Missing Willow Farm

We keep a moon jar out by our Cowboy Cauldron as an outdoor night light.  It’s simply made from a frosted plastic container and the LED from a garden landscape light.  It collects sun rays all day then emits a soft glow all night.  I happened to look down when taking our dog Jack out right before bedtime last night and noticed something worshiping the moon in the jar.  Hello toad!

We picked up two packages of bees today about a 90 minute drive from here.  They rode home in the back seat of our car.  All 24,000 of them.  Packaged bees come with a can of sugar water with three little holes punched in the bottom for the bees to eat en route and a queen cage that has the queen plus a few worker bees who attend to her.  The queen cage has a plug of ‘candy’ at one end, contained by a cork plug.  We remove the cork plug and place the queen cage in the hive.  It takes the bees between 1 and 2 days to eat away the candy to release the queen into the hive.   Once the queen’s cage is hung in the hive, we dump in the packaged bees.  The feeder gets place on top with a pollen patty on one side and about a half gallon of homemade sugar syrup on the other before enclosing the entire thing.  Fingers crossed, we’ll get gallons and gallons of honey this summer!

A few of our 2015 lambs, waiting for their mamas to finish breakfast in the feeding pen.

We have our potato patch planted, and I expect to spend this afternoon in the greenhouse.  We have a nice long stretch of warm weather on the way here.  Gotta get busy!

We’ve had bees on order since December and need new hive frames on hand for when we pick them up next week.  I purchased these from a local guy who deals in bee supplies.  We really need to get busy with nails and wood glue!

Brian introducing one of our kids to Lizzie, who will be moved into the big pasture again once we’re done lambing and kidding.  She’s very excited about that!

Bella had twin does on St. Patrick’s Day.  I’ve named them Shannon and Molly.  They have a tendency to nap a lot.  I’ve seen them fall asleep out in the pasture while mom is grazing then she loses track of their whereabouts and gets frantic.  She’s come running to me a few times to get help finding them.  She’s a good mom.

Mallards enjoying a respite on our pond.  Since it’s a male/female pair, I’d love them to stick around and raise ducklings!  The frogs have awoken and started singing constantly down by the pond.  It won’t belong before our entire property is covered in teeny tiny frogs.

Our pink-eared lamb getting to know a pasture-mate.  He’s got wool and will need to be shorn one day, the other one doesn’t and won’t.  The lambs hang together in a feisty little gang all day long.  I imagine they sleep with their mamas but am not entirely sure.  I hope they sneak off together and play practical jokes on the goats at night.  🙂

I made bourbon vanilla bean marshmallows and chocolate chip cookies for a s’mores dessert last weekend.  It won’t be the last time, I assure you!  They were toasted over our cauldron and assembled in the back yard.  Yum!