Missing Willow Farm

Every morning, Brian does the big pasture chores (feeding goats, sheep and guardian dog) while I do the little pasture chores (milking and feeding the chickens).   As soon as FiFi has finished her breakfast, she comes to the gate looking for a dog biscuit from me.  We buy them by the case.  I never disappoint.

I was surprised to find this beautiful foxglove growing out beside the pile of chicken poop that I clean out from the little barn every morning.   These biennials are not native so it was deposited here by some unknown means.

This lamb has received some medication for intestinal parasites.  We want to check her again in a few days to make sure she’s improved.  We used an animal marking crayon so we’ll know which one to check.  It stays on quite a while but isn’t permanent.   We’ve got them in a few colors in case we need to mark for something different.  We didn’t even know these things existed a few years ago…

Nope.  It’s just into the feeding pen for a health check.  Brian looks like the Pied Piper of sheep.

The garden is beautiful, despite the bunny problem with our soybeans.  We harvested all of our peas yesterday and I stopped shelling after an hour.  The sugar snaps are coming inside tomorrow.  We found two tiny ripe yellow cherry tomatoes today.  Yippee!

Friday was National Donut Day and my market space partner Lora brought homemade cake donuts.  A photo was posted on the market’s facebook page and they (of course) sold like crazy!  We need to harvest honey as soon as the weather cooperates and will have it at the market along with our lamb, eggs, goat milk soap and pottery.

This cucumber is a new variety for us this year, it’s called Early Fortune.  Very tasty.  We also have about enough pickling cucumbers for a quart of dill pickles.  I  was hoping not to have to make them a jar at a time this year so planted a lot of them.  Not enough, evidently.

We found this little beauty at World Market.  It had a small boo boo on it and was the last one so we got a super deal on it.  We brought it home with the intention of converting it into a bar for our new deck.

We added the bottle opener to the front right.  We’ve had that thing in a drawer for years, waiting to find something appropriate to attach it to.  The towel bar added to the front was on clearance.

The hooks are holding an ice scoop, wine opener and wine charms.  It’s perfect!

We have a few flowers on a few potato plants in the garden and decided to dig and see what’s underneath.  As a result, we’ve got pot roast with carrots and purple potatoes on the menu.  With a side salad and asparagus.  I love it when the garden tells me what’s for dinner.

And my friend Lora brought one over this weekend.  That she made (!)  Lucky me!  🙂