581

Hi Everyone,

               Celebrations—there are causes for them all the time, and most of them are repeated every year. Last Monday was one of those days. Nationally it was Memorial Day—a time to remember those who lost their lives protecting the freedom’s we enjoy in America. Personally it was my Mother’s 70th Birthday. I have to admit though that we didn’t get the chance to do much celebrating. The day started at 5:00 in the morning, because we had to get the milking done before the construction crew arrived. When the milking was all done I did manage to take some time to pick a whole quart of fresh, ruby red, juicy and fully ripe strawberries from our GreenStalk towers in our greenhouse. I cut them up to go in our oatmeal for breakfast. A strawberry that has never been refrigerated is my favorite—once a piece of fruit gets chilled I do not enjoy it (except for apples). My favorite strawberries to eat are those that are very ripe and very red—and warmed from the heat of the sun.

After breakfast Mama jumped on the lawn mower and spent her day shrinking the height of the grass. I headed to “Martha’s Vineyard” to pull up the silage tarps that I had put down in the middle of the garden bed last winter. I used to grow pumpkins on the side of the barn—but Mama decided that she wanted to put a lean-to there in order to store the farm equipment out of the rain (but that was two years ago and we still do not have the lean-to built—but the farm equipment is there). I was not able to grow pumpkins last year because I couldn’t find a good place to grow them where the vines could grow to their hearts content. Two years ago I grew them in “Martha’s Vineyard” (a garden plot where Mama plans to grow grapevines that is designed after one of Martha Washington’s gardens at Mount Vernon)—but last year we grew onions, carrots and squash, roselle, okra, zinnias, and marigolds in the middle. The nutgrass in “Martha’s Vineyard” is impossible to conquer so I decided to grow the pumpkins there—but I hoped to get a head start by covering the middle section with cardboard, then layering year old chestnut leaves and composted cow manure on top. Then I covered everything with two large black silage tarps. I painstakingly covered the edges all the way around with dirt—I dug a trench all the way around and dumped the dirt on the edge of the tarps. I remember how exhausting it was. When it came time to plant the pumpkins we pulled the two tarps apart from each other in the middle leaving a big enough circle to plant the pumpkin seeds. As the pumpkin plants grew I pulled the tarps back a little more—but now that the summer rains and the heat have arrived the pumpkins are heading north, south, east and west at a very alarming speed. They were growing right over the top of the silage tarps—so I needed to get them out. My guess is that the silage tarps are about 20 x 30 feet heavy duty plastic. It had rained the night before—so there were some water puddles collecting on the tarps, and the edges were buried in dirt about a foot in. May I say that they were heavy—and I was only a one woman team? I heave-hoed and heave-hoed inch by inch pulling the tarp out from under the dirt—and to my utter disgust the nutgrass had grown right through the plastic in some places leaving nice big holes. I wonder if you held a light behind the tarp in the night if you could recognize any constellations. I got the first tarp unearthed and empty of its water and drug out of the garden—but all the vehicles were in use so I drug it all the way across the back fields to the Market Gardens where we are tarping the grass and weeds so that we have a clean slate when we are ready to build the next two garden tunnels. By the time I got there my body thought that I was most stupid—and I had to agree.  I do not know exactly how heavy they are—but around 25 pounds I would guess. Picking up 25 pounds is one thing, but dragging it is another! I managed to walk back to the garden to get the second tarp pulled up, but my energy was waning fast and the heat was intensifying. To my delight I saw Steve head by with the Gravely—so as soon as I got the tarp out of the garden (which was no easy feat), I walked up to the house and got the Gravely so that I could let the Gravely carry the silage tarp for me.

When I had accomplished my goal I headed inside to cool off and put together the bread order. Then I headed to the barn to trim the onions. I had to trim off the roots and the dried tops, and brush off any loose or dirty skins. I got a whole laundry basket of the Unzen flats (a salad onion). In the afternoon Papa and I headed out to pick up our Azure order while Mama held down the fort (farm). The construction crew was framing out for the concrete sidewalks that go all the way around our new building. All our buildings have names: the Sheep Barn, the Poultry Barn (where we raise new layers until they start laying), the Poultry Kitchen (where we process chickens), the Hay Barn, the Heifer Barn, the Garden Shed, the Brooder House, the Milk House, the Milking Parlor and the Feed Room. The new building will house three of those: the Milk House, the Feed Room and the Brooder House; plus it will have the Storage Room and a Full Bathroom. I am not sure what we shall call the barn as a whole—but I can still see us calling all the rooms by the names of the buildings they replaced.

All the workers were gone when Papa and I returned with our Azure order, and while I took care of a customer, my parents put away the groceries. Then we sat down and relaxed for a few hours. I had hoped to bake Mama a cake for her birthday—or at least a cobbler, but time got away from me. We did manage to have a really nice dinner. When dinner was over Mama asked me to get her the container of cream. She loves to eat a spoonful of the cream with honey on top—like a healthy lollipop. While I was getting her the cream Papa asked if we had any strawberries left—of which we did. So we had dessert after all, and a fine one at that. We had fresh strawberries and cream topped with honey. It was a good day.

Tuesday the van had to go to the glass shop to get a new front windshield. Since Mama would be late getting to milk, I decided to bottle the kefir so that we could milk together. It was nice to be free after milking, instead of having to bottle the kefir. So when I was done milking I went to the barn to finish trimming onions—I had the yellow storage onions to trim. Then I had yogurt to make, an egg packaging party to attend, and squash to harvest. Then there was dinner and all the orders to put together and make receipts for.

We were up at 5:00 again on Wednesday, but we didn’t go straight to milking. The concrete sidewalks were to be poured at 9:00, and we had to be done in the walk-in cooler before then. That meant that we had to have the Macclenny and JAX-Westside orders packed in the ice chests and iced down, all the Beach orders transported to the Poultry Kitchen fridge, and all the meat packaged and placed in the freezers in the Poultry Kitchen all before we could eat breakfast and milk. I also had to pack all the squash orders. It was 7:00 by the time we finished packing and then we headed inside for breakfast. That meant that we had to milk with all the commotion. The cows did well for the most part—except my first two (America and Liberty). I was in the middle of milking them when the first concrete truck started up and began to pour out the concrete. The truck made a big noise and both my cows jumped—and it wasn’t long before I was brown speckled.

Monday’s and Thursday’s are supposed to be my gardening days—but somehow other things seem to take precedence at times. Last Thursday was one of those times. We had a surplus of milk—which meant that we had to cream. When the creaming was all done I would have loved to go to the garden—but alas the grocery store, bank and the local garden center were necessary places that we needed to visit. When you only go grocery shopping every six weeks or more I guess I cannot complain too much when necessity calls.

I was able to make up for my lack of garden time, by getting to spend some time in the garden Friday afternoon. While I try to grow most of my plants by seeds, sometimes I have to resort to buying plants to catch up on lost time. I wanted a row of marigolds—but I never got around to planting any seeds. So when we were in town on Thursday I checked out the discount section in Lowe’s Garden Center and found some discounted marigolds. In the greenhouse I had some pathetic looking pepperoncini pepper plants that have desperately needed to be transplanted to the garden for the last so many months—but I had no place to plant them. A week ago I pulled up the multiplying onions so that the bulbs could be cured in order to replant them in August/September. That gave me space for the pepper plants—and my marigold plants. I did a little weeding around the garden rows, and then I added some compost and wood ash before I got around to planting. I also took some time to pull up the ranunculus plants. The tops were dead and the roots (bulbs/rhizomes) rot when they get too much water. So I pulled them up in hopes to be able to replant them next fall. It is my first time growing them, so I really do not know what I should or should not do—so every stage is an experiment. I can say that they were well worth growing, and if I lose the bulbs they will be well worth buying fresh ones.

When I was a teenager my Mama would ask me if I wanted to clean house or mow the lawn. I hated to sweat, and much preferred dusting, cleaning bathrooms, ironing, and vacuuming. Today is a different story—I much prefer to be outside milking the cows and playing in the gardens. I spend most of my time outside, and I come in to cook dinner. This does present a problem though. I have a hard time finding time to preserve the harvest, practice my piano, and sew new clothes when the old ones rot (or just because). I have a harder time figuring out when to iron, dust, vacuum and clean bathrooms. I try to think up a schedule that would allow time for everything—for I heard that if you do not set aside a certain time to do those things that you do not enjoy, you will never find the time to do them, cause you will never feel like it. The reality is that no two weeks are the same. Sometimes though I just have to just ignore what I would rather be doing and buckle down and clean—and that is just what I did Saturday. When my rooms were vacuumed and dusted and my bathroom was clean, and I had freshly cleaned sheets on my bed—I did take some time to enjoy life. It has been two years since we have had homemade ice cream, and since we creamed the other day I decided that it was time to have Papa make us some ice cream. When Papa got back from the Gainesville deliveries I mixed up all the ingredients for a batch of vanilla ice cream and Papa sat on the porch and babysat the ice cream maker. While the ice cream was being made I made a batch of fudgy brownies. Dinner was great that night—but dessert was delicious!

Saturday morning when the cows came into be milked Rosa came with them—but she was in labor! Papa, Mama and I all stood around watching. Mama and I did have to help a little, because Rosa was giving birth to a BIG bull calf. Once his head was out it was smooth sailing from there. While we milked we could keep tabs on him. Rosa’s teats are as big as a baby bottle and we wanted to make sure that he was able to nurse—and he did. Mama took a little video of the bull calf and our four other heifer calves that were born last month. You can watch it here.

Serving you with Gladness,

Tiare