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Hi Everyone,
It is October now, and the October daisies are blooming—even though they have been windblown and look quite ratty. The sycamores are turning brown, the goldenrod and ragweed are in full yellow bloom and the days are getting shorter.
The last day of September was spent cleaning up from Hurricane Helene. Thankfully Steve was back at work—but Penny was not. Her mother has gotten so bad that Penny had to quit working for us so that she could take care of her mother full time. Thankfully Steve can wash all the milking equipment, but that means that we get his help even less out in the fields. So needless to say we have a job opening for a part time milking equipment washer—and how to find a new employee is beyond our comprehension.
My brother David popped in for a visit Monday morning and stayed until after lunch. He was on his way to town to purchase a generator, and Papa was fixing to go to town to return the generator that he had just purchased Saturday night. The Lord was very merciful to us, for when Papa got home with the new generator to run the well our electricity was back on—which gave Papa a chance to do a little research on the generator that he had bought and what kind of generator the well actually needed. He found out that the new generator was not strong enough to run the well—which is why the old generator burnt up. So Papa was going to return the generator he had just bought and order a stronger one—but my brother decided to buy the new generator. Therefore, Papa didn’t have to worry about returning a generator, just ordering the correct kind.
Hurricane Helene knocked quite a few trees and limbs down on our fences—which made our hot wire fencing obsolete. Thankfully only the heifers figured it out, and no one let the other animals in on the secret. When the heifers got out and were roaming the property, we were thankful that the Lord had our young bull “Bullfrog” stuck in a field that he didn’t think that he could get out of. Bullfrog is known for escaping, and if any of the heifers had been in heat we believe that he would have thought nothing about escaping in order to breed the young heifer. So Papa spent Monday and Tuesday cutting the trees off the fence and removing the limbs from the fence. In many places he had to also pull the fence back up, and one place he had to straighten the t-post and pull it up out of the ground. When the tree landed on it the t-post bent in half and was pushed way too far into the ground. Steve did help Papa some with the fence clean up—but before Papa needed his help, Steve helped me. We drove around the pastures where the hoop houses tumbled and wrecked and picked up all the pieces of metal and wood that had fallen off of the hoop houses and we picked up the scattered feeders and waterers. I figured that we had better do it sooner than latter because the grass is still growing and it wouldn’t take long for the wood with screws sticking out to be buried in the tall grass. Once Papa needed Steve I continued on with the cleanup. One of the screen doors on the West Garden wall was totally disassembled. Once I saw that it was made of nothing more than particle board covered with vinyl it was no surprise that it had fallen apart—but a big surprise that the second door had not fallen apart too. To my great delight neither of the glass panes had broken—the thought of cleaning up thousands of little pieces of glass was not very enthusing to me.
Everywhere you turn there are stories of devastation along the path that Hurricane Helene took. There are also stories of miraculous intervention—and one of those has to do with our winter hay supply. Come Monday we finally started thinking of people a little bit further away from home, and one of those was our hay farmer. We knew that another farmer friend that lives just a few miles from our hay farmer had lost the roof off of his house and completely lost his large hay barn—so we knew that our hay farmer could have been in the path of great danger. We called him up Monday and checked in on him, and our fears were confirmed. The terrible winds that had taken out the other farmer’s barn had also taken out our hay farmers barns. His house was okay and he and his wife were okay, but all his barns were destroyed—except for the one section of one barn that was storing our winter supply of hay. That part of the barn was still standing and our hay was still dry and smelling good. The Lord was so merciful, because finding hay that it not chemically sprayed with round-up is pretty hard.
It seems like we are on such a time crunch around here to get things done—and it never fails that when you are pressed for time something will go wrong to slow you down. Papa needed the tractor to work on the tree removal—but Monday morning the tractor refused to start. It had a dead battery (even though it was just put in brand new a month ago). Papa charged the battery and did his morning chores in the truck. Later that day the tractor worked. Come Tuesday Papa was out doing chores in the tractor and it died—and Steve had to pull Papa back to the barn with the Gravely. Papa had to go to town and thankfully the company replaced the dead battery for another brand new battery and he was back in the tractor business.
