It's all in a day's work......

Milking at 4:00 am or say 4:30 am to get ready for a trip into town....

I have strangers who drive up wanting to get advice of under anything under the son, not just farming, it's okay, it's part of being human. Maybe I could just show them a bit of how much God loves them. When allowed/asked I pray with visitors or give a shoulder....It's my privilege...If that stop by takes 10 minutes or an hour, so be it....

When life watching the animals is so much better than watching any television show.
When the guineas circle the house 15 times at exactly 5 pm and then run like maniacs to the woods...What's that about??.... Are they saying hello or just telling me it's time to go milking!!! Farming has its funny moments. Its laughter at times like this. Its moments of extreme hardship like 10 days of frozen land and hand carrying hundreds of gallons of warm water so 400 animals do not perish. Sadness in seeing a beloved member of the farm family die in childbirth that the best of vets cannot save.... Extreme joys of rescuing baby bunnies in the throes of dying or visually dead by warming them up slowly and working for as long as an hour or more with them in front of a wood burning stove to save it.

Getting dressed in a hurry only to find out, once you've gone to town in an errand to find out that your shirt is not only inside out but backwards....Why I always keep an extra jacket in the car.....

Why a rubberband is my best fashion accessory..... If I haven't found the hair brush yet, it holds that wild woman hair look down....

Why the customer's need is always first. I just got ONE fresh duck egg for a customer, forgetting to change shoes, nearly sliding into the fragrant duck pen and laughing all the time.....

When someone calls and has a problem with an animal, I'll help them, it's okay, we don't charge for that...... When someone has a problem with incubating, I'll help them learn to calibrate a hygrometer and a thermometer so they can have better hatches, whether they are buying our eggs or someone else's. I'll never get rich but I'm here to help.

When I'm asked what vintage shop I buy my clothes.... I just answer, "Oh they're in my closet or You're too funny, I have shoes that are older than you!" I never say boots because we wear off our boots in about 1 year at about 10 miles a day.

Why love must be the operating principal in a full time farmer's life.... When a person comes by at a market and says...."Whewee you must be proud of your vegetables, $1.50 for fresh potatoes, I can get them for less." I bite my tongue not to say yes, but a bargain now is not a bargain for your health now or later. After I explained we farm for a living - our only way of living and farmed chemical free. I just smiled benevolently at him and didn't tell him his potatoes from that bargain store were sprayed so they wouldn't sprout, and 10 10 10'd to death... "I just said Oh you can taste the difference in our vegetables and he said he couldn't afford them. Then asked if we take charge cards. We don't and won't. He opens his new Leather wallet with hands that look manicured and looks through a stack of $20's and says he better not??? He left market, lit a cigarette and started up a new Mercedes and opened a can of Coca Cola.... I could have found him several ways to save money and get $3 worth of potatoes.... But I realize many think farmers should just price their food as if it were 20 years ago...That we come to market as a hobby..and should give away our work.Poor man will drive to his store, leave the airconditioning on for his dog he leaves in the car, get ready made stuff and shake his head and tell his friends about those expensive potatoes..... I never defend our prices .... Just smile and give them a look of compassion/pity.... I did offer that if he wanted to volunteer to work on our farm side by side that we pay our volunteers with farm knowledge and hands on experience and fresh veggies....He looked at me like I was insane... I gave him a card and told him to call me sometime.

But life is always different, minute by minute.... The general agenda can be set, but flexibility is key... If vegetables don't sell, they are frozen, prepared, shared, canned, but never waster.... Plans are made and real farmers will can in a 110 degree kitchen and just say, it's all in a day's work.

Well, baby goats are crying for their bottle, it's time to go outdoors and my rest writing is over. I'm so blessed by seeing the change in the seasons, the wonderful friends and fellow farmers, our supportive community, learning that I can do things far beyond my age or physical stamina through the help of many, but most of all by leaning on the Lord. He is my strength and salvation, my ever present source of comfort... My all in all........

Blessed by a husband who loves this City Girl who's gone full Country and would be content to be on the farm all her remaining days, but does have to venture to town occasionally and leave this wonderful place called The Garry Farm.........

Sleeping on a Bed of Nails

As a child I was fascinated when reading about different countries and customs. I checked out books about Albert Schweitzer, Archeology, and every foreign nation I could find. I wasn’t sure if I just wanted to see them all or convert or serve every nation, or just eat the food there. But I read and reread my fathers volumes of National Geographics. and there of many wonders I uncovered, I was fascinated to learn of people who put themselves in a trance and were able to sleep on a bed of nails. Well I never was brave enough to do that but often thought about those pictures and wondered how they stood that pain or if they felt it at all….Well, I lived in Atlanta at that time but with my heart in rural Alabama, I would share bits and pieces of my acquired knowledge of the world apart from the mountain…

Always a story weaver, I would show them the pictures (if I still had the library books, or I would smuggle a copy of my Father’s treasured National Geographics. I had a vivid imagination and thought about what kind of magic or spell could be cast that would cause a person to do such a scary thing…. When I showed the pictures to my country buddies, they would say, “That there guy, he just ain’t right”. Their mothers said, “Poor thing, he’s tetched in his head”. Since every one wasn’t as worldly as I, some even said, well he’s surely sick, look at his poor head and of course they were referring to his turban.

Well, I told my passel of country cousins and friends I wanted to make a bed of nails, they just shook their heads and just left me alone. They made allowances for my city breeding…. So I decided to recreate the happening. I looked around in my Granny’s barn and saw nothing that looked like a bed of nails…No such luck, but I did find a broken board and a hammer with a broken handle and a little snuff tin full of old nails that had been saved along the way. I learned quickly although I was very little, that as I hammered my fingers and a few nails into the old board and then found I had not planned well, as I hammed them into the top of an box, that I would never have a bed of nails. I would never know if I could fall asleep on a nail of beds this day in my life!

Back then there were not warnings in magazines or on tv or in books to “NOT try this without adult supervision” or other warnings….Yes, in the country there was never a lack of things to do. There were acorns that waiting to be turned into a tea set. There were places to explore that never got digital photographs or photographs of any kind…..berries to pick, jam and jelly to test for Granny, tin roofs to slide off, cookies to make from scraps of Granny's pie crusts, creeks to jump….. watching spiders write their names on their webs…. No phones carried on me texted or phoned interrupted me. No computer lured me to some urgent e mail, report or other such temporary thing. Discovery of arrowheads waited…Each day was new to me and a time of joy and exploration. Here’s praying every one has time off from their technology…time to plan, read, do, dream, hear, learn, renew, rest, vegetate, time to be….We need that more than ever in our over wired society.….There’s a whole world out there for us all…. Thank you Lord that I was not a child of technology.