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Hi Everyone,
Our week started off with a newborn calf. The last of our “very due” cows finally gave birth. She was a few weeks late—but a strong and healthy big boy walked up with her to the milking parlor Monday morning. His favorite place to hide while we milk the cows is in the tall weeds beside the holding area. He thankfully doesn’t wander far. I was trying to get a picture of him the other day and I heard a squeal as he walked away. I thought he had stepped on a little rat, but upon closer observation I saw a rabbit. I am wondering if she had babies nearby and the calf stepped on one—for I do not believe that the rabbit that was looking at me from her hiding place in the tall weeds is the one who made the squeal. I snapped a picture of her and attached it to this journal—can you find the rabbit in the picture?
When milking was done Monday morning I spent the rest of the morning weeding in the garden. I had to finish weeding one last row before I could plant some summer flowers—marigolds and zinnias. After lunch Steve and I had the job of digging up horsenettle in the back field where the cows spent the winter eating grass. The negative about really fertile soil is that unwanted weeds seem to appear—weeds like fireweed (heartleaf nettle), horsenettle and the deadly jimson weed. A few months back when I was harvesting plantain out of the field I came across a patch of jimson weed and another patch of horsenettle. We lost a few cows one year to jimson weed before we knew what was happening. The first time I came across the jimson weed in the back pasture I was thankful that there were no animals grazing the field. The cows had been sent out to pasture to graze the new spring growth. I was not able to pull up the jimson weed at that time because I had no gloves. A month later I did have some gloves and I did pull up all the jimson weed—and a week later the pigweed took over and the wild grasses took off and you couldn’t walk through the field, let alone find the area where the jimson weed had been growing. I wanted to dig up the horsenettle (which can be poisonous, but due to its thorns is usually not eaten), but I did not have the strength to dig through the compact soil. So another month went by and the sheep where brought in to eat the pasture down. Thankfully the nettle didn’t prove to be detrimental to any of them, for when Steve and I went out Monday to dig them all up we found quite a few that had been chewed on. Sheep must have tongues of leather for they have no problem eating thorny weeds—especially blackberry. I had some gloves and my Hori-Hori knife and Steve had the shovel. The ground was so compact that Steve didn’t find it too easy to get the shovel in the ground—but he did manage and as he would loosen the soil I would wiggle the weed up out of the ground and then throw it in a bucket. It took well over an hour to dig up every nettle plant—even though it was just one five gallon bucket worth. When we were done I had planned on returning to the garden, but my knees were on kneeling protest and so I retired to the sewing room. I have had two dresses in the process of being made for many, many months—but I just haven’t found the time to get them finished. I find them the coolest for summer attire but my supply is slim, and since it is summer I decided to go finish one of them—a pretty pink. I was thankful to be able to finish it shortly after dinner that night.
Tuesday morning we had company during milking. One of our customers had a five year old niece who saw a cow being milked on TV and ever since then she has had lots of questions that her mother could not answer. So when she visited her Auntie she asked her all her questions—but Auntie only knew some of the answers, but not all of them. That is when Auntie contacted her favorite farmers and asked if they could please come over and watch us milk the cows—and answer questions. We were happy to accommodate and the first “Let’s Go Milk a Cow Tour” took place Tuesday morning a little after 9:00 and lasted for about an hour. They got to watch the cows being milked, see them come in when called by name, pet the cows and the little girl even got to try her hand at milking a cow. I later heard that the chance to milk the cow was the highlight of the whole tour and she was so excited about it that she told everyone—including the cashier at the store!
When we finished milking the cows I then had to bottle the kefir and then I made a mad dash for the garden. My beds were ready and I was ready to plant some flowers—zinnias and marigolds. Mom came with me and when she asked what she could do to be of the most help I asked if she would fine tune the trellis bed in the Cottage garden where I hoped to plant some hyacinth bean vines. The trellis is mostly used to grow sugar snap peas in the late winter/early spring, and then the wild vines of morning glory, Red cardinal vine, and Cypress vine seem to take over in the summer along with Spanish needle. I was determined to grow my own flowers on that trellis this year, so we weeded the bed of all the Spanish needle and nutgrass and then I planted some purple Hyacinth beans. Lord willing the trellis shall look prim and proper this summer instead of wild and unruly. We just barley finished planting all the flowers in time to get some lunch and finish making the yogurt before it was time to join the egg packaging party at 2:00. When the eggs were all done Steve and I headed back to the garden. He mowed in Martha’s Vineyard and around the Summer Gardens and I started weeding on another flower bed. Mom’s plans for Martha’s Vineyard include a four and a half foot wide flower border around the whole perimeter of the garden. Last year Mom had a small section on the back fence weeded and planted with flowers—but it has returned to weeds. I have decided to start up close to the rose arbor and do about twenty feet on either side. Then I plan to go to the back fence and do all of it. The other two sides are too thick with grass for me to tackle—one with nutgrass and the other with Bahia. I hope to plant more zinnias, cosmos, Tithonia (Mexican sunflowers) and celosia in these beds.
Papa and Mom are spending all their time working on the new Market Garden tunnels. The first one is up and ready for the side doors, the sprinkler system and the plastic covering. The company says that it takes two men three days to put one up. Well, Mom and Papa have been working on this one tunnel for almost a month now. They never get all day and really only have a max of three afternoons a week to work on it. Then to make matters worse it seems that they make three steps forward and then two steps backward with every step. Parts have broken on them, they have assembled something wrong—because the instructions were not clear enough, and they have cut things that were not supposed to be cut. One pipe wouldn’t go all the way on another pipe—but then neither would it come back off. It got stuck and they wasted three hours working to fix the problem. Then when they think that they have reached a stage that is easy peasy and they couldn’t possibly mess it up—they lose a screw in the grass and can never find it and Papa has to make his own. By the time they finish all four tunnels they will either be pros or they will have lost their minds.
Our mornings have been a little different now that the grasses are growing. When the heifers are moved to a new field Mom goes in behind them with the lawn mower and mows down what the cows didn’t eat. This makes sure that all the grass is fresh and young when the heifers cycle back around to that field. The best time of the day for Mom to do this is right after breakfast—which leaves me with the dishes and a chance to get some odds and ends done in the house. Thursday morning I had some squash that needed to be sliced and put in the freezer, so that is how I used my time once the dishes were done. Then after milking I headed back to the kitchen to make some kombucha. While I was in the kitchen some visitors arrived. A couple had arranged with Mom the day before to come and spend some time looking at the sheep. They just wanted to look and get some pictures. Sheep are usually very leery of strangers—but these strangers had time and patience on their side as they sat down in the middle of the field and stayed calm and quiet which allowed the sheep to relax and graze all around them. When I finished in the kitchen I headed for the garden to weed some more on the new flower border before Mom called me in for lunch. After lunch Steve and I headed to the garden to fence. The north fence of the west Summer Garden needed to be made secure with t-posts, and since it used to be a tunnel the end walls needed to be secured for the wind was doing its best to blow them away. While we were fencing we came across the most horrible sight—two-thirds of the row of white sweet potatoes had been grazed by a deer! When we planted the sweet potatoes they were in the tunnels—safe and secure. Then we sold the east tunnel to my brother-in-law, and the west tunnel was taken down and rebuilt in the new Market Garden. Just as everything was looking lush and beautiful the deer returned. Two years ago we had deer problem and moved everything we wanted to grow into the tunnels. When we started growing in Martha’s Vineyard the deer found it—so we hotwired the perimeter. Well the deer are back! We used string and stakes to deter the deer from the west Summer Garden, but that night the deer found the east Summer Garden and munched a little on all four rows of the red sweet potatoes. This was found shortly before we sat down to eat dinner. So as soon as dinner was over we grabbed some hotwire and headed to the garden. We strung the hotwire around the east garden and attached it to the hotwire that goes around Martha’s Vineyard. The west Summer Garden is across a drive lane so if the deer return we shall have to figure out how to get the electrical juice to it in order to string hotwire around it also.
When the milking was done Friday morning I headed to the garden to harvest comfrey. Once I got it on the dehydrator I had yogurt to make and it was lunch time. After lunch I headed to town. Have I ever told you that going to town is one of my least favorite things to do? My list of “needs” had finally gotten long enough and since Papa and Mom both had mowing to do I decided to adventure to town alone. Groceries and the bank were top priorities on the list, but I had a few other places to stop while I was out. I had a metal garbage can in the greenhouse to store my potting soil in—but the can rusted through so I needed to get a new rubber one. Then since it is summer Jane Crow—who overlooks the gardens in the courtyard needed a new summer outfit so I stopped by Goodwill to find her a red, white and blue outfit. It was late by the time I got home and after a dinner of peaches and pancakes we headed to the garden to do some deer proofing.
Saturday started too early for me as an earache woke me up around 2:30 in the morning. By 5:00 the pain was so bad that I needed to get up and do something to get my mind off the pain. So I got ready for the day, read my Bible a little and then I headed out. I found Mom already up too. I was heading to the garden to turn on the water, and Mom decided to go with me so that we could check for deer prints. It was about 5:45 when we headed outside. Thankfully there were no deer marks in the garden. We then headed to the milk house to set up the milking equipment then Mom headed inside and I stayed and bottled the kefir. Earache or no earache there were still cows to milk and orders to pack—but then the rest of the day went pretty slow. I had bought some strawberries and they needed to be trimmed for the freezer, and then we had a bunch of apricots and Mom and I were searching for some special way to eat them. We searched through recipes, but most were for cobblers and pies and jams—and we just were not hungry for either. Then we found a recipe for Apricot Custard and we spent the next hour making it—and it tasted very delicious!
Well that was my week—I hope that you had a good week and that you are enjoying your summer.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare