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Hi Everyone,
The week started out with us adding a new cow to our farm—temporarily. My sister needed us to take care of her cow for a few weeks. So after they milked her Monday morning they walked her over (my sister lives next door at the other end of our 65 acres). I say walked, but when I looked out the window there were many times that Brandon was playing tug-of-war with her—especially when the grass looked too good to pass up. Mom and Steve spent some time during the day mowing grass, and Papa spent time running errands to get cow feed and ice. In the afternoon Mom and Papa went over to purchase some really old pine boards from a man and got a bargain on a whole trailer load. Mom wants to use it to close in the sides of the sheep/calf barn. I spent my day transplanting lettuce, bok choy and mustard greens.
My parents were scheduled to go to the dentist in Clearwater on Tuesday, but a call from one of our customers Monday morning changed our plans dramatically. One of our JAX customers called to inform us of the possibility of an approaching Hurricane—that was predicted to go right over us. Upon closer investigation into the approaching storm the decision was made to not go south for two reasons: they could get stuck in evacuating traffic, and we needed to get some things done on our farm to prep for the storm. Although, the truth is we did no storm prep on Tuesday besides Mom and Papa finishing the brace boards on the east and west Market Garden end walls. I spent the day in the greenhouse potting up broccoli and collards and planting some new lettuce seeds.
Wednesday we packed our orders and sent Papa off on the JAX delivery run. I taught piano lessons and Mom and Steve worked on storm prep. They brought the three weak old chicks in out of the pasture and put them back into the brooder house. We had learned from Hurricane Debbie that the small birds do not survive the winds and the rain. To tell the truth—I was in storm denial. I didn’t want to deal with a hurricane and I figured that if I just ignored it and didn’t prepare for it then it would just go away. Wednesday morning it was still down in the Yucatan Peninsula, hadn’t formed into a hurricane yet—but was predicted to become a CAT 4 or 5. They weren’t exactly sure which direction it would make, but they thought for sure that it would be heading for the big bend of Florida. It wasn’t until around 3:00 that afternoon that the storm finally started to move and I finally found a weather station that was forecasting for Lake City. To my dismay it said that we should expect 75 to 90 mph wind gusts—and I knew that it was time to prepare. Mom and I couldn’t do much, but we could take care of the small things—there would still be time on Thursday to take care of the large items on the porch for the storm wasn’t predicted to arrive until around 8:00 Thursday night. When I headed outside to see what I could do I found Mom walking very slowly up to the house and bent over. She had hurt her back moving a bale of hay—she had twisted just right. From then on she was of very little help because she was in so much pain. Matter of fact, she is still in a lot of pain and manages to milk the cows in the morning, but cannot do much else the rest of the day.
Originally the weather was supposed to be pretty nasty all day Thursday—so our worker Steve decided to take the day off since he doesn’t have windshield wipers. It rained some Wednesday night, and then Thursday ended up being a beautiful day—no rain and even some sunshine! By 3:00 the winds were starting to increase and we were getting gusts up to 19 mph. The Tavernari’s (the family that helps us process chickens and package eggs) came over Thursday afternoon to camp out at our place during the storm. Caleb (the father) and his two teenage sons were a big help in getting some things anchored down for the storm. They helped Papa anchor the hoop houses to some t-posts and they helped catch up all the eight week old chickens that we were planning on processing the next day. They put them in the cattle trailer and parked it in the barn. The idea of losing birds that were ready for processing was not one I liked—so I wanted to make sure that they were safe. The ladies helped in the kitchen to turn a bunch of peaches into some Peachy Lemonade. We all began to wonder if the storm would ever arrive, but we had noticed that the weather channels were showing its fast track north and the fact that it was constantly gaining more and more speed. When we saw that it had reached a CAT 4 and was still in the middle of the Gulf, we knew that danger was approaching—someone, for the direction was still not determined. We thought that we would do pretty well for the storm prediction line had it coming ashore the other side of Tallahassee and going north into Georgia. Then around 6:30 when we were sitting down to eat dinner the phone rang and my Aunt Patti was calling to tell us that the storm had changed directions and was going to come right over us. I argued with her—because I was still in denial, but when we checked the weather channel it was true that it had turned more to the east. By 9:00 the rains began and the winds started to pick up. Instead of 20 mph wind gusts, we were now experiencing 16 to 23 mph steady winds. We all went out on the porch for a little while and enjoyed the Tropical breezes—and they were warm! Around 10:00 we all headed to bed. We were not in bed very long before the power went off—but to our delight the generator clicked on. When I went to bed I took the monitor to our personal weather station with me. I wanted to see it when the wind speed reached 90 mph. The winds were slowly increasing: 30 mph at 10:00, 38 mph at 10:17. After every wind gusts I would fly out of bed and turn on the monitors light so that I could see the wind speed. That got old fast so I decided to leave the monitors light on so I just had to turn over and look. The wind kept climbing: 42 mph at 11:00 and 44 mph at 11:30. I would almost dose off between wind gusts. Then a big gust blew and I turned to read the weather monitor and it still read 44 mph. Another wind gust passes—and it still read 44 mph. It was raining hard outside and the rain gauge still read 1.35 inches—it wasn’t changing. I realized that the weather station was broke. It failed me! So I turned off the monitor light and rolled over and went fast asleep. I slept through the worst of it. I have since heard that the winds reached 130 mph here. I woke up around 6:00 the next morning and since we were supposed to process chickens I knew that I needed to get up so that I could print the chicken labels for the packaging. Most of the house was still asleep, but when I reached the living room I saw some light outside on the porch. Mom and one of the older boys were outside, and Papa was down field hooking a generator up to our well so that we could have running water. I joined them and we began to walk around surveying the damage—by flashlight because it was still dark outside. One of the first things we noticed was some smashed chicken hoop houses. Then we found Goose and three of his seven ducks hanging out at one of the Market Garden tunnels. The duck house was missing in action. In the process of looking for it we found an injured duck and bits and pieces of the missing hoop house. We finally found it on the property line fence all smashed. That pen was 9 feet wide and 17 feet long, and from what we can tell it went skiing across the grass until it hit a fence and then it flipped and went sailing and tumbling until it came to a stop on the back fence. The East and West Gardens were no longer deer proof. The doors were busted and the end walls were flapping open. Near the garden was another chicken hoop house smashed. You can see the storm damage in the little YouTube short that I did here. Out in the pasture there were chickens scattered everywhere. Papa said that at first he thought that they were all dead, but upon closer inspection he saw that they were still alive—just drowned rats. I thought that they looked like turtles with their heads pulled into their shells. We found one two foot wide hole full of chickens all huddled together. Their pens were gone—some smashed and some slid through fences into other fields. The turkeys were still in their pens. I really half expected them to all be dead, but I was thankful that our Thanksgiving Turkeys were still alive and well. We did end up losing one of the turkeys because the hoop house slid up on top of its leg and fatally wounded it. We drove over to my sisters and saw that all was well at her house beside some tree debris. I checked on the cows and they all seemed to be fine. We thought that the duck house in the front yard had stayed put, but when I was checking on the cows I realized that it had slid over. I went and checked on them and I found eight healthy ducks running around quaking inside their pen. One was out running around lost, and one was found dead under the pen. In the end we lost three ducks, one turkey, five meat chickens and two laying hens. We really were blessed.
It was going on 8:00 by the time we made it back inside. After breakfast we headed outside to set up for milking—and with four helpers it went real fast. After we had the milking parlor all set up for milking the young people headed out to pasture to help Papa who was putting the good hoop houses and all the hotwire fences back where they belonged. Then they had to catch all the roaming chickens and put them back into their hoop houses. When that was all done then Papa could go get the cows and bring them in for milking. Once the milking was done we realized that it would not be a good idea to process the chickens since we really didn’t have any electricity. We had the generator—but since we had no idea how long we would be without power we had to ration the propane by turning off the generator in the afternoon and all night. We didn’t want to process chickens and not be able to get them chilled. So Papa found two pens and set them up so that the boys could empty the chickens out of the cattle trailer. Steve was not able to make it to work on Friday, so once again Papa and I had to bottle the milk and wash up all the milking equipment. I can physically do a lot of work, but it is amazing that washing some of the milking equipment is more than my little body can physically handle. If I had to wash it every day I do not think that we would be able to milk cows. When all the morning chores were done Papa was ready for a nap, for he did not get much sleep with the storm—but we had company and that company was very energetic and ready to do whatever needed to be done to clean up from the storm. So Papa went with them to take off some busted roofing on one of the chicken tractors and cover it with a tarp until we can by some new roofing material. Then our company went home to their place and we rested a little bit before we had to start on the evening chores. Later that night I went to open my bedroom windows to let some cool air in and I found an ant nest on my window sill. The storm had driven them inside.
The next morning as we were setting up for milking we found that the shelf in Mom’s feed room on her milking side had been taken over by an ant colony. Over on my side an ant colony had built their condos around my feed can. I spent about an hour; it seemed like, washing the ants away and dousing them with Dawn Dish soap and water. When milking was done I was thankful that Steve was here and I didn’t have to wash the equipment—but I did have to bottle kefir and I did wash up those dishes. Poor Steve had not managed to get any sleep for two nights and since his power was out he was living on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We decided to give him Sunday off so that he could go to his daughters who had electricity and get some much needed rest and food—which meant Papa and I had to wash the equipment again today.
Knowing that the water and the electricity would be turned off once the milking equipment was washed I worked frantically all morning trying to make wise use of the running water and electricity. I washed laundry, filled up my bathtub with water for flushing the toilets—and possibly an emergency bath. I wanted to get the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher (because Mom couldn’t) before I bottled the kefir so that the dishwasher would have time to wash before we turned off the water—but I found out that I had some customers coming up from Gainesville to pick up their orders (we cancelled the delivery because we had too much to do), and they wanted kefir. So as soon as I was done with the customers and I had the kefir bottled and those dishes washed I headed to the kitchen to do the breakfast dishes. I got the dishwasher loaded and turned on, and then I was fixing to fill up the sink with soapy water and then go fill up Mom’s bathtub—but the water stopped running. Papa was over at my sisters with the chainsaw removing the tree from her driveway—so we called her to tell her that we needed Papa to come put more gas in the generator. To everyone’s dismay a lack of gas was not the problem. Off and on the rest of the day Papa worked on the generator—but it never started. So at 7:00 he decided that it was time for a new generator and after a quick dinner he headed to town to buy a new generator to run the well. At 8:30 the neighbor called to see if we had our power back on—and since our house generator was running I said no. Everyone else around us had their power on. My sister even called with the good news. We didn’t have water or power. Then I remembered that Papa has to unplug the well from the power pole in order to connect it to the generator. So Mom and I headed down field to see if we could plug the generator back into the power pole—but we found out that we had no idea how to do it. About that time Papa got home from town with the new generator. He saw us at the well and came down and plugged it in—and it worked. Once we were back at the house he checked the generator and told us that it was on manual, but when he switched it over to auto it clicked off—because our power was back on. The timing was perfect—because the generator Papa bought was not strong enough to run the well (and he was able to find that out before he took it out of the box). Now we have to find the right kind before next weekend when they are predicting another hurricane to hit us again.
So to sum up our storm damage—we had trees go down on fences, which means we have no hot wire to keep the animals in place. We lost a total of four hoop houses—and we have chickens that are ready to go out to pasture now, but have no place to go. The chestnut orchard has down trees and branches everywhere—and is going to need some extra help to clean up for it is more than Papa can do by himself. The garden tunnel still needs to be finished—for there are plants ready to transplant out, but no beds are ready. Yes, there is a lot to do, in a short amount of time with limited hands to do it all.
Whenever I feel overwhelmed though, I remember that our trials our minor. Others have lost their homes, their businesses, their towns, and their loved ones. Yes, we have much to be thankful for.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare