Missing Willow Farm

We’ve eaten every single meal out on our new deck since it’s completion.  I know hot weather is coming, but we have two outdoor ceiling fans on hand for just that issue.  Brian plans a lot of improvements to the deck.  He’ll wire it for electricity, install the fans and the two lighting fixtures we have on order.  He’ll put a handrail around the jacuzzi and has plans to build two planters and an L shaped bench.  The deck is low enough to the ground not to require handrails, the planters and bench will serve as a barrier to keep folks from accidentally stepping off.

Our hens meet me at the barn door every morning at chore time looking for at treat.  They particularly love leftover bread and I’ve trained them to jump for it.  When five or so chickens fly at me for a treat I realize someone in my place with a bird phobia would probably drop dead of a heart attack.

Our latest harvest included  carrots and our first cucumbers from the greenhouse and garlic scapes from a raised bed.  I’m planning a szechuan cucumber salad, red curry roasted carrots and grilled scapes.

We moved all of our potted tomatoes out of the greenhouse into the garden.  We have some large, gorgeous fruit that I’m hoping will ripen by next week’s market.  I’ve been first to market with tomatoes every year, I’m hoping to continue that trend.

We’ve been away for a few days helping our daughter Tracy and her husband Brad with their new baby (and our first grandchild), Dominic.   We think he’s pretty cute!

This is pretty much everyone except for Summer.  She’s chewing my pants leg, as always.  We’re planning to sell a few of the kids once they’re weaned.  We need to keep the ruminant population density in check to make sure there is adequate pasture available for everyone.

Our citrus is going gangbusters.  The flowers smell heavenly.  I grew up in Florida so the scent of citrus groves is a nice memory.  It’s nice to have that here at home.

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The deck is ready to rock!  We still have to clear construction debris and the porta potty in our driveway needs to go away.  Because of rain we’ve parked everything under the covered section but it kind of looks like the garden department of a Home Depot in there so I’m looking forward to spreading stuff out when the weather breaks.

Really cold nights are over with here.  We need to move everything in pots out of the greenhouse.  That’s tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.  I harvested our first cucumber this morning and the remainder of the indoor beets.   We have all of our seeds planted in the garden except for pumpkins (too soon) and beans (too lazy).  There’s lots going on right now!

We have two beds planted with two different varieties of soybeans.  I love to blanch them and put them in a lemon garlic dijon dill pasta salad.  They’re pretty good salted in the shell, too.