Missing Willow Farm

This is Jack’s wubba face.  He’s a happy dog.

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We grow lots of different varieties of hot peppers, including ghost peppers.  I pickle some, freeze a few and make hot pepper jelly, but my favorite use for them is homemade pepper flakes.  My Montgomery Ward food dehydrator bit the dust a few months ago (it was a workhorse!) so I ended up with a basic one from WalMart.  They are processed on racks until they are crisp dry.  It takes a day or two.  I’m still picking and drying so will hold off on the last step.  I take my electric mini food chopper outside and give them a whirl.  We like spicy in our house, there’s nothing like some serious heat on pizza, in pasta sauce, tacos, vegetables… you get the idea.

It’s a large Cinderella’s coach looking pumpkin that’s hiding among the vines.  I have high hopes for this one!

Jack enjoys his personal swimming pool out by the barn.  When we turn on the water, he gets a little jacuzzi action.

We lost Nugget.  We moved her from the hen barn to the big barn back in February when our rooster just about pecked her to death.  He is an ex rooster.  We tended her wounds and tried to reintroduce her back to the flock when she had healed but they started pecking her so she’s been a lone chicken for the past 6 months in the company of sheep and goats.  I know Milos and FiFi weren’t responsible because they watched over her on the occasions that she wandered away from the barn.  We always say our cat Bindi and Nugget are the only pets on our farm, everyone else has a job.  She’ll be missed.

We have no apples on our trees but can thankfully grow other fruit.  These melons are sweet and tasty and that’s a key lime from one of the small citrus trees we overwinter in the greenhouse.   It’s destined for a gin and tonic.  🙂

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Jack gets a chance to work our sheep every morning.  When the weather gets a little cooler, he’ll get a chance every evening, too.  He still occasionally goes ‘sheep bowling’ but is getting better about both that and ‘gripping’, which means biting.

Even though we got an early start on tomato season this year, we’re still yielding (and canning and freezing) bunches.  I’m not sick of them … yet.

I asked a ‘real’ local  farmer when to plant pumpkins this year because the one pumpkin we got last year had rotted by the time Halloween came around.  I put in small, medium and large varieties and just found this little gem.  Oh well.  At least we’ve got the same number of pumpkins as last year so any additional ones will be a bonus.  I think I’ll roast it and make soup.

Dill heads, pickling cucumbers, tomatoes, eggs, goat milk and our first melon.  We’ll get another 4-5 eggs later today and another quart of milk.  I’ve been putting up pickles and tomatoes (and salsa and soybeans) like crazy and make cheese every Wednesday.  Summer has a rhythm.