Missing Willow Farm

Hermione waiting at the gate for her daily ration of grain and alfalfa.  And milking.  Her feed trough ran out during milking one morning last week.  She kicked in protest and I ended up wearing almost a full bucket of milk, dang it.  Those overalls needed washing anyways.

What’s that up in our back deck rafters?  A dove has nested there and is sitting on eggs at the moment.  Despite the large amount of time we spend out there this time of year, she doesn’t seem to mind us at all.  The feeling is mutual.

The garden improvements are done for the season.  The weed barrier is down on the paths and the 7 foot deer fence is installed.  I really like how it’s not obnoxious looking.  Now if the garden would only weed itself…  We’ve harvested our first cucumber, a handful of new potatoes and the peas are almost ready to pick.

We spend so much time and effort with the things on the farm that feed us, there is precious little effort spent on decorative things.  The flower beds around our house are a jungle of herbs, perennials and a really good variety of weeds.  I planted a few petunias, herb plants and flower seeds in pots this year and am finding them lovely to have around.

We got a late start with planting peas this year, but our plants look super healthy.  We’ll have peas before we know it.

Tis the season for scapes, the flower stalks of the garlic plant.  If they’re left on the plant, they will divert it’s energy away from forming a nice plump bulb.  We’ve been enjoying them grilled whole and chopped in veggie stir fry.

We only took a handful of sheep to shearing day this year.  Augusta is very happy to be without her winter coat.  The majority of our flock are kathadin or texel/kathadin mix and those shed their coats every Spring.  The second photo shows you an example of that.

We had THE BEST meal last night at The Landing Restaurant at Smith Mountain Lake, VA.  Here are a few of the appetizers that our party tried.  The ceviche was served with sweet potato tots and Peruvian corn nuts and was served in the most fun presentation I’ve ever seen.  The next photo is roasted sunchokes and shiitakes with watermelon radishes on a citrus creme fraiche.  Homemade potato chips with queso fresco and spicy pepper sauces.  A Peruvian chicken dip with fried tortilla strips.  We also sampled rock shrimp done both pad thai and wasabi style and had the best corn chower I’ve ever tasted.  Cocktails for our party included an amazing margarita, a spiced rum mai tai that I think I’m going to dream about, a cucumber martini and a raspberry and citrus vodka lemonade that I’m going to try to replicate this afternoon.  Later on, dinner for our table included crab cakes, house made pasta and meatballs and the best Chilean sea bass that I’ve ever tasted.  We spent the night at a condo on the lake and woke up to the most beautiful morning.  It was a meal to remember and I can’t recommend the restaurant enough for anyone who’s ever heading this way.   http://thelandingsml.com/

After a few days of working on this, Brian finished laying greenhouse flooring between our outdoor raised beds.  It’s secured with six inch metal ‘staples’ inserted into the ground about every four feet.  Our ground here is so rocky, it took him sometimes 10 attempts to find a spot with no rocks to install each one.  This will go a long way to keep weeds from our beds.  It unfortunately does nothing about the weeds that are already in there.

Our garden beds are fully planted, both outside of the greenhouse and in.  We are growing a little bit of everything this year.  As soon as the garlic gets harvested next month, pumpkin seeds will get planted in those two beds.  Brian has been laying greenhouse flooring between the beds in order to keep the weeds down.  We, of course, ran out of flooring so have more on order.  Once that’s done, up goes a proper deer fence for the first time ever.