Missing Willow Farm

Lizzie’s got her own pasture for a bit.  We moved her over to our chicken pasture away from our lambs.  Since she’s still a puppy, she plays too rough with the little ones.   It’s just across the driveway from our big pasture so she’s still a presence should any predators come calling.  I don’t think we’ll lose any chickens this winter to raccoons!

We have an early start on lambing this year.   It’s usually a goat who goes first (and we have a couple of goats who look like they’re about to explode!)  This little ram is a cutie.  I’ll try to get a close-up photo in a day or two if mama will let me.

Giving vaccinations and hoof trimming is hard work!  We came up with a genius plan to herd everyone into the tractor bay of our big barn and move them one by one into the adjacent feed room for health checks.  From there, they were passed through into the large section of the barn.  Normally we do this in their feeding pen and have to  mark each one when done to make sure we don’t double up on anything.  It was warm, well lit and cozy in the feed room, with shelves to keep our gear on.   A good solution.

A very curious Hermione is checking out my camera.  She’ll have a kid and be in milk soon (yay cheese!).  She’s my best milker by far and stands quietly on the milking stand.  And she’s cute.

Sour cherry and apple this year.  I also made lemon bars from scratch.  The turkey is brining and the stuffing is prepped.  There almost won’t be anything to do tomorrow.  Almost.

I always do them the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  I have a schedule to keep, ya know.  When I got out some of my vinegars this morning, I realized I have a collection, or is that an obsession?  Pairing each one with the appropriate vegetable is fun.  Splash it on along with olive oil, a sprinkle of kosher salt then pop it in the oven for a half hour or so.  Yum!

We’ve been moving the sheep to our  property next door every morning.  It has a few acres for them to graze on.  The grass is still pretty high over there, so this keeps us from having to put hay out too early.  I drive the mule out around 4PM every afternoon to check our mail (our box is probably 3/4 mile from the house) and that’s their signal it’s time to come home.  By the time we get up to the gate, they’re waiting patiently.  Jack seems annoyed that he’s not needed to go fetch them so we work him a little bit afterwards.

Peppermint bark, anyone?  This stuff is crazy good.

I finally got around to making our crushed pepper blend, using Joe’s Round, Joe’s Long, Red Carribean Habaneros and Ghost Peppers that we grew ourselves and dried in our food dehydrator.  It’s crazy spicy and you don’t want to be anywhere inside our house on pepper flake day(!)  A few years back I gave some to one of the chefs who is a customer of ours.  Her husband is also a chef and decided to crust a steak with those flakes he found in the pantry while she was away on business.  He called and asked her if she was trying to kill him.  Ha!

This dried fruit and citrus zest mixture was stewed with spiced rum then went into a homemade fruitcake recipe I found on foodnetwork.com.  I’ve been spritzing the cake with brandy every few days.   It smells divine!