Missing Willow Farm

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Since we start our tomato and pepper seeds crazy early, we’ve been potting them up and storing them in the greenhouse until our last frost date.  It’s been so crazy warm lately, we really want to move them to the back deck for the season but have another 5 weeks until that’s safe.

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Our raised beds got weedy over the winter.  We had to hoe up the weeds, separate the plants and roots from the dirt then rake in some new soil.  We planted sugar snap, snow and shelling peas, two kinds of purple carrots, spinach and swiss chard.  The garlic we planted last October is looking fantastic.

Bottlefed as a lamb, Kat is always one of the first sheep to greet me when I come into the pasture.  She’s very chatty.   She doesn’t say baaa, she says maaa.  Often and loudly.   See how smooth she is?  She’s a hair sheep.  When the shearer comes in a week or two she’ll watch happily from the sidelines.

Jessica (our cow) and Milos (one of our karakachans) enjoy a springtime nap under a stand of trees.  He naps a lot during the day because he’s up at night keeping everyone safe.  His sister FiFi is a little wary of Jessica, I’m sure it’s because of her size.  Milos keeps her in line, he doesn’t let her bully anyone.  They obviously are comfortable around each other.

Lambs love to play by butting heads.  So do the kids.  The sheep kind of grow out of it but will still use their heads to protect themselves.  We still see our grown goats challenging each other on occasion for no apparent reason.  Maybe it’s just for fun… like when they were kids.

Gigantic green eggs are normal around here, but we found this weird tiny little brown one in with the others.   That’s a U.S. quarter for a size comparison.  I’m sure it’s just a tiny chicken egg but it made us wonder if a dove or a quail snuck into our barn and left us a present.

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Chicken dinner.  Those chickens we got last Fall ended up being mostly roosters.  We’ve been enjoying wobbly adolescent crowing noises until I discovered our tiny banty chicken Nugget cowering in one of the nests.  She had been almost pecked to death by one of the roos.  That meant it was time to bust out the scalder…  The last time we had roosters, we just kicked them out of the henhouse.  With the run of our entire farm, they managed to wander into the big pasture and got eaten off by our guardian dogs.  We decided we’d rather eat them ourselves.  Processing day is Jenna’s favorite day on the farm.  She gets to stare at birds all morning, and receives the occasional liver treat.  I love watching Jenna watch the birds.  Thankfully Nugget is healing, and we’re having fried chicken for dinner tonight.

Summer gets formula everywhere!  She’s very slobbery when she eats.  It’s probably why feeding time usually attracts the dogs, goats and cow.   Goat formula smells just like baby formula.  I wonder how much difference there is?

….when they sleep?

Beatrice finally had her lamb, a real cutie!  She was getting pretty rotund.  She had a little ewe, we named her Victoria.  Her offspring, like last year’s Eugenie, are being named after British royalty.  Beatrice’s mom came from another farm and was named 602.  I like our naming convention much better.  🙂