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Hi Everyone,
I cannot think of a word that would describe our life here on the farm of late—but when I look back over my pocket calendar of notes from last week I could not help but ask myself, “Did that really happen just last week?” Years ago a young man who was helping us on the farm commented that our days are as long as a week and our weeks are as long as a month. Lately I think that our days are as long as a month for we have crammed more things into one day than any person in their right mind would do in a week or month. Yesterday Mom and I saw the title of a YouTube video of an old lady giving the advice to “quit being busy” and I commented that our life of late has been a little too busy. Mom’s reply was that it wouldn’t be so busy if I didn’t try to do too much in one day—and I told her that I had no choice because if these “things” didn’t get done food would be lost and all our work would be in vain. Go ahead and grab a cup of hot tea—for it is cold outside, and I will tell you all about it.
Last Sunday morning while milking I noticed that my cow Sally was in heat again. Sally and America keep going in heat over and over—and it has been six months since they calved. I do not know if it is a bull problem or if there is a problem with the cows. The easiest way to eliminate a “bull” problem is to breed them to a different bull—like Bullfrog. There was no time on Sunday to swap bulls, so I was a little heart sick to know that another month would pass before I could get Sally bred. The Lord was very merciful though and come Monday I realized that Sally was still in heat, so when we were done milking we sent all the cows and Dijon out to pasture and kept Sally back to hang out with Bullfrog for the next few days. Now we wait three weeks to see if she goes into heat again. I need to order some cow pregnancy tests so that we can check some of the cows to make sure that they really are getting bred and that we are not just missing them going into heat. Putting Bullfrog in with Sally didn’t go too smoothly. Papa chased him round and round in the bull field, and about the time I ran out to help him Bullfrog finally came out—but instead of going into the field with Sally he ran on down the lane. I didn’t know if Papa had closed the hot wires behind the milk cows when he let them out, so I feared that Bullfrog would get in with Dijon. Therefore, I took off running through the back yard to another field gate trying to get ahead of Bullfrog—but you cannot run very fast through grass that is up to your knees and very thick. I was not the only one that took off running. My sister Nichole and my brother-in-law Gary who were visiting at that moment, also took off running along with Mom. Poor Mom though didn’t get very far before she realized that she had made the wrong decision. When she fell off the lawnmower a year ago she messed up her SI joint in her backside. The doctor told her it would never heal because she is too active. With the help of a therapist she was doing much better—until last Saturday when she forgot to untie a cow’s leg when she let her out and she leaned over the railing with a bucket of feed to entice the cow to come back in before she fell down. Mom leaned the wrong way and messed up her SI joint again. She was in pain—but was not crippled up until she took off running (more on that later). Back to bullfrog—thankfully the wire was shut so that Bullfrog could not get in with Dijon (who did come running down field to greet him). I tried to get around Bullfrog, but the more I tried the further down the lane he ran. He finally came upon a field that was open and went in there, which gave Gary and Nichole a chance to catch up and then we could circle around Bullfrog and send him back out of the field and back up the lane to Papa who was able to finally get him in with Sally.
Thankfully Mom and I had a good sit down job for the rest of the afternoon—snapping green beans. Papa headed to town to pick up the Gravely—which had not been fixed at all. The mechanic just refreshed all the “liquid” in it. The gears were still hard to shift, and it still made a terrible noise, but at least it was drivable—well it was, for tonight it died in the field. The golf-cart still isn’t working very smoothly. It is temperamental. On the positive note—we did get the tractor back Tuesday night. Now Papa can easily put out hay, move the chicken houses, and plant the winter grasses.
For some reason Tuesday’s have always been the busiest day of the week, and last Tuesday was no exception—but maybe one of the busiest ever. For starters Mom couldn’t help me milk. She could not bend over to clean the cow, nor could she squat down to sit on the seat to milk the cow—so I have milked hers and my cows since Tuesday. That means that Papa does a little of his chores before I milk, helps me milk (he catches poo/pee, feeds the cows, lets them in and out), and then he goes and finishes his chores. By the time we finished milking the cows a customer arrived to purchase three sheep, and another customer arrived to pick up his turkey. Papa and the man rounded up the sheep and picked them out while I took care of Brett and his turkey. Brett is not only our customer, but a friend and our chef for our dinners, and he owns his own farm. I asked him if he was just as busy as we were and he agreed. When I mentioned that I had green beans to harvest he was interested—for his wife had told him that they didn’t have enough for their Thanksgiving dinner. I offered to sell him some, but he was in a hurry and the beans were not picked yet—but after a little coaxing on my part and him wanting to get his wife enough beans on his part we decided to make a mad dash for the garden and pick some beans. I grabbed the baskets and we headed out. I only expected to pick enough beans for his dinner, but we ended up picking all the green beans. It didn’t take very long, and it was a chore that I could mark off the list as done. My back and knees only hold out long enough for me to pick one whole row of beans, and then Mom usually picks the other row—but Mom couldn’t help me at all and I was not looking forward to picking the beans by myself. So I was truly grateful that Brett had helped me pick all of them.
Next on the list were chickens. We had processed chickens the Friday before and the first batch accidentally got left in the scalder too long—which made for some not so pretty birds that we couldn’t sell. I thought that it would be nice to can them—but Mom and I had different ideas on how to go about this. We went with Mom’s way and it was much easier. We cut the chicken up into sections, and then Mom seasoned the meat and raw packed it in jars. The legs and wings went into jars together and the thighs and wings went into two other jars. The breasts we vacuum sealed and froze and the backs I turned into four gallons of chicken stock. While we were working on the chicken, I was also making lip balm. I was completely sold out—and my tube was almost gone, so I had it on the “To Do List” for Wednesday. Actually it had been on the “To Do List” for a week, but it just kept getting moved to the next day. I figured that Tuesday was busy enough, and I would have more time on Wednesday so that was my plan until I happened to open an email from a customer and saw that she was ordering 5 lip balms for Wednesday’s delivery. So it was official—I was making lip balm on Tuesday! At 2:30 we all headed over to the milk house for our egg packing party, which was lacking most of the guests since we are so short on eggs that we do not have enough to bring in help with packaging them. Mom helped with the eggs while I made yogurt, and then when I was done Mom came back to the house and watched the canner with the chicken. Steve, Papa and I worked on the eggs until we were almost done. Then Papa left to go work on the lawn mower tire, and I headed inside to do a quick “read” of about 50 emails to see who wanted veggies. Then Steve and I headed to the Market Garden tunnels to pick broccoli leaves, Swiss chard and lettuce. Once the veggies were all packaged and in the cooler Mom and I cut one of the turkeys in half for a customer. Papa was busy separating the calves for the night and swapping out tractors. They returned our tractor about 5:00, and shortly after it was unloaded the man who loaned us his tractor showed up to pick his up and take it home. It was then dark and Papa had all the evening chores to do, and I had dinner to cook. After dinner Papa had to fix a leaking toilet—which took hours. When Mom finished helping Papa with the toilet she had the dishes to do. I was answering the 50 plus emails from people placing orders for our Jacksonville delivery. Then once all the orders were on the spreadsheet I had to adjust the orders to accommodate what we actually had—there were a lot of wishful thinkers, but the cows and the chicken are not doing their job to fulfill those wishes. To my dismay we needed over 80 dozen eggs—but I only had 28 dozen after we packaged eggs. The next day I had Steve package Tuesday night’s eggs, which gave me an extra six dozen eggs to help fulfill some wishes.
Papa finished the toilet after 9:00 and then he had to lock up all the animals for the night and go get ice to for the next day’s packing—but the local ice house was not working which meant he had to go to the ice house in town. I do believe that one day we shall have our own ice machine—but we haven’t found the perfect one for us yet. It was after 11:00 when Papa got home. It took me until almost 11:00 to finish slashing orders and making the receipts.
Wednesday is usually our relaxing day after we get Papa packed and on his way to Jacksonville. Getting to that stage was not easy—for not only could Mom not help me milk, she also couldn’t help me pack. Thankfully Papa finished his chores early and was able to help me pack before we milked. I was thankful for his help because there were turkeys to pack—and they were not light (20 to 26 pound each). I had to wash the duck eggs, and Steve packaged more chicken eggs. Thankfully Mom was able to pop in and out a little here and there to help orchestrate the finer details of the packing. I did not have piano lessons to teach, so when Papa left I took care of a customer and then started my long afternoon of processing roselles. Right before the first freeze I had harvested all the roselles—a whopper 23 pounds of the calyxes. We ended up selling 13 pounds, which left us with 10 pounds. I turned 8 pounds into Roselle juice for making jello and for using in our mocktail drink at our Farm to Table dinners. I had to wash them all—but I didn’t have to separate the seed pods. The 8 pounds of roselles made three gallons of juice. I did manage to get a little “me” time for a few hours, but then at 5:00 I had to head outside to separate the calves, lock up the ducks and goose, and close up the new laying hens. I got back inside at 6:00 and that is when I started the Roselle jam process. I had three pounds to work with—and all the seed pods had to be separated, covered with water and boiled for 20 minutes. Then I discarded the seed pods and boiled the petals for 20 minutes. Next I had to puree the petals and add sugar—and that is where trouble began. As we began to taste the jam for sweetness we noticed that there were “strings” in it. I couldn’t stand the idea of having to pick out hard strings out of my mouth when I ate the jam, so we decided to strain it. Easier said than done! We poured it into some cheesecloth—but between the sugar and the pectin from the seed pods it was pretty thick and wouldn’t exactly strain. By this time it was 8:00 and Papa was home from deliveries and dinner was ready to eat. So while the jam “dripped”, we ate. After dinner Mom and I took turns smashing the juice through the cheesecloth—with Mom doing most of it while I did the dishes. We finally accomplished it and we could begin the boiling down process. The jam finally got thick enough to bottle around 10:20, and we were done by 10:36—at night. I was tired of late nights and being busy every moment of the day, and I was looking forward to a good night’s sleep and a day of rest. Did I mention that Mom had spent her afternoon snapping green beans and canning them?
Thanksgiving dawned bright and early as we got up at 6:00 and headed outside to milk the cows who do not take off for holidays. We wanted to milk early so that Steve could get the “dishes” washed and get back home early. Steve arrived to work at 8:00 and since I still had a few more cows to milk we sent him off to feed the bulls and the heifers. Papa would take care of the rest of his chores after breakfast. When I went inside from milking Mom was busy in the kitchen—but she was not fixing breakfast. She was fixing our roselle jam mess. The jelly jars did not seal and the jelly was not thick after sitting all night. So Mom dumped the jelly back into a pot added some more lemon juice and brought it up to a boil and to the temperature to make jelly. Then she got 7 clean jelly jars and bottled the jelly and water bathed them for ten minutes. The jars sealed and the jelly set—so we had a success after all. It was 10:00 by the time we started breakfast. Once breakfast was over Papa headed out to do all of his chores. Mom and I did the dishes and I sat down to look at a new cookbook that I got for my birthday—for not only was it Thanksgiving; it was also my 49th birthday. We were not going to anyone’s house for Thanksgiving, and we were not having anyone over either (I would have had my sister over, but she was sick). I told Mom that I wanted to relax all day. Every once in a while, she would mention that this needs done or that needs done and I would say, “NOT TODAY!” I did not want to deal with any of the “got to get it done” problems on the farm at all. Around 1:00 I headed outside with my phone camera and did a YouTube short--Happy Thanksgiving from Shepherd's Hill Farm! I captured the gardens, the cows, the sheep, the chickens and the dogs—and the one thing that we are very grateful for of late here on the farm, but you will have to watch the video to see (but I will give you a hint: it is big and green).
Come 2:00 I grabbed our turkey and since it would only be feeding three of us I cut it up because Mom wanted to cook just the thighs. Once the turkey was cut up and all the extra parts vacuum sealed and put in the freezer I headed inside to start cooking. I love cooking meat low and slow, so I cooked the thighs on 250 for three hours. I went out to the garden and harvested some sage, thyme, parsley, and rosemary. I put the rosemary in the pan first, and then I placed the turkey thighs on top. I coated the thighs with butter, placed some thyme along the sides and totally covered the top with salt, pepper and sage leaves. Then I poured in some apple cider and covered it and placed it in the oven to cook. Next I made a pumpkin pie—my usual birthday dessert. When I was out videoing I pulled up the first carrots of the season and I used some of them to make a carrot soup using the recipe in my new cookbook “Big Heart Little Stove: Bringing Home Meals & Moments from The Lost Kitchen” by Erin French. Next on the menu was acorn squash stuffed with apples, honey, orange peel, butter and allspice. I also cooked some green beans and some mashed potatoes and gravy. For appetizer I took some seed crackers and topped those with butter, cheese and a dab of roselle jelly. I really enjoyed my time in the kitchen from 3:00 to 7:00 when everything was done and we could finally sit down and eat.
I was not awake very long Friday morning when the “panic” of getting this done and that done returned. I didn’t expect it to return, and I only had planned on spending the day canning the chicken broth and the roselle juice—but a quick look at the weather forecast changed all that. We thought that we had until Monday afternoon to harvest all the lemons and put the new plastic on the first Market Garden tunnel. No, it was due to freeze that night and it was supposed to start raining by noon. If Papa helped me milk and then did his chores we would have no time to put on the plastic or harvest the lemons and green beans. I ate my breakfast thinking about the impossible and wondering how we could find more hands to make the work lighter. Then I remembered that our friend Emily had some teenage sons, and I talked Mom into calling Emily to ask for their help. Mom talked Papa into the scheme and the phone call was made. Within 20 minutes we had reinforcements—three of them (13, 14 and 16). Simeon, the 13 year old helped me in the milking parlor, and what an eager beaver and excellent helper he was. Micah (14) and Titus (16) helped Mom take off the temporary plastic while Papa and Steve did their morning chores. By the time their chores were done, the plastic was off and they were ready to put the new plastic on. We finished milking just as Steve helped get the plastic over the tunnel, and then he was free to bottle the milk and wash the equipment. They were also done using Micah, so Micah, Simeon and I headed to the garden to harvest the Ponderosa lemons, and before we were done Titus joined us. With the plastic on the tunnel and attached to the side rollers, Mom and Papa could then hang the last door. We continued to pick lemons for an hour or more. We needed ladders, and crooks and they even had to climb on the roof of the gazebo to get to some of the lemons. We filled up 15 crates from the Ponderosa lemon tree, and one crate from the Myers lemon tree in the courtyard. Once all the lemons were harvested then we picked the green beans. Little did I know that it would be the last picking for we had a hard freeze here last night and it got down to 25 degrees here and the green bean plants are now toast. Anyway, we were done with everything by 1:30 and what relief to know that with the extra hands we had accomplished the impossible. We then took them home and headed to town to do some shopping.
When I came inside from milking Saturday morning Mom was busy cleaning up the kitchen—actually she had just finished and was quite pleased with herself. Our kitchen truly is a working kitchen, but sometimes the counters get fuller than we like with all the canning. I told Mom that I was sorry she got it all cleaned up for we would spend the afternoon making it a disaster again. She wasn’t too excited—but that chicken broth from Tuesday and the roselle juice from Wednesday, and the green beans from Friday had to be canned. I also had to make a batch of kombucha—for it was about a week overdue, and I had to make some turkey broth with the last of the turkey carcass that I had cut up on Thursday. Yes, it was a long and busy afternoon. Little did I know when I took out steaks to thaw for dinner that they would be the perfect “fast food” that night. We were busy canning till late and I needed a quick and easy dinner. I just had to cook some green beans in: butter, garlic, salt & pepper, and lemon peel; heat up a jar of canned white potatoes, cook the steak (5 minutes on each side in the broiler) and serve the last of the pumpkin pie for dessert. Dinner was done in 20 minutes. By the time the dishes were done, I was done too—and I am done now too. Good night! Stay warm, for winter has arrived!
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare