Missing Willow Farm

The goat, not the season, which ends today.  She’s going to stick around, thank you.  Summer is adorable and wants to make sure you know it.

We started these broccoli plants from seed weeks and weeks ago and planted them in the greenhouse yesterday.  Would you believe half of them disappeared over night?  We didn’t have the side curtains up high enough and a bunny hopped in and got them.  Damn bunny doesn’t want us to have any broccoli this season.

It’s still looking festive around here when we get in from the garden, but things are starting to slow.  Our mushroom logs are also producing right now.  We’re just planting in the greenhouse for winter veggies.  We’re hoping to get back to pottery now that the garden is winding down.

Our Beauty Berry Bush is just starting to turn.  Aren’t the seeds gorgeous?  They will all eventually turn deep purple and will be around long after the frost takes the leaves.

Jack’s waiting to get in the pasture to wrangle some sheep.  Mina wants out to be fed treats at the milking stand.  Her kid is working on getting it’s head stuck in the fence.

Our chicken barn compost pile sprouted tomatoes again this year.  Last year they came up too late in the season for us to enjoy them.  This year, yum!  Next year I’m going to actually plant some things in there rather than leaving it to chance.  Someone please remind me.

This Genovese basil started out as a microgreen, it will end up as pesto.

I need to get on that.

Our sheep are hoping that Jack doesn’t notice them hiding in the barn.

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Our bees are done making honey for the year.  They gave us almost 20 gallons the past few months.  We left each hive a full super of honey (that’s the support that holds 9 full frames) to last the winter and also have started feeding them.  We’ll continue to feed until it gets too cold out to open the hive.  I’ve included a few photos from our last harvest.  We bring the frames full of capped honey into our kitchen where we slice off the wax caps from both sides of the frame.  Two frames at a time go into our extractor, which spins the frames so the honey is removed using centrifical force.  The extractor has a gate valve at the bottom where the honey pools, along with bits of the comb.  We filter that into a large food grade container and bottle right from there using a ladle into sterile jars.

In a deep meadow?  A fairy glen?  A pasture that needs haying?  Nope.  That’s our front yard.  Our ZTR mower has been in the shop with a backordered part for over a month.  It’s coming in soon, thank goodness!  We don’t have a backup mower because, with 5 or so acres that need mowing, it’s just not cost effective to own two and a push mower would take a few days to get the job done.  It’s a good thing we don’t have a homeowner’s association.

In completely unrelated news, today marks the third anniversary of my blog.  Our daughter Tracy decided she needed to see farm updates on a regular basis and set this blog up for my birthday.  Thanks again, Tracy, and thanks to all of you who also like to see our farm updates on a regular basis!