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Hi Everyone,

               Having Mama back helping me with the milking has been a real blessing—especially since we have four freshened cows. Buttercup was the last one to calve and she gave birth to her little bull calf Wednesday night. I was coming in from doing the evening chores when I heard a strange moo/moan coming from the cows. The dog barked and I figured that something must be wrong. So I walked over and shone my flashlight into the darkness and as I scanned across the field I caught sight just in time to see the calf coming out. Anyway, I was milking 16 cows when Mama returned to the milking parlor, but the day the 17th cow calved one of the 16 was ready to go on maternity leave. So we are still milking 16 cows, and over the next month the numbers will dwindle as four more go on maternity leave as they get a break before they calve in April. Thankfully the four freshened cows all had bull calves so that means that we will get more milk from them once we sell off their calves. They will give way more milk than the four cows that we will have to dry off. It never fails that about the time we get more cows in the milk tank, we have to dry off more cows for maternity leave. It is a constant up and down—I never know how many cows I am milking because the number constantly is changing. While we retired three cows last year, we have about four new heifers that will join the milking herd this year. Actually, two have already calved—Sundrop and Dolly. It is fascinating to learn each cow’s personality. Dolly is a small cow with a laid back personality. I can love all over her, and pet her and lay on her back and she doesn’t mind it one bit. She was easy to break and didn’t give us much trouble when we decided to train her to be tied into the milking stall—but when it came to milking Dolly that was a different story. She kicked and kicked when I went to tie back her leg, and as soon as I touched her udder to  wash it or hook up the milking claws she kicked some more. I had to have someone push her toward me so that she couldn’t pick up her leg and kick. Then once I had her hooked up she would turn her head around and rest it in my lap while I milked her—it was like she wanted to keep an eye on what I was doing (which was stealing her calves milk). Dolly has calmed down a lot in the three weeks that I have been milking her, and just this week she doesn’t kick as much and she eats instead of resting her head in my lap.

               Sundrop on the other hand was a different story. She was very hyper and a little skittish. She would come into eat but every little noise made her fly out backward, and “please do not touch me” was her policy. The day we decided to tie her in was a rodeo—she went crazy. After a few days though she calmed down and had no problem being tied in. When she calved and I had to milk her I was expecting a show—but she stood still, gladly let me tie back her leg and let me milk her with no problem (well, I did have a problem—she wouldn’t let down her milk for the first few weeks). Each cow is totally different.

               In December we brought in two heifers that were two years old and ready to be bred, One was Merry—our calf that has been tame since birth and has been halter broke since birth. Tying her in was a cinch, and she has no problem coming in to eat and will go in all six stalls with no problem—the problem is that there are only four stalls (the other two are where Mama and I sit and they also lead to the back room where the feed can is). The other heifer we brought in was Petunia. She had no problem coming in to eat, but she was skittish and would back out with the slightest noise or if anyone got too close to her. Petunia loved her food—because it was the only place she got to eat without competition. We sold Petunia and her mother shortly after Petunia was born, but a year later the family had to move and they couldn’t take the cows with them and we bought them back. The heifers didn’t take too kindly to Petunia and she became an outcast in the heifer herd. Then when she turned two she was promoted to the BIG girls herd—the milking herd. They didn’t like her either, so Petunia had a hard time getting to the hay. Last Monday I told mama that I would be willing to sell Petunia to a family that would pamper her and be able to give her one on one attention and all the minerals and food she could get without competition. We are not set up to pamper cows.  That night my sister and her husband came over with a friend of theirs to look at our Market Garden tunnels. He was interested in buying one of our cows last year, but a family wedding steered the cash flow in a different direction. Last Monday he asked Mama when she was going to sell him a cow. They looked at the young heifers and then Mama remembered what I had said about Petunia—so they went and checked her out. He was happy with her, and since they show cows, pampering Petunia was no problem at all. He came over Saturday morning to pick her up and take her home to be his wife’s Valentine’s Day gift. We have a joke around here that some women like diamonds and chocolate for special occasions—and some women like cows. His wife was one who would prefer a cow over chocolate, flowers, and diamonds.

               I was able to spend two days in the garden last week. Monday’s goal was to tarp the center area of Martha’s Vineyard where I plan to plant pumpkins this April. I had put cardboard, leaves and manure in the center growing area a few months ago, but I never got around to covering it. I knew that my time was running out if I wanted to suffocate the weeds, and I wanted to be on top of things this year. I didn’t get to grow pumpkins last year because I procrastinated too long. So after lunch I picked up two very heavy silage tarps that we had used to cover the grass where the new Market Gardens were built. Thankfully it was easier to take them out of the Gravely and drag them over to the middle of Martha’s Vineyard and unfold them than it was to pick them up and put them in the Gravely. Once I got them spread out in the middle of the garden plot I used cinder blocks to hold them down where the two met in the middle, but I dug up dirt and dumped it on the edges all the way around the 30 by 30 foot area. I wasn’t sure that I would actually be able to finish—for shoveling weedy sod was no easy task. Then I headed over to the East Garden and weeded the multiplying onions. The poor things were really suffering from lack of sunlight. If there is one thing that onions do not like it is weeds. Once I finished weeding them I dumped some buckets of compost around them and flew back inside to tell Mama that we needed to leave right away to go to town to pick up some milk jugs. I had forgotten to have Papa pick up a few bags when he was in Jacksonville on deliveries the week before and I didn’t have enough half gallon jugs to bottle Tuesday’s milk. Thankfully a company in town sells half gallon jugs—but I have to pay a pretty penny to get them, so it is better to remember to have Papa pick some up. The company used to deliver, but a new company bought them out and cancelled the delivery part. Now we have to drive to the JAX airport area to pick up our jugs. Typically Papa makes a monthly trip to get jugs for it really isn’t convenient for him to pick up two bags every week, but lately he has not had the time to spend an extra day (about 5 hours round trip) to go to JAX and fill the van with jugs. You cannot get anything done on the farm if you are constantly running the roads.

               Thursday was a busy day—we had to put away all the dishes from the last dinner, wash the tablecloths, finish cleaning up the Poultry kitchen, dust and vacuum the house before my Uncle and Aunt arrived for a visit on Friday. BUT first, I had to plant some green beans and some lettuce in hopes that they would be producing by the time our Spring Farm to Table Dinner rolls around in April. Mom wasn’t too crazy about the idea, but I begged her to give me until 12:30 to get it all done and then I would devote the rest of the day to helping her get everything cleaned up. So as soon as I was finished milking the cows I high tailed it to the first Market Garden tunnel. The last cabbage was ready to harvest, and the few purple broccoli plants in the rest of the row I decided to pull up because they were producing nothing—and I needed the space for green beans. I searched high and low for the fastest producing green beans and settled on one called Provider—it says it will be producing in 45 days. There are 56 days until the dinner, so I am hopeful. Before I could plant the beans though I had to pull up the broccoli plants, mix in some compost, broadfork the bed, tilth the bed and then plant—but before I could add any compost and mix up the dirt I had to fix the side of the tunnel. The tunnel is level, and the garden inside the tunnel is level, but the ground outside the tunnel slopes, and is quite low—so the dirt was falling out the sides. There were gaps in the dirt that would have allowed rabbits to enter if they wanted to. So I had to get some of our left over porch ceiling vinyl and attach it to the sides of the walls to hold the dirt in. Then I could safely add the compost and broadfork without it all falling to the outside of the tunnel. Once the beans were planted then I headed to the green house to plant the lettuce seeds. First I had to rinse out all my seed trays because I hadn’t rinsed them off after I had transplanted all the onions It was 12:35 when Mama called me in for lunch and I had just finished watering the seed tray after planting the lettuce seeds. I had accomplished my goal, and the rest of the day was spent cleaning.

               My Uncle Jerry (my Mama’s younger brother) and his wife Aunt Carol arrived around 10:00 Friday morning. I was just finishing milking my last two cows. It had been years since we last saw them, and Aunt Carol had never been to the farm. We walked all over the farm—through the Poultry kitchen, to the barn, through the gardens (The Market Gardens, the Cottage Gardens, Martha’s Vineyard, and the East and West Gardens). We saw the chickens, the dogs, the sheep, and the milk cows. Then we came in and had lunch. We talked and talked and talked and even went down to see the 1915 house. My uncle is a contractor. He and Mama are a lot alike—they are both creative and they both like to build. They left around 4:30 to head back south to visit his son. They live in Illinois and were down in Tampa visiting my cousin for the weekend and decided to drive up and visit us for the day. We had a wonderful time together. With no one besides Mama and I that can milk our cows it has been five years since we have been able to head north to visit any family. So it is always a blessing when they stop in to see us. I think that we are ready to bring in some interns—but there is a lot of planning to do in order to start that adventure.

Serving you with Gladness,

Tiare