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Hi Everyone,

               Last week’s forecast was rain, rain, and more rain. I had a list of things that I wanted done before it rained—but time didn’t always cooperate. As soon as we were done milking Monday morning I headed to the garden. I wanted to get some beds weeded and planted—but I had orders for carrots and since it was supposed to rain all day Tuesday I knew that I had to harvest them on Monday. Inside Martha’s Vineyard in one of the Food Pyramids I had planted four rows of carrots back in December. I planted a row of red Kyoto carrots, a row of Bolero carrots (a good storage carrot) and two rows of Imperator carrots (a long, sweet carrot—usually the kind you find in the grocery store). You can check them out here. They were past ready for harvesting, so I went ahead and pulled up the whole bed and loaded them in the back end of the Gravely. Then I crawled around on the ground for the next thirty minutes eradicating the few weeds that were growing in the carrot bed and pulling up all the weeds that were taking over the old onion beds. Then my time was up for it was noon and I had a customer due to pick up an order any minute. So I cleaned up my tools and headed to the house. I wasn’t there long before the customer drove up. One of the things she wanted was a couple pounds of fresh carrots with the dirt still attached—and that is just what she got, for they had only been out of the ground for 30 minutes. When the customer was on her way with her goods, Steve and I headed back to the garden to pull more weeds. We pulled up the no longer producing green bean plants, the bitter lettuce and some weeds. Steve fed the lettuce and the beans to the chickens and then it was time for lunch. After lunch I desperately wanted to go back to the garden to finish weeding and to plant some zinnias, sunflowers, marigolds and zipper peas—BUT the carrots needed to be tended to. All the tops needed to be cut off, the dirt wiped off (due to rain, and my drying racks full of onions I could not take them to a hose and let the sun dry them). I was comforted by the fact that it was raining outside, and therefore I couldn’t work in the garden anyway. By the time we finished the carrots the work day was over—and by the time the rain had stopped we had received 2.50 inches of rain.

               The weather forecast for Tuesday was rain. We were supposed to process chickens that day—but Papa had a cold and Mom didn’t want him butchering the chickens in the rain. So we postponed the chickens until Friday, and the egg packaging party was already postponed to Thursday so we had a “day off.” I was grateful for a rainy day to stay inside and finish all the salves, lip balms, and lotion bars—BUT it didn’t rain. It was actually a very nice sunny day! Since it was supposed to rain, Steve made plans to leave early—and then even though it didn’t rain he still left early (because he had made plans). I wanted to be in the garden so that I could finish weeding and get the seeds in the ground before it rained on Wednesday—but I was committed to finishing the salves. Mom and Papa ended up working in the barn finishing the new farm sign. Some customers had given us the metal sign for Christmas a year ago—but Mom couldn’t figure out just how to hang it. Then one day as we were travelling through some back roads we came across a farm that had a really nice hanging sign. Mom had her inspiration. It took her awhile, but she finally got the design put together, but she didn’t know how to hang it. So we made a trip back out to the farm in the country and they just happened to be outside—so Mom drove up and talked to them. The man was nice enough to tell Mom that he would get her the metal parts to hang the sign. True to his word a few days later he stopped by with the hanging parts for the sign. Mom was really excited and didn’t waste much time in getting them painted and put on the sign. Now that the sign part is done we have to get it hung. We plan on putting it in front of the barn lean-to, but we have to find some metal plates to connect three 6 x 6 posts together like this TT. The sign will hang from the top post, between the two side posts.

               When lunch was over I headed over to the milk house to package all the carrots for the orders. I had a customer call to place an order for carrots, and they wanted to come by in a few hours to pick them up—and the want list for carrots that had come in by email was pretty long. Would I have enough carrots—I didn’t know? I did not have enough of the long, slender carrots with tops to go around—but I had just enough (for the orders that had already come in, but not enough to fill the orders for everyone who wanted carrots). The selling of the carrots marked the end of the market crops for this season. The collards and the kale were starting to flower, the lettuce had turned bitter, the Swiss chard was dying back—and therefore, we had to pull them all up to make room for the Summer Gardens. The beef cows didn’t complain one bit about all the collards, spinach, and kale that we fed them—and the chickens didn’t complain about all the lettuce. It is now time for squashes, okra, potatoes, zipper peas and flowers to take over the garden.

Once I was back inside I was confined to the kitchen, and by the end of the day one corner had lip balm tubes all over the counter cooling off; another counter had lotion bar molds set on coffee mugs as they cooled off. Another section of the counter had little jars of Black Drawing Salve cooling off. I had made some more chicken broth the night before so the empty stock pots were in the sink and on another section of the counter. There was lunch dishes waiting to go in the dishwasher, and the stove was full of pots from cooking dinner. At one point I seriously thought about doing a YouTube short of life in a working farm kitchen—but by the time I had the idea, I had already started the clean-up process so it didn’t look as bad. I used my down time on Wednesday to label all the salves, lotion bars and lip balms. I also had to start one more salve. I had sold the last jar of the Relief Salve, so it was time to get another batch rolling.

We have been swimming in milk of late—and while so many are asking about cream we have honestly been too busy to spend the extra time needed to cream. We only cream when we have more milk than we can sell. With three freshened cows, and our customers starting to head off on summer vacations the prospect of creaming is looking more and more possible. Yet, truth be told, creaming is not one of our favorite tasks. Yes, it tastes absolutely scrumptious, but it takes so much more time—time that we would rather spend in the garden, and when we cream we actually lose money. So I have been doing my best to procrastinate the job—which means we have not been separating the calves at night. Why cream when the calves can drink the excess milk? Yet, with one of the calves needing to be weaned tomorrow, and the grasses getting greener and taller by the day, and two more cows due to calve in the next month I am sure that creaming will inevitably happen sooner than later this year—and when it does I cannot wait to put it in my oatmeal, to eat it with peaches—and I promise you that Mom will eat it by the spoonful with honey drizzled on top.

Thursday was predicted to be a nice sunny day—and I couldn’t wait to get to the garden to finish weeding so that I could plant. We were processing chickens on Friday, and it was supposed to rain on Saturday. Therefore, Thursday was the only day I had—but Mom had other plans. We were out of honey—which meant we needed to go get some. The problem was that the honey man lives an hour north of us. So as soon as the milking was done, and I had bottled the kefir, Mom and I headed north. Before we left town we stopped at the bank and the grocery store for a few items. We got the honey and then we headed east for about 50 minutes to another honey place so that I could get some more beeswax for my slaves, lip balms and lotion bars. Then it took us another 40 minutes to get home. As soon as I walked into the kitchen I was reminded that I had to finish making the yogurt and then it was dinner time.

Friday was full to the max. We milked cows, did the morning chores, processed chickens and packaged half of the eggs. While it sounds like just a few things—each one took an hour to four hours to do a piece. When we were done processing our chickens we did a few for our neighbors. Back in February they thought that they had bought some egg laying chicks—but three months later it was evident that someone had sold them meat chicks. They were not prepared for this, and since there were only eight of them we gladly helped them put meat in their freezer—though they would have preferred eggs on their plate.

The last day of the week rolled around and rain was predicted—but I still hadn’t had any time to finish weeding and plant. So as soon as the milking was done I helped Mom pack the Gainesville order and then I grabbed my garden tools and headed for the garden at top notch speed. I had a little over an hour to work before I had to be back inside to make Papa a kefir smoothie before he left for Gainesville. I pulled up a few more weeds that had sprouted in the old carrot and onion beds and then I broadforked them and planted some zinnias in the carrot bed and some marigolds in the onion beds. Then I headed over to the old green bean row in what used to be the East Garden Tunnel, but is now the East Summer Garden because we sold the tunnel to my sister. I worked hard and fast to finish weeding the green bean row. Steve had managed to get almost half of it weeded—so I just had about twelve feet to weed. Then I broadforked the bed and planted some zipper peas. Since I will not be planting the winter garden in that space anymore I decided that instead of growing iron clay peas as a cover crop, I would grow zipper peas as a cover crop and we could eat the peas. I finished with four minutes sparing, and I was exhausted but ecstatic that they were planted before the rains—and yes, those rains did come in the middle of the night. When I got back up to the house there was a customer waiting, so I took care of her before I headed inside to make Papa a kefir smoothie. I usually put kefir, frozen bananas, frozen strawberries and honey in the smoothie—but I didn’t have any strawberries in the house freezer and I had already made too many trips back and forth that I didn’t have the time or the energy to go get more strawberries from the walk-in freezer. So I put bananas, cinnamon and honey in the smoothie instead. Once Papa was on his way Mom and I crashed for a little over an hour. I needed to iron—but my arms were dead. Finally around 3:00 I was able to set up the ironing. I didn’t get too much ironed though before a friend came over to visit and pick up an order. We talked inside for a while, and then we headed to the garden to see how a few things were growing. When she left it was after 6:00 and it was time to finish up dinner. The lamb roast was already cooking in the oven, I just had to slice up some lemon squash and cook it in butter with onions, salt, pepper, and fresh parsley. Then I opened a can of black-eyed peas and heated them up and dinner was done in a jiffy. After dinner I was able to do a little bit more ironing—but I am still way behind.

I still have a few more beds in the West Garden Tunnel to weed and plant—and Lord willing they will be on my agenda for tomorrow.

BTW—if you are interested in seeing us milk the cows and let out the chickens and eat some really good breakfast food, we are inviting you to join us for a Summer Brunch on the Farm, Saturday morning June 8 from 9:00 to 1:00. You can purchase your tickets here: https://summerbrunchonthefarm.rsvpify.com

Serving you with Gladness,

Tiare