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Hi Everyone,
If memories were all one needed to make them warm, I would be as snug as a bug in a rug. Winter is not my favorite time of the year—I prefer summer for if I cannot be barefoot and in short sleeves the temperature is too cold, but many precious memories have been made on a cold winter day or night. There is the time when I was a little girl and Papa put a hose in one of our big trees and by morning we had huge icicles hanging from the tree—and it might have been the only time the neighborhood bully was nice to me because he wanted one of those icicles. My first snow memory believe it or not was right here in Florida. In December 1989, when I was only 14, a few inches of snow fell here in North Florida. When my Mama’s family who lived in Tampa heard that it was going to snow at Tarri Anne’s they packed up their families and came to experience the snow. (They all live in Tennessee now and get their fair share of snowstorms every year). It took my Grandma ten hours instead of three hours to get to our house. The roads were dangerous and they closed the interstates—because we do not have salt and snow plows. We children had a blast playing in the snow and cold, but if you wanted to make a snowman the easiest way to do it was to scrape the snow off of the cars. No one had gloves for playing in the snow, so we planned a trip to town—but first we had to use a whole bunch of HOT water to thaw out the van so that we could open the doors and see out the window. In town big 4 x 4 trucks were pushing vehicles up the hills, and many of the parking lots were empty except for those doing donuts in them. I got a pair of insulated brown leather gloves, and they have done me well all these years. I still have them, but the thumbs have finally ripped out. My hands are so small that it is hard to find gloves that fit—but those gloves from my childhood still fit like a charm. I remember the power going out in the middle of cooking breakfast, but it was no problem for the wood burning stove was nice and hot and it had a cook plate on top so we just moved the skillet of eggs from the electric stove to the wood burning stove and finished cooking breakfast.
Fast forward a few years and I was in Indianapolis, Indiana with our homeschool group when a blizzard swept through. It was a few days before I finally got to go outside and walk around in the couple “feet” of snow. When I reached my hand down to grab a handful of the white fluffy snow I was surprised when my hand collided with ice instead. The snow had melted just enough to be hard instead of soft and fluffy. A few years later my family and I was in Wyoming heading back to Colorado after touring Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons and Jackson hole when a snow storm blew in upon us. I wanted to get out and “play” in the snow, but we were in the middle of nowhere, and out there they close the highways down when the snow gets too bad and when you pass a gas station you had better stop to get gas and go to the bathroom because you do not know how many more hours it will be before you see either again—so we had to keep driving or run the risk of being stranded.
It wasn’t until my 30’s before I finally got to “play” in the snow. The temps were supposed to be in the teens for weeks. We were milking eight cows, but we were only getting two gallons of milk a day from them. Mama decided that our worker could handle that so she decided to leave town because she didn’t want to milk cows in the cold weather. We girls thought for sure that we would be going south, but no, Mama decided to take us north to her brother’s lodge in northern Missouri. Papa had to work, so he couldn’t come. Mom’s philosophy was that she could enjoy the cold from inside if we went north—but we also got to enjoy it from outside to. My sister Nichole and I had a blast, every once in a while we did manage to talk my sister Samantha and Mama into joining us. We made snow angels, went sledding down steep slopes, walked out on the frozen Mississippi, and even picked up a huge slab of frozen water so that I could say I was “holding the Mighty Mississippi”. My Uncle tied a rope to an inner tube and attached it to the back of his four-wheeler and dragged us all over the frozen lake, and we made a humongous snowman. It was a week of precious memories.
I think that the last time I was in snow was when we headed north to my Mama’s step-brothers funeral. My Aunts and Uncle were following us, but we were about an hour ahead of them. The sides of the road were thick with snow and I so badly wanted to stop and make a snowman and then call and tell my relatives to “find him” as they travelled along the same road. Yet, it just isn’t safe to pull over on the edge of a highway in order to make a snowman. When we got to the Kentucky Rest area though I took my opportunity and scrapped up some of the snow and made a wee little snowman and then I placed him on one of the posts. I told my aunts and uncle to look for him—but I didn’t tell them how big he was. They did find him, but they almost missed him. He was the laughing talk of the rest of the weekend.
This last week has given me plenty of time to think of “cold” memories—especially while milking. There is never a cold day when my cold hands have to touch those COLD metal milking claws that I do not remember how Alayna and I used to talk about milking cows during the cold. She milked by hand, and I milked by machine—and she swore that it was better to milk by hand in the winter because the warmth of the cows udder kept your hands warm. I have to say that I think she is right. Milking when the temperatures are in the 20’s is not very pleasant. Papa bought a heater that hooks onto a propane tank and we put it to the test last week. One morning when I headed out to milk it was 27 degrees outside—but in the milking parlor it was 38. We used it Friday and by the time we were done milking the propane tank was frozen to the concrete. Papa said that the tank was getting empty. This morning when I woke up at 5:00 I remembered what Papa had said and I groaned, out loud—for it was only 29 degrees outside, and dropping. By the time we finished milking at 8:00 it was 32 degrees outside, but it had dropped down to 24 degrees. The heater only lasted about 10 minutes before it ran out of propane—of all the mornings to be empty. Papa was kind though, for when he left to go do his morning chores he handed me one of his hand warmers, and it was very helpful for my cold hands. It was a white winter wonderland this morning. I was glad that I got to spend the rest of the day inside—inside the heated van to and from church, inside church, and inside our house.
I prefer to hibernate when it gets cold, but a farm has a way to draw us outside no matter what. I have so much to do in the garden, but I do not get there as often as I would like. I did manage to spend Monday afternoon transplanting lettuce and planting more mustard greens. Then Steve and I worked to clean out the walkways and the trellis bed so that I can plant some sugar snap peas. Thursday was a bitter cold day with the wind blowing fiercely from the north east. I just wanted to stay inside, but I desperately needed to start some lettuce seeds, flower seeds and cabbage seeds. The green house is open to the wind from the north and the south, and my planting table is on the north end. It was so bitterly cold and all I could think about is finding something to block the wind. The tarp I usually used was being used elsewhere. I thought about old empty one ton tote bags—but they were too dirty. I was about to give up and go back inside when I finally found a big sheet of plastic wrap that was used to wrap around our pallet of chicken feed during transport. I grabbed it up along with a few clothespins and attached it to the north wall of the greenhouse and went back inside the greenhouse and found me a nice cozy warm area to work in. I was happy! I had hoped to do some weeding in the garden Friday afternoon, but I got sidetracked by some escape artist chickens. The Poultry barn where we raise our new batch of egg layers is beside the garden—but it has a six foot fence around it. Still about six to eight chickens fly over the top every day and terrorize the garden. I am so mad at them! They are destroying the plantain bed, the comfrey bed, the flower beds, and the ginger beds. I want to plant sugar snap peas—but the chickens are already scratching the dirt under the trellis. The seeds will have no chance to sprout. So I grabbed a net and some clippers and started catching the chickens that were on the wrong side of the fence. I found out that chasing chickens can be very exhausting—but so rewarding when you finally catch them and clip off their wing feathers. A few times I thought I was done and then I would turn around and see one or two more chickens—or see one walking the wall getting ready to jump over to “freedom”. It was much easier to catch them around the Poultry barn, but O what trouble it was to chase them through the garden because so much of it is overgrown with weeds. When I finally got to the last chicken I chased her everywhere. Then to my great dismay she took flight and flew back over the wall and into the poultry barnyard. Yes, I was mad! There was no way to find her in amongst 200 other chickens that looked just like her. The next day I saw two chickens out roaming around where they do not belong. I do not know if I will be able to grow sugar snap peas or not this year. I guess it depends on if I can catch those last two chickens or not. It is supposed to rain all day tomorrow—and be terribly cold, so I will not be chasing chickens tomorrow.
Milk production has been pretty low of late. I am milking 14 cows, but only getting 7 to 9 gallons of milk a day. We bought some alfalfa hay to see if that would help increase the milk supply—for it is green that makes milk, and in the winter there is no green grass. We had two cows calve in December, Merci and Ana. They both have lots of milk, but Ana refused to let hers down, and the milking claws were causing her teats to bleed so I decided to retire Ana and let her raise her calf—but I also wanted her to raise Merci’s calf because Ana had more milk than her calf could drink. Finding time to make that happen wasn’t easy though. Thursday night when I went out to do the evening chores because Papa was making deliveries to the JAX area I decided to separate Merci’s calf along with the other two calves, for Merci’s calf was finally a month old. Then I had another idea—if I separated Ana’s calf too then the next morning we could start bringing Ana into the coral to nurse both the calves and then I could have all of Merci’s milk. The plan worked great. Merci’s calf didn’t nurse the next morning—she was still holding out for her own mama. Friday night though she was hungry enough to snitch from another mama, but Ana was not too excited about sharing her milk with another calf and did a great job of kicking little Noel off. I walked up to the milking parlor and grabbed a halter and a rope and went back to the panel pens where Papa helped me put them on Ana. Then Papa tied Ana to the panels and she stood still and let Noel nurse. It is strange, but if Ana is loose she kicks Noel off, but as soon as you tie her up she stands still. She could still kick the calf off if she wanted to—but she decides to let it nurse. I was very happy to get a few gallons from Merci. It will help in our milk sales, for it is no fun knocking 50 to 60 gallons off of orders.
Thursday was a delivery day—but we had also been asked to talk at the Lake City Garden Clubs meeting. They wanted to hear about our farm and our Farm to Table Dinners. The meeting started at 10:00, but we needed to be there by 9:45 so that we could set up the lap top and projector so we could share a few farm videos and show some pictures. It takes me a little over two hours to milk all the cows, plus almost another hour to set up before and clean up the milking parlor after. We would have to leave by 9:15—which meant we had to get up at 5:00 and go straight out to milk and then come in and eat breakfast and leave. We managed it and the talk went really well. Since I enjoy gardening I would have loved to stay for the rest of the meeting, but alas we had to hurry home and help Steve and Papa finish packing the orders for the delivery. We had packed the meat and the vegetables the day before, and Mama had packed the milk products in the ice chests that morning. They just needed to be loaded into the van and iced down before Papa could be on his way, and thankfully everything went smoothly.
We have two weeks left until our next Farm to Table Dinner—and we have lots to do to get ready for it. For one the dining area needs turned back into a dining area. When all our hay was delivered the barn had to be cleaned out—and the stuff had to go somewhere. I do not think that we shall be doing anything outside tomorrow though because it is supposed to rain and be cold all day. Let me rephrase that—we will not be doing any extra work outside tomorrow, for we still have to milk the cows, feed the sheep, chickens, heifers, bulls, dogs and ducks. Sheep have to be caught up in the afternoon, because a few rams are scheduled to go to the butcher Tuesday morning. The brooder house has to be finished cleaning out, because the first batch of broiler chicks arrives Tuesday afternoon. I think that I had better go get ready for bed—for tomorrow sounds busier than I thought.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare