Missing Willow Farm

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We stopped heating the greenhouse last night.  It’s been in the 20’s overnight and doesn’t pay to keep heating it for just a few things.  It has a propane heater and its own tank.  We picked the meyer lemons and brought the lemon tree inside to live with our other potted citrus for the winter.  We picked the hot peppers and have them air drying to end up in hot pepper flakes.  We brought the cucumber plant and the ghost pepper plant inside to see if we can continue to force them to yield.  We got a really late start on the ghost pepper when we received seeds in July so it’s just now flowering.  They are the world’s hottest pepper at a million scoville units.  A farmer has been selling them for $5 per pepper at a neighboring market.  I have one I am drying for pepper flakes and seeds and we’ve got the plant so there’s that.   It’s incredibly expensive to heat the greenhouse in the dead of winter.  It’s pretty huge, 16′ by 40′.  We tried the first year we had it and lost power around midnight that January in below zero degree weather.  By the time we woke up and realized we had no power therefore no heat, everything was frozen.  We lost all of our potted citrus, vegetables, hibiscus, herbs, saffron.  Since then we don’t even try.  The tropicals come inside and the cool season crops stay down there for an extended indoor season.  We also entertain in the greenhouse.  We’ve got our old dining room table set up there permanently.  We had guests over for dinner this weekend and had dessert in the greenhouse.  I call it destination dining on the farm.  With the heater going we had gingerbread, sour cherry pie and blackberry wine by candlelight with the moon glowing through the covering.  It’s hard to believe a commercial greenhouse setup can be magical, but it can.

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We’ve got our clay pots and tomato cages moved off of the back deck, although they haven’t been scrubbed clean yet… We’ve stockpiled some compost for next Spring and are getting ready to shut the greenhouse down for the winter.   The fleece by the door is actually what’s called skirting.  It’s the poopy part that gets removed after shearing because fiber artists don’t like to have to deal with it.  I collect it on shearing day and stockpile it for the garden.  I’ve used it as both mulch and to line the bottom of clay pots.  Think about it… it’s all natural and full of fertilizer and is compostable.  It makes our gardening containers lighter than if they are filled completely with soil and nurtures our plants at the same time.  I should bag and sell it at the farmers market!  Sheep Sheet.  Skirt Dirt.  Dung Fluff.   BM (Baa Manure)…  The possibilities are endless.

They’re ornamental Bradford Pears which means no fruit, but pretty Fall foliage.   They sit at the end of our 1/2 mile driveway which hopefully will be paved before we have any snow.  We’re on the list.  The last we heard was it’s supposed to be done by December 1st.  Or was that started by December 1st?  At any rate, December 1st is Wednesday so we’ll see.  Small town living can be a struggle some times to get work done.  Or to get someone to show up for an appointment.  Or to hope what work you do eventually get done is quality  Last year our driveway was so bad there were a few days we couldn’t get off the farm.  That’s why we traded our smaller pickup for a big 4WD one in January.  Here’s hoping for an easy winter!

It’s located in the greenhouse.  We decided to try some non-heated greenhouse gardening over the winter so my husband built a 3′ by 8′ by 1′  bed lined with weed barrier fabric and filled with topsoil and compost.  We relocated a few things from the garden, like beets that were being chewed on by bunnies and potato plants that came up after we plowed our potato bed under, then seeded the remaining space with cool season crops.  We’ve got spinach, broccoli raab, buttercrunch lettuce and carrots coming up.  We’ll see how this experiment turns out.   It hopefully will give us some fresh farm veggies in the dead of winter.   That’s the plan at least.  In the foreground are some resting mushroom logs and a potted horseradish plant.

She’s one of our oldest chickens.  We got her from the sherrif, who retired to raise poultry.  She’s a red sexlink.  Isn’t that a stupid name for a chicken breed?  Evidently it stands for awesome layer because she gives us a large brown egg every day of the year.  Our other chickens stopped laying about a month ago and will start back up late winter.  I talked to a few other farmers at the market last Friday who have layers (lots of them) and they have all taken a break.  Honey is very inquisitive and likes to eat treats from my hand.  She squats down for me to pet her when I go into the chicken yard.  She’s like a dog… who gives us omelets.

We raise two breeds of sheep; Kathadin and Texel.  That’s Kat Von Sheep on the left (we named her 2010 lamb Miss Kitty), she’s a Kathadin or hair sheep.  Beatrice, a Texel is on the right.  Both are meat breeds and we’re keeping these two as breeding stock.  Kat is getting a winter coat right now, she’ll shed it over the summer.  Kind of like a dog.  Lots of sheep farms like the Kathadins because you don’t have to worry about shearing in the Spring.   We take our Texels to a neighbor’s farm on shearing day.  Local fiber artists come to help out and we have lamb chili for lunch.  It’s a long, hard and fun day.

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Well… the kind of turkey day that ends up with yummy liver and kidney treats for our dogs.  We processed our tom this morning, it took a little over an hour and came in at 22 pounds.  Jenna snuck up behind us and stole a tail feather to chew on.   It was crunchy.  Since the dogs got our giblets, I’ll have to just make pan gravy on Thursday.

Since we moved to the boonies, I’ve had to learn to make my own pizza.  We used to pick up take-out pizza at least once a week and I miss the convenience.   A trip to the big city usually means I bring something home for dinner that evening.  Yesterday’s trip included a stop at Fresh Market.  They just happened to have caviar in the seafood department, they get it in for the holidays.  We love caviar and haven’t bought it in like 5 years.  The little container was calling my name…  When I got it home, I was surprised to learn that the guy behind the seafood counter doesn’t know the difference between caviar and salmon roe because he charged me just $9 and market it salmon roe.  Oh darn.  Here’s what we had for dinner last night.  Buttercrunch lettuce & spinach salads from the greenhouse with avocado, toast points with smoked salmon, creme fraiche, boiled egg, lobster (in the bowl on the right), Humbolt Fog goat cheese, capers and caviar.  We shared a toffee crunch cupcake (in the back) for dessert.  Who says farmers don’t enjoy fancy food?!