and used them for seats too. We had a nice time visiting while we waited for the fireworks to begin—and I shall say that the show was well worth waiting for. They did a superb job with their display and the finale was definitely GRAND! When we got home at 10:30 Papa had to go out and lock up all the chickens and I had to finish putting the orders together for the JAX delivery. It was after 11:00 when I finished—but the receipts still needed to be made. I was too tired to function anymore, so Mom decided to make the receipts and I went to bed. I praised the Lord for planning our day perfectly! Truth be told, I never would have had the time or energy to cook a big meal for a large crowd—but we still got to spend the day with friends and family.
Running any business has its challenges—and it just so happens that our business deals with live animals. We cannot order a supply of products to keep our shelves stocked, for our product is made by our animals and instead of telling them how much product we need, they tell us how much product we can have for sale. There is no steady supply—for the supply fluctuates throughout the seasons (hot, cold), throughout the months (rainy, dry) and throughout the weeks (dry off, calving). Our supply quantity changes with the age of the animals too. A three year old first time heifer will not give as much milk as a 5 year old cow that has had three calves. A one year old chicken lays more eggs than a two or three year old chicken. A cow that has just calved will increase her milk supply for three months and then she will level out until she becomes seven months pregnant when she will start to dry herself off in order to prepare her body for the next calf. We calve year round in hopes to have freshened cows every month—but that also means that we shall be drying off a cow or two every month. Just this last week we were blessed with two new calves and we had to dry off one cow that is due to calve the beginning of September. We had two little heifers born since last Sunday. Gail had a little calf this morning that we shall call Windy. Then Rosa blessed us with a 4th of July calf that we shall call Julee. Little Julee is not too sure about all this Florida heat though. I think she thinks that she was born in the wrong month.
Another thing that affects our supply is sickness or tragedy—like lightning striking two cows a few months ago. Over the years of owning milk cows we have dealt with all kinds of “sickness”. There is the common problem of mastitis—Mom once told the vet that she was tired of dealing with mastitis and he told her that she was in the wrong profession then. Then there is the not so common problem of a poisonous bite. We have had two cows bit by a black widow—and they struggled for their lives, but the Lord was merciful and they pulled through and were good milk cows for many more years. We had one cow got bit on her lip by what could have been a brown recluse—at least the result was what you would expect from a brown recluse. The tissue swelled up, turned raw and then a big chunk fell out and she healed—though she got pretty skinny since she couldn’t eat very good. Last week our milk cow Emma came in to be milked and she was limping pretty bad. We noticed a pink raw spot just above her hoof on her front left leg. I put some salve on it—but the grass wiped it off. The next day she was worse—and again I put some salve on it and I through some charcoal powder on it—but the grass wiped it off. By this time walking was next to impossible on that leg and we decided that it was not good for her to go back out to pasture with the herd. She didn’t like being by herself and was quite frantic that first day, so the next day we kept back two cows with her and she was calmer. Every day we rotate cows for “babysitting” duties to help keep Emma calm. As the days past the sore grew and began to erupt and we knew we needed to do something different—like soak her foot in Epson salt, charcoal and herbal teas (Echinacea, plantain, comfrey, mullein and sage). For three days I did my best to get Emma to put her foot in a five gallon bucket of herbal concoctions, but she didn’t agree with me and she is MUCH stronger than me. Some days I could get her to hold it in there for 30 seconds to a minute, a little here and a little there—and other days she splashed that black water all over Mom and me. Then Papa came to the rescue! There is a BIG difference between Papa’s arms and hands and my arms and hands, and there is a BIG difference between his strength and my strength. Papa puts the bucket under her, picks up her foot and inserts it in the bucket and can hold it there for ten minutes! Emma cannot put any weight on her foot—but she is a trooper. She comes in to be milked everyday—hopping on three hooves. She eats well. Her ears are perky. We are not keeping her milk—because we do not know if she is producing any stress hormones into her milk, so we are playing it safe. She eats grass. She hops in to drink water and gets out of the sun—although sometimes she is quite stubborn and lies down in the sun and gets awful hot. We have hopes that she will pull through—we didn’t at first. Some of the flesh is healing with fresh pink skin, but other parts are still looking pretty bad—but the parts that are pink used to look just as bad so we have hopes that the Lord will be merciful and completely heal her foot.
You ever have one of “those” days when everything seems to happen that was not planned and everything needs to be done? Saturday was one of those days! I woke up to realize that I had forgotten to make a batch of chicken broth the night before—and we were almost out. So when I came back from setting up the milking equipment I brought with me some chicken backs and heads and feet and before breakfast I put a batch of broth on to cook. Since I was in a hurry I was really thankful for my dehydrated carrots, celery tops and onions. It took five minutes to assemble all the ingredients into the pot and get it in the oven. After breakfast we milked the cows and because of taking care of Emma’s foot that took a little longer than normal. We are selling out of eggs very quickly of late, so we are having to package eggs twice a week instead of once. All the eggs from Saturday to Tuesday go to Jacksonville and all the eggs from Wednesday to Friday go to Gainesville and supply the locals. So when we were done milking Mom began packaging the eggs. Steve bottled the milk and I packed the orders. Then I had to finish the receipts with the meat weights and make Papa and me a kefir drink before he left at 1:00. I also had to get a roast in the oven for dinner, and the oil and herbs in the oven to make some more Virus Salve. Then I had to head back to the milk house and bottle the kefir and Mom headed for the lawn mower. Before I finished the kefir a customer showed up and one of the things he wanted was eggs—but we were sold out! I had some on a shelf for a customer that was coming at 4:00—and it was only 2:00 so I decided to rob Peter to pay Paul and I sold the customer some of the eggs off the shelf and then when I was done bottling the kefir and washing all the containers I headed down to the chicken house with two egg cartons—and with the middle lane out of commission I had to go around the world to get to the chicken houses. When I got back with the eggs some new neighbors had showed up to get a farm tour and see what all we do. Before we finished with the farm tour my sister showed up to pick up some school books for her children. It was around 5:00 by the time everyone left and it was time to start dinner—but first I had herbs on the dehydrator that needed to come off and be stored in jars and I had laundry to take care of. When dinner was done, and the dishes were done it was time (8:00 at night) to get the broth out of the oven. Then it was time to practice my piano and get ready for bed—and I was ready for it.
I hope that you are enjoying your summer and that you had a very grateful Independence Day celebration.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare