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Hi Everyone,
Some weeks start out better than they end . . . and last week was one of those. It is spring and there is so much to do in the garden. I have beds to weed, spent plants to pull up, beds to cover with compost and then broadforked—and seeds to plant. Two weeks ago I planted roselle, pepperoncini, basil, tomato, and lettuce seeds. To my delight the majority of those seeds are sprouting (except of the basil). Last weekend I received two more packs of seeds in the mail—Bell peppers and Cayenne peppers, so on Monday I took a bottom tray and filled it with soil and sprinkled the seeds all over. Then I covered them lightly with soil and misted them until they were good and wet. Before lunch I pulled up all the mustard plants that were heavy laden with some kind of white fuzzy bug infestation. Someone had told me that the Henpecked Mustard greens were more bug proof than the Florida Broadleaf, so I decided to give them a try. I didn’t like their looks, their texture, or the bugs they attracted. When I saw that the underneath side of the leaves was solid white with bugs I pulled them up and fed them to the chickens—and they thought they were pretty tasty. I have no idea for I never could pull myself to try them. Then I pulled up all the thistle and fireweed plants around the garden tunnels and weeded in front of the doors. Before lunch Mama was mowing the back yard, and the Steve cleaned up the grass after lunch. Papa spent his day raking up the “wasted” hay from the sheep’s hay rack. After lunch Mama and I went out to the West Garden and weeded one of the beds that were growing nothing but chickweed, Carolina geranium, Henbit, and rattlesnake weed (Florida Betony). I need to get the beds ready for squash, tomatoes, pumpkins, okra, sunflowers, cosmos and zinnias.
Zinnias are one of our favorite summer flowers. Last year Mama took me to a Flower Farm that had about 10 acres of U-pick zinnias. We drive past it every Sunday on our way to church, and I have been keeping an eye on their field so that I know when to plant them. They open Mother’s Day weekend, so I figured that if I followed them I too could have zinnias for Mother’s Day. Well, last Tuesday it dawned on me that they were probably not going to plant seeds in the ground—they were going to transplant baby zinnia plants in the ground. I had a feeling that in a greenhouse somewhere they just had to have 1000’s of zinnia plugs growing. So I figured that I had best get my act together and grab all my zinnia flower seed packs and head to the greenhouse. First though I needed to build me a three-sided wooden box so that I could fill my seed trays up with dirt without getting it all over the floor. My small seed trays fit inside my soil tote, but my 72 cell seed trays do not. My new seed trays are very sturdy, but the cells are open at the bottom, so it is kind of hard to fill them in the air. So I found me a piece of plywood and had Mama cut it to size (I gave her the option of teaching me how to use the battery circular saw, or cutting it herself—she opted to cut the board herself, so that I would be sure to keep all ten fingers). Then I found three scrap pieces of wood that just happened to be the right size and screwed them together and then I screwed them to the board—making it a flat box with three sides. Then I headed to the greenhouse and put it to the test. To my delight, it worked perfectly. I filled up two 72-cell trays and filled all but 18 cells with zinnia seeds. The other 18 I filled with Tithonias (Mexican Sunflowers). When I checked on them tonight I was happy to find a bunch of the seeds had sprouted and there were little green leaves popping up out of the dirt everywhere. Papa told me that when he drove past the Flower farm today he saw that they had pulled up all the strawberries and had transplanted them with little zinnia plants. So I was right, and I do not believe that my zinnias will be blooming by Mother’s Day. O well, Lord willing I will still get to enjoy many weeks of zinnias.
When Thursday rolled around it was thick with fog until about 11:00, and then the sun evaporated the fog—and the next thing we knew some big black clouds rolled in and covered the sun. Since it was going to be a rainy day I decided to spend my day in the kitchen. I had lip balm to make, and Soothing Salve to finish making. Then I decided to take full advantage of the kitchen time by finally getting around to grinding last summer’s cayenne pepper harvest. I grabbed a wet towel and wrapped it around my face and proceeded to grind the peppers in our Vita-mix. My nose began to tickle and I began to choke up, so I knew that the towel was not enough to keep the cayenne “dust” out of my sinuses. So I grabbed a homemade cloth mask and put it over the towel—but that didn’t work either. To make matters worse my eyelids were starting to burn. So I went back to the drawing board. I ditched the wet towel to the laundry, and put the mask on and a pair of goggles. Then I wrapped a dry towel around my face and went back to work. I was in business now. I had two gallons of dried cayenne peppers, and when I was done grinding them I had one quart of powder. I better grow more plants this year in order to meet the demand.
As I worked in the kitchen a pain began to grow in my chest—a pain that I well-remembered from 20 years ago. Then I had been sick and ended up with asthma afterward and a terrible cough. That cough ended up pulling a muscle or bruising a rib. The pain was mild at first, but after I substituted five hours for a local piano teacher I found it next to impossible to pull myself up into our van and drive myself home. That night when I lay down in bed I came up screaming in pain—it felt like a broken rib, though it wasn’t. It took months to heal, because I still had the cough and was constantly pulling on that rib. I am not sure just what I did this time, but the pain is about the same. It is hard to get comfortable in bed, hard to sit, hard to do much. The hardest thing I have to do—is milk the cows. Bending over and getting under the cow to wash her udder and hook up the milking claws is quite painful.
Friday we had a Spring Farm Tour, and we had around 45 people plus a few extra children under the age of three. Papa and I took half the group around the farm on the hay wagon while Mama gave the other half a tour of the milking parlor, milk house, poultry kitchen and the brooder house. Then we swapped groups. One of the cutest questions on the hayride was from a young boy who asked me, “what is the strangest name we ever named one of our cows”—and I had to tell him “Next”. According to Papa we might just name a cow “Whosiewho” one day. Some stayed for a picnic lunch and some just stayed around to visit. It was a lovely day with the sun shining most brightly—my face took on the suns glow more than it should have. I always get caught by the first hot sunny day. I wear a hat all summer, but in the winter the sun isn’t hot enough to sunburn you, but when spring arrives that all changes.
By the time I finished milking the cows Saturday morning I not only had an aching rib, I also had an aching shoulder. I felt like I had a broken rib and a torn shoulder. It is amazing how compensating for one pain creates another. I was glad when the milking was done, and was very grateful that Steve was able to bottle the kefir for me. I still had to help Mama pack the order and then I had to harvest some veggies for the orders. Once Papa was on his way to Gainesville—I took it easy. I did try to make some kombucha for I have a batch ready to bottle and I need to get the next batch going so that it is ready for the Spring Farm to Table dinner (it is the base for the mocktail). I got the tea bags made (with Mamas help) and the water boiled. Then I realized that I had no water to finish making the kombucha—will have to get some tomorrow. Around 4:30 a customer showed up and Mama went out to take care of them. I worked on some things at the computer. When Papa came home he headed out to do his evening chores. When Mama came back in she said that she didn’t feel good, and came and sat down in the big chair beside me and passed out. I was extremely grateful that she had made it to the chair, for Papa and I have had to pick her up off the floor before. Mama has these spells when allergies overload her system. She doesn’t exactly pass out, but she does lose all muscle control. She can hear and feel everything, but she cannot move—except for her eye balls to answer yes and no questions which comes in grand handy to make sure she is comfortable. I must admit I had a good laugh when Mama went out this time—because neither of us was in any shape for accomplishing much in life at the moment—and yet, there is so much to do. Mama was out for a good thirty minutes to an hour. She normally bounces back pretty quickly after her spells (for they leave her legs pretty weak a few hours or a day). This time though, Mama is still pretty weak 24 hours later. Yes, our week didn’t end on the best of terms, but we did make it to the end of the week, and we have started a new week. Lord willing tomorrow will be a new day, and how grateful I am that He has promised, “As thy days, so shall thy strength be.” Today we rested, tomorrow there will be cows to milk—and from there, we shall see just what the Lord has for us.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare