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Hi Everyone,
September is here and fall is creeping in. The leaves of the sycamores are starting to change—they are always the first to let go of their green and begin to turn yellow and brown. I have seen the goldenrod’s yellow feathered blooms starting to burst forth, and the Spanish Needle is in full bloom everywhere. Fall is here and it won’t be long before we pull out the sweaters, roast hotdogs over a fire, wake up to crispy mornings, and apples start to find their way into all our cooking menus. Yet, the grass is still green and growing faster than we can keep up with it and although some days the temps have dropped into the high 70’s or low 80’s, the temperatures still like to soar into the high 90’s with heat indexes over 120—which means that summer really is still upon us.
Last Monday was one of those HOT days—and while most Americans were taking the day off from all their labors, we labored on. There were cows to milk, gardens to weed, and the chickens desperately needed water. When Papa’s tractor broke for the third time in two weeks it left the chicken houses stranded in the same spot for a few days. A 55-gallon barrel of water allows Papa to park the chicken tractor anywhere on the farm he wants to—but it has to be refilled every three to four days. Day four had arrived on Monday and thankfully my brother-in-law loaned us his tractor. Mom and I were working in the Market Garden when Papa came to ask for help—he was quite stressed. The tractor had no brakes to hold the tractor in position after Papa backed up to the chicken house. Papa would back the tractor up and line up the holes of the chicken house hitch and the tractor bars wholes—but when he took his foot off of the clutch the tractor would roll forward. It was impossible for him to hook them together by himself so he came to get Mom and I to come and put the pin into the hole once Papa got the tractor backed up to the chicken house. I helped with the first house and then Mom helped with the second house. Thankfully our tractor was fixed before the chicken houses needed their water refilled again. Though it was no easy task for him to get it fixed as the wrong water pump was ordered first, then the second one didn’t come with the right parts, then after he went to assemble the correct water pump they couldn’t get it to attach because some of the parts from the old water pump were not removed and attached to the new water pump—and the parts store kept our old one. So Papa headed down there early Friday morning willing to dig in the dumpster if they had thrown the old pump away. Thankfully they still had it and were able to remove the parts from the old one and put them on the new one. Then Papa was able to successfully put the tractor all back together and was a joy it was to hear it run—at 5:00 Friday night. It had been out of commission for two weeks.
I spent the day in the East Garden getting the last two beds weeded and composted and the walkways mulched. My goal was to have the beds ready by Friday when I planned on planting lettuce seeds. Mom was working in the second Market Garden Tunnel to get the west side ready for the door and end wall—which Mom and Papa got hung on Tuesday. Monday was a HOT one though as the temperature reached 100 and at one point in the afternoon when we came inside to cool off the Heat index was 123 F. Mom said she took a few breaks from her work to stand in the walk-in cooler.
Have you ever been around someone who was having a bad day and you wished that you could say something to make their day better? Well, last Tuesday our dishwasher, Penny—who happens to be our worker Steve’s wife, was having a rough day. I felt sorry for her, for with her mother being so sick and needy Penny has had her share of stress of late. I wished that I could say something to encourage her—but I didn’t know what to say. So I prayed! I asked the Lord to somehow encourage her, and little did I know that the Lord would use His sense of humor to answer my prayer. I was bottling kefir while these thoughts were going through my head and Penny was about three feet away from me at the sink washing the milking equipment and Steve was behind me at the table bottling milk. The first two gallon glass jar of kefir was strained and bottled already and I was in the process of straining the kefir grains out of the second jar when I lost my grip on the jar and it came crashing down on the plastic table in front of me. Thankfully the jar did not break—but what happened next would put every child’s science project of a volcano erupting to shame. When the jar made contact with the table the force shot the kefir that was still in the jar up a good two feet and covered me from the top of my head down to my waste where the jar was. I was so thickly covered in kefir that I couldn’t even open my eyes and kefir was trickling into my mouth. My arms were covered, my hands were covered, the whole front of my apron was covered, and I could feel that it was on the inside of my dress too. Penny began to laugh—it was okay for I was laughing too, but Steve noticed and said, “Penny is laughing, and she hasn’t laughed in days.” I knew immediately that God had answered my prayer—and I told Penny that too. The kefir volcano would have made a great YouTube video, but I am sorry, it was not caught on video—and no one thought to take a picture. I have no idea what I looked like—but Penny and Steve do, and it gave everyone a good laugh. The Bible says that laughter doeth good like a medicine, and Penny was feeling much better after that dose. There really wasn’t much of a mess in the milk house to clean up—just a few drops on the floor and a small puddle on the table. I was wearing the majority of the mess. Before I could finish bottling the kefir I had to rinse it out of my hair and wash it off of my face and arms and I sent my apron to the wash sink. Then I could bottle the kefir. I was nine kefirs short in filling the orders on Wednesday, but I should have only been eight kefirs short. I didn’t have enough kefir to fill up the last bottle—because I was wearing it. Once the kefir was bottled I headed for a shower—for I desperately needed it. After my shower it was a little hard to convince myself that I had to go outside in the heat and sweat and get dirty working in the garden—but I managed it. Steve and I headed to the West Garden and while he finished pulling up all the weeds inside the garden, I pulled up all the weeds and grass along the fence surrounding the garden.
When we came in from the garden it was lunch time and I had to finish making the yogurt before I could join the egg packaging party. When the eggs were all done I headed out to the Market Garden and strung the string in the east half of the second tunnel in order to mark the garden beds and the walkways.
Come Thursday we were blessed to have our three man work crew back. In three hours the side channels were installed, two beds were completely weeded, broadforked, filled with compost and the middle walkway was covered with woodchips. The section of grass where the east wall will be going was all removed by a very strong and energetic 16 year old. Mom had worked on it for hours and had only accomplished about four to six feet, but in about thirty minutes this young man had removed all the grass in the rest of the ten to twelve feet long, three feet wide section. Strength makes all the difference in the world! The only way to loosen the sod was to use the broadfork. The ground out there is rock hard and you have to really work hard to get it in the ground—but once it is in the ground it takes a lot of force to get it to lay on the ground and break up the sod. I have done it and I have to heave and ho, pull and push, and hang on it to get it to work. I am just a little woman—so it is understandable, but to watch this young man having to heave and ho and actually hang on the handles with his hands and feet in order to get them to go down to the ground and pull up the sod made me realize just how hard a job it really was. We were amazed at how much was accomplished in just three hours. When I look at the overall picture of what all needs done here on the farm “RIGHT NOW” it can be very overwhelming. So it is very encouraging when help comes along and accomplishes so very much in such a short amount of time. I feel like we are right on schedule. The beds are ready for me to plant the green beans this coming Thursday—and the reason I am waiting until Thursday is because as soon as the beans sprout they need to be protected from the deer and rabbits, and that is not done yet. I am trying to give my parents ample time to get it accomplished before the beans sprout, and once the beans go in the ground the pressure is really on.
I was able to get the first batches of lettuce planted on Friday—all Romaine for it can handle the warmer weather better than the crisps and butterhead lettuces. In the East Garden I planted two types of mini-romaine and one red and green romaine called Sweet Valentine. Then I went over to the West Garden and weeded one of the beds, topped it with compost, and broadforked it (which is very easy since we have been working those garden beds for years and the soil is soft and fluffy and not compact.). Then I panted three rows of three different colors of pollen free, single stemmed sunflowers. These are great for filling up vases for they do not drop yellow staining pollen on your tables.
Saturday morning did not start too early for me. Somehow the season changed and I have found myself taking advantage of the chance to sleep in until 7:00 on Saturday mornings—although it was 7:10 when I finally woke up yesterday. For months I had been waking up at 6:00 on a Saturday and I would slip out of the house and head over to the milk house and set up the milking equipment and bottle the kefir before my parents woke up and had breakfast served. For the last month that has not happened—O well. When I arrived in the kitchen Papa was fixing breakfast and Mom was busy elsewhere. I worked on the dishes—that we had not done the night before because we were too exhausted. Then after breakfast a customer arrived early. After I took care of her I started to set up for milking—but the phone rang and changed the course of our morning. It was the Post Office calling to let us know that they had two boxes of lively chicks ready for us to pick up. I was not expecting chicks until next week—therefore the brooder house was not cleaned out from the last batch. I thought for sure it was a mistake with the hatchery, but upon checking my paper records I realized that it was a mistake on my end. I accidently ordered those two weeks in a row instead of two weeks apart. This is the last batch we will get until October when we receive the last two batches for the year. I went and told Steve the news first—for he would have to go and clean out the brooder house. Then I found Papa and told him—for he had to go to town to pick up the chicks. Mom was glad that by the time I told her, the problem was already under control. We also had a new calf born that morning. Emma—the cow that got bit by a rattlesnake last year, gave birth to a little heifer. She is a very good mama and makes sure her baby is with her when she goes back out to the pasture after milking. If her calf is on the wrong side of the fence she goes and stands there mooing and looking over letting us know where to find her calf. Papa says that we should call the heifer “Next”. That is because he spent over a week helping me milk cows while Mom was sick and he came up with this idea that we should name a cow “Next” because all our cows come when we call them by name and he thinks that it would be fun to call out “Next” like you do when a bunch of people are waiting in line. I am not sure if the name will stick or not—but we shall see.
Once the chicks were moved into the brooder, the cows were milked, the kefir was bottled, and the orders were packed for the Gainesville delivery Mom and I sat out to do a little changing in the house. It is the beginning of September—which means that it is time to put away the summer décor and put up the fall décor. It took the two of us all afternoon to get most of it accomplished. Pretty much we decorate the mantel and the dining room for each season. The porch gets a little décor too. Usually Miss Jane Crow gets a new wardrobe—but even though I bought her new clothes from the thrift store for summer, we never got around to changing her clothes. Let’s see if we can get her dressed up for fall sometime soon.
Well I think that I have told you everything—but if I haven’t o well because my hand is badly falling asleep and is ready for a break.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare