Missing Willow Farm

We swap our chicken’s waterer every morning.  The frozen one gets replaced by a liquid one, and the frozen one comes into our mud room in the house to give it a chance to melt.  The watery one’s arrival is much anticipated and heralded by a flurry of clucking and scratching.  Nugget needs a little step to reach the water.  She’s tiny.

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We had snow yesterday and need to scrape our driveway.  Last winter we didn’t have a means to do this and had to rely on our neighbors.  We purchased a used Kubota and a scraper blade last year and are self-sufficient now.  In order to get the tractor out of the barn then out of the pasture without running over a curious goat or allowing a guardian dog to run out, it’s just 3 easy steps:

1. Put a fresh bale of hay in the feeder.  It keeps the ruminants busy fighting over ‘fresh’ food.  Never mind there was perfectly good hay already in the feeder…

2. Call the guardians away from the pasture gate and feed them dog biscuits. They are absolute suckers for treats.

3. Open the gate and drive the tractor out as fast as you can.

Obviously, this is a two person job.  It’s one we’ve gotten very good at.

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Bindi has realized Jenna is her neighbor.  She visits often.  We try to remember to keep Jenna’s kennel door closed but when we forget Bindi runs in, sniffs her nose and runs out.   Jenna’s pretty ‘whatever’ about it all.  Bindi’s secretly making plans to break her out late some night so they can run amok and make long distance calls together.   We’re keeping an eye on our phone bill….

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Not!  We hosted a dinner last night featuring local lamb provided by a good friend.  There were ten diners, including our shepherd friend and his wife, a good friend and Food Network Challenge winner and her husband, some new friends who are originally from England and a lovely food writer and her daughter.  The shepherd provided everyone with the lamb cut of their choice on Wednesday, and we served tastings of each dish over a leisurely few hours last night, with wine pairings.  We had lamb sausage balls, chop lollipops, stuffed breast of lamb with scalloped potatoes and parsnips, spiedie kabobs with grilled vegetables, Mediterranean ragu over pasta with Missing Willow Farm goat cheese, homemade lamb sausage and rice salad, tangerine sorbet, curried leg of lamb, tenderloin of lamb with asparagus salad, coconut cake and a cheese course.  All I can say is WOW!  Each dish was a masterpiece showcasing an incredible product.   When we moved to the middle of nowhere, an hour from a movie theater or Home Depot, we never guessed we’d end up in such a culinary oasis.  For that, I’m thankful.  There are lots of leftovers (except for those lollipops), including the cake which is mine, all mine!

Thackary Binx is the first sphynx we ever got.  We got Binx from a cattery in Montana, we lived in Poughkeepsie, NY at the time.  The breeder asked me where I wanted him shipped.  Since the Newburgh airport was just about a 30 minute drive away, that’s the one I selected.  His flight was scheduled to arrive at 8PM, we were so excited to meet him!  We got to the airport early and waited patiently as the baggage was unloaded… no cat.  The breeder provided us flight info to Newburgh but shipped him to Newark.   That’s in another state!  What choice did we have but to drive there and pick him up?  We got home VERY late that night.  The first night he crawled into bed with us, settled in on my pillow and that’s the spot he claimed as his.  I tried showing him at cat shows but he hated it.  He just growled in his cage the entire show.  Binx went to Florida with our daughter Tracy when she graduated from college and got her own place.  He turned  17 years old yesterday.  This is a photo of him from this past Christmas.  He’s still spry and gives Tracy and her husband lots of joy and love.  Happy birthday, Binx!  May you have many, many more.

I’ve been going through my fabric stash lately, and found some fleece cat blankets I had started about 10 years ago.  I decided to finish them for Christmas for my grand kitties Binx and Sashimi, plus one for our new kitten Bindi.  My husband said she needs a cat bed, ya know.  We had given all of ours away a few years ago.  Since I’m kinda crafty, I was able to make one without a pattern.  Methinks she likes it.

We got a cat!  A lovely female sphynx kitten we named Bindi.  I used to raise and show sphynx like 100 years ago.  We sold everyone but our Gypsy when we moved to the farm and she succumbed to a heart problem two years ago.  I’ve been wanting another cat for a while now.  We brought her home yesterday.  My husband is allergic to cats but has no problem with this breed, which originated in Toronto in 1966.  Her skin texture feels like a warm peach or chamois. The skin is whatever color their fur would be.  Bindi is a calico.  Sphynx cats love to snuggle because they’re cold all the time, she’s an awesome snuggler!

Nope, it’s an otter.  Three to be exact.  How do I know when they look exactly like beavers when they are swimming?  Because beavers are nocturnal and otters swim openly in daylight, usually in groups.  Beavers are considered nuisance animals, Otters are protected in our state.  Beavers eat vegetation, they are particularly fond of willow 😦  Otters eat the fish in our pond.  I am like an encyclopedia of rhodents vs. weasels after a few years of beaver wars.  sigh.

Here are our farm goals for 2011.

1. Grow ghost peppers.  They are the hottest peppers on the planet.  We started way late last year with two seeds (!) and have a plant with a few blossoms that we’re babying in the dining room.  Need to make this happen in 2011.

2. Continue to improve our soil.  This will probably mean a huge expensive compost delivery this Spring, but will pay off in the long run with better yields.

3. More raised beds.  Both inside the greenhouse and out.  My husband gave me permission to add this one cuz he’s the builder in the family.

4. Grow a pumpkin.  Just one.  I’m not greedy.  I try and fail every year.  The conventional farmers that bring monster pumpkins to the farmers market use a very nasty bug spray.  I am thinking about getting a license to use it (far far away from our ‘organic’ garden) just to have the satisfaction of growing one myself.

5. Eat an apple from our trees.  We had two apples in our “orchard” last year.  The deer got one and the other one fell on the ground.  I made a pomander out of it.  No need to waste.

6. Pave the driveway.  We’ve been ‘on the list’ for months now.  Maybe we’ll make it to the top this year?

7. More sheep less goats.  I’ll never be able to sell my cheese so we only need enough milkers to keep ourselves in chevre.  Unless we want to get another oberhasli goat.  I’m just sayin…

8. Kitty.  This may happen sooner than later.  I miss having a cat around.

9. A new deck?  It’s gonna happen, the only question is when.  We have all kinds of fancy general ideas about what we want and will build it ourselves.  We just need to finalize our plans and to find the time to do it.

Happy new year!

 

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We enjoyed having our kids visit for the holidays. Last year, we met them in Las Vegas the day after Christmas.  This year, it was Christmas on the farm.  Tracy was the only one who felt well enough to go exploring.  She made sure to pet every single animal and was attacked by our goats – aka feeding time.   We’re already looking forward to their next visit!