Missing Willow Farm

Augusta is one of our original three ewes we purchased in 2008.   Her lambs are never far away from her.  It’s unusual to get this close to a sheep without a herding dog in the background of the photo.  She’s very curious and friendly and doesn’t mind having her head scratched.

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Squashes and melons have never done well for us… until this year.  We planted a few seeds in our potato patch and look what happened.  Our potatoes were disappointing this year at best but we’ve got big round things coming up everywhere.  I sure hope there’s a pumpkin in there somewhere!

Thistle’s got beautiful flowers and deadly thorns.  This one is about 4.5 feet tall.  We don’t have a lot of it, thankfully, and recently bought a sprayer to treat it.  Our goats actually ignored it until it started flowering, now it’s apparently a tasty treat.  It reminds me of the movie Braveheart.  🙂

Jessica’s been hanging out by herself in the trees on the far side of our pasture.  With the heat we’ve been having, she appears to be a very smart cow!  We’ve been meeting her over there every day and working on getting her to eat sweet feed from a bucket.  That’s been very successful.  She now comes running in the morning when she hears us because that means breakfast.

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Freeranging roosters means entertainment for Jenna.  She occasionally decides they need her attention and stalks them relentlessly.  It’s amusing and she’s easily called off.  She’s never attacked anything without our command ‘get it’ so I’m sure they are safe.  The occasional misbehaving sheep, however, is easily ‘gotten’.  She doesn’t bite hard at all, it’s like an ‘I’m totally the boss of you’ nip.  It’s a really good day for her when she gets to ‘get’ something!

Bindi was spayed last week and we were allowed to bring her home for some pampering soon after her surgery.  We tucked her into her kitty bed but she kept venturing out and about while still under the influence of her meds.  I don’t think she would have passed a sobriety test!

Misshapen and a little lumpy on one end, this is one of our new Americauna chicken’s first egg.  We purchased them as newborn chicks in February and figured they would start laying in July and they did.  Yes, it’s a little dirty.  We don’t wash them until the day we take them to market.  Washing fresh laid eggs removes a coating on the egg shell that seals its pores and helps keep bacteria from getting inside the shell and reduces moisture loss from the egg inside.   We found another first egg this morning, a green one.  Yay!