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Hi Everyone,
When disaster strikes life can be pretty topsy turvy for awhile . . . but sometimes those disasters can be turned into a blessing. A friend of ours has a tree service, and he had been very, very busy since Hurricane Idalia came through the area a few weeks ago. Last Monday he stopped by with a huge load of woodchips wondering if we wanted them. They were not free, but they sure were a lot cheaper than other places. The garden always has a need for woodchips, and right now we especially need woodchips in the walkways in the garden tunnels. Mom and I spent Monday fine tuning in the East Garden Tunnel. We broadforked and weeded, and then I marked the rows and walkways. Then on Tuesday I shoveled the excess dirt out of the walkways so that we could fill them with woodchips. After lunch Papa helped put the pipes back in the ground and square the tunnel back up after the hurricane lifted it up and left it a little misshapen. There has been a drastic change in that tunnel since a month ago. You can see the progress on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/shepherdshillfarmfl
Farmers are people who milk cows, manage gardens, rotate animals to fresh pastures, package large volumes of eggs, and process chickens . . . and run the roads. Every week Papa heads to Jacksonville on Wednesday’s and Gainesville on Saturday’s to deliver our farm good to those who have placed orders. On Tuesday’s he heads to town to buy ice to keep the products cold during deliveries, and Sunday’s we all go to church. So that is four days out of seven that Papa is gone from the farm—and we wonder why he cannot get some of his projects finished. Then about a month ago the company that we order our milk jugs from stopped personally delivering. The price to deliver LTL freight is over $100—so we had to resort to going and picking up our jugs once a month, and it takes about four hours of Papa’s day to drive to Jacksonville and back. It just so happened that we needed jugs last Monday, so while we worked in the garden Papa travelled the roads—and was gone a long time because of an accident on the road somewhere in front of him. Then on Tuesday I was made aware that we were fixing to run out of chicken and turkey feed. I had to wait for the credit card to roll over to a new month before I could order another two pallets of feed . . .
I interrupt this journal to bring you a “Special Report”. It is 3rd Sunday, and Papa was gone to Prayer Meeting so I had to do the evening chores. I was hoping that Mom would be able to go with me—for it’s easier to separate calves with two people, but alas her sister called about the time (7:00) I was ready to head outside. I gathered the dog feed, duck feed, and alfalfa pellets for the calves. When I got to the lane I noticed that there were two heifers out. So I headed to the back field and decided to use the calves’ alfalfa pellets to entice them back into their field. They were pretty thirsty too—so I had no problem getting them back into the field, but the alfalfa came in handy to keep the heifers in the field once I opened the wires to bring the strays back in. Once that was done I had to go back to the house to get more alfalfa pellets for the calves. I also realized that the days were getting shorter and since it was after 7:00 I had better grab a flashlight for I wasn’t sure if I would be done before it got dark. When I got back to the lane and was heading to set up for the calves I noticed that we had a customer—so I headed back up to the house to help them get their order that I had set aside for them. Dark thirty was fast approaching when I got back to the panel pens. I set up the fence across the lane and hung the alfalfa up so the cows couldn’t get into it and then I headed down field to separate the calves—praying that all would go well and that God would help this to go very smoothly for I really only had one chance since the sun was setting fast. I opened the wires and called the cows and they started to come nicely. A few calves were in the back so I walked to the back of the field to shoo them forward. I found that one of the calves was on the wrong side of the wire and I had to get her shooed back in. Thankfully all went very smoothly getting them out of the field and into the lane. Once the calves are in the lane then the goal is to get them to walk faster than the cows so that we leave the cows behind. One of the two year old heifers, Liberty, usually always goes all the way to the panel pens with the calves and then you have to send her back out. As I was walking up the lane with the calves I heard some hooves coming up pretty quickly behind me. I turned and saw that Sunshine and Dijon, the bull, was walking pretty fast to catch up. I tried to push the calves a little faster, but it seemed the faster we went the faster Dijon and Sunshine came. I finally turned around and waved my stick and yelled at them to turn around—it stopped them for a few seconds, but it at least gave me some time to get a little further ahead. I stopped to shoo the bull off a few more times and in the end the calves and I made it to the panel pens just about twenty feet ahead of Dijon. I shut the gate, and then went to get Liberty out. By this time Dijon was more interested in Sunshine and eating some luscious green grass on the edge of the lane. With Liberty out of the pens I could now walk all the straggler cows back to their pasture to graze for the night. I then opened the wires across the lane and greeted Aliyah. She jumped into the golf-cart and rode up the hill with me to the chicken house. It was dark now and most of the chickens had already gone to bed—but some were roosting on the feeding troughs and some had hunkered down under the chicken house. I gathered the eggs, and then I started collecting the chickens off the feed troughs and putting them in the house. Then I got on my knees to look under the house with my flashlight (glad I grabbed it) and to my dismay there was a pile of chickens underneath—and to my dismay I had kneeled in a pile of fresh mushy poo. UGH!!! Papa is always telling me not to kneel down around the chicken house—but I cannot see underneath otherwise. I spent forever shooing those chickens round and round and underneath that house before I finally got them all to bed. My Papa doesn’t really like chickens—and their behavior tonight explained some of his reasons why he doesn’t like them. I then had to go and gather the eggs at the other house, and make sure all of its chickens were in the house—thankfully not as many were roosting on the feed troughs or camping out underneath. Once all the eggs were gathered and the chickens secured for the night I then headed over to the Poultry Barn and locked up the laying hen chick and the duck and the goose. It was 9:00 by the time I got back inside. The evening chores usually only take about an hour—and I usually do not get dirty doing them, but tonight was a different story. Now back to our regular journaling of last week.