I spent my afternoon in the greenhouse potting up plants: purple sprouting broccoli, Swiss chard, cabbage, kale, sage and snapdragons. I ran out of time before I got to the chamomile—I will have to remember that tomorrow. As I said earlier—it seems like we are on a major time crunch. Mom and Papa have been working for months to put up the new Market Garden tunnels. The goal was to have four done by October—but only one is complete enough to put the plastic on the top (of which we didn’t because of the hurricane). Number three and four have not been started, and we still have to build the end walls on the first one and rabbit proof the sides. Last Thursday the Tavernari men folk came over to help us get the grow beds started in that tunnel. It is funny to say that the second tunnel was finished first—because the weeds and grass situation was better under it so we could start planting faster in it than in the first tunnel. The second tunnel has potatoes, mustard greens and green beans growing in the beds now. The broccoli and lettuce are ready to transplant out, but I might want to wait until after Hurricane Milton does whatever he is going to do. I desperately need the first tunnels beds and walls done within the next week or two because the plants in the greenhouse will be ready to be transplanted out.
At the same time, we desperately need to get our hoop houses rebuilt because we have chickens that need to be out to pasture—but they have no home (Hurricane Helene flattened and crumbled them). Papa was able to spend one day disassembling the duck house that was demolished in the 128 mph winds of Hurricane Helene. It was the biggest of the three hoop houses that were destroyed, and it was just flattened. The smaller hoop houses were crushed making their metal panel unusable again. The four panels on the old duck house will give us the hoop frame for two new chicken hoop houses. The ducks and the goose that were in the big duck house were moved into the small hoop house with the other ducks, so we will not be building another big hoop house. Juggling all the building projects is pretty tricky for we still have all our daily chores, and Papa is gone two days a week making deliveries, and we processed chickens one day. Then you add in the rainy days and time becomes very limited.
We were supposed to process a batch of chickens the Friday after the storm—but with no permanent electricity we decided to leave the chickens alive until after our power was restored. Power came back on Saturday night so the plan was to process chickens on Tuesday. Then we got a phone call Monday night from the family that helps us package eggs and process chickens—their vehicle had died. UGH! So the processing and egg packaging were postponed until Friday. We got the milking done and then I washed up the tubs and sink in the Poultry Kitchen to get things ready for processing at noon. Then I headed inside to get some paperwork done—and then customers started just pouring in one after another. I wasn’t sure that I would ever get to help process any of the chickens, but I did manage to make it for the last half. It was the first batch of chickens all year that we processed as many birds as chicks that we ordered—70. It was a little after 4:00 when we finished processing, cutting up, and packaging the chickens, and cleaning up the building and equipment. Then we all headed over to the milk house to have our weekly egg party. It was 5:30 when we were all done—and we were done in too! I still had dinner to cook, but I also had an evening to relax.
Saturday morning found me sleeping in a little late, but when I did wake up I had one goal for the day—no rushing around. I was so exhausted from the storm and getting things done in a systematic and timely way before we turned off the generator in order to conserve on propane. I found that exhaustion lingering on as the week passed and rushing around is one of my “down falls”—so I was determined to just get my work done without rushing around on Saturday. We got the cows milked and then I bottled the kefir and then I spent the rest of the day inside doing computer work and getting the bedding washed from the company we had during the storm. I only recall finding myself rushing around once—well, I should say that Mom noticed that I was rushing around as I was putting away the clean silverware so that Mom could have the silverware baskets to put more silverware in after she washed them. Yes, our two year old dishwasher has died and we are back to hand washing. Washing dishes by hand isn’t too bad if you don’t have a million other things to do, and for Mom if her back was not hurting. I help when I can, but sometimes I have to be doing something else when the dishes need to be done. I wish that they would make appliances to last—but I guess that more money is made in people buying a new appliance every few years than in people buying new appliances every ten to twenty years.
We never know what a day will bring forth, and Hurricane Helene was proof of that, and now we wait to see what Hurricane Milton will do—but one thing we can be sure of is that:
Day by day, and with each passing moment, Strength I find, to meet my trials here;
Trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment, I’ve no cause for worry or for fear.
He Whose heart is kind beyond all measure Gives unto each day what He deems best—
Lovingly, its part of pain and pleasure, Mingling toil with peace and rest.
Every day, the Lord Himself is near me With a special mercy for each hour;
All my cares He fain would bear, and cheer me, He Whose Name is Counselor and Pow’r.
The protection of His child and treasure Is a charge that on Himself He laid;
“As thy days, thy strength shall be in measure,” This the pledge to me He made.
Help me then in every tribulation So to trust Thy promises, O Lord,
That I lose not faith’s sweet consolation Offered me within Thy holy Word.
Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble meeting, E’er to take, as from a father’s hand,
One by one, the days, the moments fleeting, Till I reach the promised land.
Words by: Lina Sandell Berg in 1865
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare