Missing Willow Farm

I’ve been casually checking our asparagus patch every morning and was delighted to find our first spear.  Yay!  Grilled asparagus risotto for dinner this weekend!

Roy chats me up at the water cooler most every morning.  Usually about his plans for the day, which are typically similar to the prior day’s plans.  At least that’s what it sounds like to me.

Our layer chicks will be able to be moved from the brooder soon.  Hopefully the hens won’t be mean to them!

When I saw the boo boo on 003’s face, I thought maybe FiFi was actually connecting when she snaps at him for trying to steal her dinner.   Then I noticed our other ram Andy has the exact same boo boo.  They are butting heads hard enough to break skin.  None of the ewes have blemished their pretty faces.  Must be a guy thing.  🙂

We still have a lemon or two in the fridge from our little citrus plants and they have started getting flowers again.  I picked up a few new dwarf citrus trees when I was in Florida last week, our tiny grove is expanding.  🙂

The farmer’s market has been closed since early December but we’ve continued to sell eggs throughout the cold season.  We put our phone number on every egg carton and our customers have been coming to the farm to buy them.  One customer asks for 5 dozen every time, we don’t usually have that many available.  They are so tasty because we feed them a high protein chicken food , cracked corn and all of our veggie table and garden scraps.  They love stale bread, too.  They run up to me every morning to see what tasty treat I’ve brought them and jump up to take it out of my hand.  A person with bird phobia would probably freak out with chickens jumping up at them but I love it.

Jack hangs out by the waterer impatiently waiting for us to be done with animal chores so he can move sheep around for us.  He gets to boss them around twice a day whether they need moving or not. We never finish our chores fast enough for him.

In the pasture, my view of my boots always includes a goat named Summer.  She was one of Hermione’s 2012 triplets.  The smallest and youngest and weakest, aka a bottle baby.   I’ve raised other bottle babies before, including Mina and Bella who were our very first goats and a lamb or two along the way.  None are as attached to me as Summer.  I should have named her Shadow.

Tis the season to get these babies in the ground.  These came from our local Southern States, we also saved some assorted fingerling potatoes ourselves from last year.  We’ll spend the morning in the garden then the afternoon in our pottery studio.  A good start to the weekend.