As I was saying the chicken, duck and turkey feed was getting pretty low. I should have ordered the feed two weeks earlier, but as I said I had to wait until the credit card rolled to a new month. I was hoping that the feed would last until the shipment came in—but four days before I expected the feed to arrive I was told that we would be out of chick started the next day. No problem I thought, we will just feed them layer feed—we had plenty of that. Then a few days later I was told that we only had two days left of layer feed—and I still hadn’t received the notification that our feed had been shipped. I called the company and they said that it should ship out on Thursday—which meant that we wouldn’t get the feed until Monday (four days after we would run out of feed). Knowing that we would run out of feed soon, on Wednesday I started calling around to different feed stores to see if any of them carried the Organic, soy-free and corn-free feed that we feed our birds. One place in High Springs said that they had a few bags—I needed at least 20. I called a place in Live Oak and they told me that they had 12 bags of layer, and 8 bags of starter. So Wednesday afternoon Mama and I drove the 45 minutes to Live Oak to pick up the feed. When we got there we found out that the man got confused and they DID NOT have corn-free feed, just the soy-free feed. UGH! We only had enough feed to feed our chickens Thursday morning—after that we needed a miracle. Thursday morning I called another feed store in Jacksonville and found out that they would sell us 10 bags of starter feed and 4 bags of layer feed. Great! Since Papa had gone to JAX on Monday for jugs, and Wednesday for deliveries, Mama and I decided to make the trip to JAX for the feed. That way Papa could stay home and accomplish something on the farm (like put on half the roof to the portable shade that he has been trying to finish for the last few years). It was noon by the time Mama and I were ready to head out. On the way over we stopped at an antique store called “Rachel’s Farmhouse.” Once we were back on the road I entertained ourselves by reading a garden magazine. We got a little lost trying to find the feed store, but we finally found it. The second trip to JAX enabled one of our customers to get her order that she was not able to pick up the night before because she got stuck in an elevator for an hour—so we had her meet us a the feed store. We left the feed store around 3:45 and we had to be at the butcher shop to pick up the lamb meat before they closed at 5:00. We were a little delayed because we had to drive through a torrential down pour of a rain storm. We called the butcher and told them that we were on our way—but running a little late. They gratefully waited, and in the end we really were only two minutes late. We got the meat and headed home. We had to meet Papa at the feed store to give him the checkbook so that he could pick up some more alfalfa pellets. We got home at 6:00 that night. We got the lamb meat put in the freezer and while I cooked dinner Mama and Papa headed out to separate the calves. When we got home there was a message from the grain mill where we order our feed—they called to tell us that the mill was having some production and shipping issues and that our orders would be delayed another 1 to 3 days. We only had enough feed to last us until Monday morning, so on Friday I started calling around to see if anyone else carried any of the feed we needed. I found a man in Micanopy that had six bags—but was expecting a shipment of more on Monday. Then there was a family in Lake Park, GA that has non-GMO corn-free and soy-free feed (and lots of it). As of tonight I still haven’t received the shipping notification for our two pallets (over 2 tons) of feed. Tomorrow we have to find more feed. We will either be heading south a little over an hour or north a little over and hour.
I did find time last week to do a September Garden Tour video and a video on Harvesting Pumpkins. The pumpkins were growing so nicely. I knew that we had a few that were ready to harvest and I wanted to make sure that they were harvested before Hurricane Idalia hit or they would get water logged and split. When I entered the gate into “Martha’s Vineyard” I was totally devastated by the sight that met me—worms had totally consumed the pumpkin patch! We did manage to harvest 15 pumpkins and put them in the barn to cure.
It is now almost 11:00, and for those of you who stay up to read my journal before you go to bed—I am sorry, but I had to chase chickens for an hour tonight. So since the sun and the moon have both gone to bed—so must I. Good night and I hope you have a lovely week—it is officially the last week of summer. Maybe we will get our fall décor up this week.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare