Missing Willow Farm

Spring honey is overflowing in our hives.  I’ve got one of our chickens defrosted for dinner and soaking in an apple juice and citrus brine.   Spring spinach is ready for picking, the carrots, asparagus and garlic scapes are delicious, the peas are flowering, the soybeans are up and we’ve got tiny green tomatoes everywhere.  This cabbage is taking it’s time getting ready, but is so far unmolested by bugs and bunnies.  Feeding ourselves feels good.

Normally seen flying into the woods behind our greenhouse, this hawk decided to sun himself on our dock this morning.  They’re known to fish, but we haven’t seen it take anything out of the pond… yet.

Every single potato we planted last month is up, and we still have a mess of seed potatoes in the fridge.  These were planted in a furrow and now that they’re up nice and tall, we mounded soil up around the base of the plant stems.  So instead of growing in a ditch, they’re now growing in a hill.  This is supposed to encourage even more tubers to develop along the stems so we’re hoping for a bumper crop this year.  I guess I could toss those seed potatoes, we’ll surely have enough of these to save for next year.  We added some squash to the bed yesterday and left some room to plant pumpkins.  They mature in 110 days so it’s a little early to plant for Halloween.

Moving plants out of the greenhouse to our back deck has kept us busy this week.  Here are some baby Persian limes that should find their way into a margarita this summer.  I could use one right now.  We tried moving a pregnant sheep from one pasture to the other today and she got loose.  It took us 45 minutes of chasing her through the woods and up and down the driveway until we finally were able to catch her and put her where she needs to be.  I’m pretty sure Jenna was laughing her tail off at us!

Jenna lost her 6 month battle with bone cancer and we lost an integral member of our family and farm team.  It now takes both of us to keep the sheep and goats from eating from our cow’s bucket at feeding time, and some of our sheep missed their grain this morning because we didn’t run out and get them like she used to do for us.  We’re lazy.  We miss her.

A guest post from my husband Brian: We had never had a dog, so we didn’t really know what it would be like to have a border collie.  Because I’m allergic to dogs, we went out and bought a dog lot enclosure to put next to the house and got her a Canine Condo, a ridiculously expensive Cadillac of dog houses with a heated dog bed.  Of course, within 2 weeks we went out and bought a cheap kennel from Walmart and she moved into the house.  The outdoor kennel sat idle for 4 years.  She was a part of our family and we will miss her dearly.

Checking in on the chickadees the other day, all I saw was a mass of feathers in the nest.  I thought they were dead because they didn’t move no matter how close I got.  Yesterday, I went to check on them, got in close and they all flew out at once.  Almost scared me to death!  They flitted around the feed room and eventually made their way back to the nest.  Today they’re gone.  They grow up so fast!

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We brought home a chick to teach our turkeys how to eat.  That’s right, turkeys need someone to demonstrate how not to starve to death.  We got a white crested black polish chick, like our Marsha.  It already has the little top knot!

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We got our Thanksgiving turkey today.  We bought three bourbon red poults (plus a chick) with the hopes of ending up with at least one come November.  They can be difficult to raise.  My bottle baby Summer was very curious about the chirping box we brought into the barn.  For now, they’re in their own special room in the barn inside our brooder where they’ve got a heat lamp, vitamin fortified water and high protein game fowl starter food.   We’ve tried raising poultry outside of the pasture in the past, but had issues with nocturnal predators.  This way, they’ve got the guardian dogs for protection.  Milos and FiFi watch over everyone.