Missing Willow Farm

Summer comes running when she sees me enter the pasture, then proceeds to chew on my clothes and get in front of me wherever I am trying to walk while chatting her goatspeak to me nonstop.  Goats are sweet but can be annoying when they do their best to prevent you from getting from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’.

It’s garlic harvest time.  Now they need to be dried outside in a shady spot.  In about a month, they’ll be ready to bring inside for storage.  And roasting.

This is the last of them.  They are crispy and sweet.  I’ve used them raw in salads as well as in veggie stir fry.  I’m going to miss them.

Every morning, Brian does the big pasture chores (feeding goats, sheep and guardian dog) while I do the little pasture chores (milking and feeding the chickens).   As soon as FiFi has finished her breakfast, she comes to the gate looking for a dog biscuit from me.  We buy them by the case.  I never disappoint.

I was surprised to find this beautiful foxglove growing out beside the pile of chicken poop that I clean out from the little barn every morning.   These biennials are not native so it was deposited here by some unknown means.

This lamb has received some medication for intestinal parasites.  We want to check her again in a few days to make sure she’s improved.  We used an animal marking crayon so we’ll know which one to check.  It stays on quite a while but isn’t permanent.   We’ve got them in a few colors in case we need to mark for something different.  We didn’t even know these things existed a few years ago…

Nope.  It’s just into the feeding pen for a health check.  Brian looks like the Pied Piper of sheep.

The garden is beautiful, despite the bunny problem with our soybeans.  We harvested all of our peas yesterday and I stopped shelling after an hour.  The sugar snaps are coming inside tomorrow.  We found two tiny ripe yellow cherry tomatoes today.  Yippee!

Friday was National Donut Day and my market space partner Lora brought homemade cake donuts.  A photo was posted on the market’s facebook page and they (of course) sold like crazy!  We need to harvest honey as soon as the weather cooperates and will have it at the market along with our lamb, eggs, goat milk soap and pottery.

This cucumber is a new variety for us this year, it’s called Early Fortune.  Very tasty.  We also have about enough pickling cucumbers for a quart of dill pickles.  I  was hoping not to have to make them a jar at a time this year so planted a lot of them.  Not enough, evidently.