Missing Willow Farm

Jack has been helping us harvest potatoes.  Sort of.  This batch got a REALLY good scrubbing when we were done.  He’s fascinated with sweet potatoes.  He ran off with one last fall on harvest day and made it his toy.

I received this gorgeous blue strawberry planter for Mother’s Day a few years ago.  I tried immediately to plant strawberries in it with very poor results.  All but one of the plants died.  It’s become my herb garden and is very accessible to the kitchen.  We got one strawberry this spring from the one plant that survived. We split it.  🙂

With the deck do-over this year we decided not to bring the 70 or so potted tomato plants to the back deck that we normally do.  Those are down by the raised beds.  We did, however, bring the cucumbers up.  I wish I’d planted more of them, dang it.

Broccoli!  We just harvested our first little bit.  We didn’t grow a lot this year but what we’ve got looks really good.

We keep the pond in our front yard stocked with fish.  My parents came for a visit and my dad (isn’t he handsome?) caught a mess of croppie.  I made fish tacos for dinner.  Fried croppie, shredded red cabbage, chipotle sour cream and monterey jack cheese in a soft flour taco.  Yum!

Summer has arrived and things are starting to ripen.  Multiple varieties of cucumbers, tomatoes (yay!), potatoes and garlic are on the dinner menu.

While working with our sheep, one of them knocked me on my rear into a pile of poop.  Thankfully, I own more than one pair of overalls.  Summer is in her usual spot.

Summer comes running when she sees me enter the pasture, then proceeds to chew on my clothes and get in front of me wherever I am trying to walk while chatting her goatspeak to me nonstop.  Goats are sweet but can be annoying when they do their best to prevent you from getting from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’.

It’s garlic harvest time.  Now they need to be dried outside in a shady spot.  In about a month, they’ll be ready to bring inside for storage.  And roasting.

This is the last of them.  They are crispy and sweet.  I’ve used them raw in salads as well as in veggie stir fry.  I’m going to miss them.