Missing Willow Farm

Today is September 11th, the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy.  My husband and I spent ten years in the volunteer fire service when we lived in NY’s Hudson Valley.  We shared a Firefighter of the Year award from our fire company and also volunteered with IBM’s Emergency Control Brigade.  That’s where we met and served with Paul Tegtmeier – a funny, caring guy.  Someone you’d gladly partner with in an emergency.  His lifelong dream was to be a NYC firefighter and he finally got hired on at age 40.  Paul was on his way to work when he saw a plane hit one of the towers.  It’s believed that he  joined up with a crew without signing in just as they headed to the towers.   His civilian shoes were found at the firehouse and his car was parked a few blocks away.  It is believed he died in tower 2, but his body was never recovered.  I can’t hear the words 9/11 without thinking of Paul.  His bravery and sacrifice are not forgotten.

Houdini the rooster and Augusta the sheep share breakfast together.  It’s actually sheep and goat grain, but contains lots of corn.  Gus could easily toss her head to get rid of the chicken but seems perfectly content to share.  That’s a good girl, Gus!

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Rudy’s happy that it’s breeding time again.  He’s being all lovey dovey to anyone who will put up with him.  Since his mating season grooming plan is to become as stinky and disgusting as possible (He likes to pee on his beard.  Ick.), I am not someone who puts up with him this time of year.

Yesterday was my last day of milking for 2011.  Yay!  It’s been twice a day since April, I actually feel like we could get away for a few days if we wanted to.  Goats are seasonal breeders, they need to be dried off to assure they can get pregnant again in the Fall for Spring kids and then we’ll have milk for 2012.   Mina, Bella and Hermione gave me two and a half quarts this morning.  That’s also yesterday’s batch of chevre drained and ready to be salted.  Today’s my birthday and also our 24th wedding anniversary.  And marks one year since our wonderful daughter Tracy decided I needed a blog for my birthday so it’s a blog anniversary, too.  Happy days and thank you again, Tracy!

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Pumpkin vines run really far.  I planted six seeds the first week of June, and the vines ran outside of our invisible deer fence enclosure.  Someone told us that deer will stomp a pumpkin to get at the flesh so my husband extended the enclosure for protection.  It’s fortressed, we’ll see if it lasts until Halloween!

Careful inspection should reveal something that doesn’t belong in our garden.  I’m sure one of our kids will get it…

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My friend Lora, who’s my farmers’ market space partner, designed a cake for our friend’s lamb camping weekend.  It featured a coconut cake with a layer of home made lime curd and a layer of home made lemon curd.  And coconut cream.  And magical fairy dust.  Just kidding about the coconut cream.  😉  It was the best cake ever.  A lime in the coconut cake.  She designed the topper in polymer clay (so artsy and talented).  She won a Food Network cake decorating challenge.  For real.  She’s amazing and generous and bakes amazing things.  Come to the market on Friday morning and you can find out for yourself.  She left at 9AM this morning, she sold out that fast!

Mother and daughter CoCo and Elsie relaxing in the afternoon sun.  Elsie’s the only 2011 kid we kept.  She’s a beauty!

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We slaughtered one of our turkeys last weekend to take to our friend’s chef getaway.  It dressed out at 17 pounds.  Yikes!  Can you imagine what size they’ll be at Thanksgiving?!  We started way too early.  I suppose we’ll have to slaughter early and buy yet another freezer to store them in.   Anyhoo… we asked Sean Brock to smoke it for us.  Sean was the winner of the “Next Great Chef” episode of the “Food Network Challenge”, is going to be on “Iron Chef America”, won the James Beard “Best Chef Southeast” award in 2010 and his restaurant Husk was just named “Best New Restaurant in America” by Bon Appetit magazine two weeks ago.  Not bad, eh!?   And he’s the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet.  Sean had a mesquite rub mixed up, it included bourbon smoked black pepper.  I wonder why I haven’t seen that at WalMart?  After rubbing it inside and out with olive oil, the rub was slathered on.  It spent about 3 hours in the smoker.  I think it lasted less than ten minutes after carving.  Without a doubt, the best turkey I’ve ever tasted.  We’re going to try it ourselves. Why not, we got a lesson from the best!

Jessica, our belty cow, greets us in the morning, eats sweet feed from a bucket, socializes with the herd for a bit, then disappears into the woods.  If you’re not over here by 8AM, you’ll never see her.  I’ve been leading her closer and closer to the barn when I feed her because winter’s coming and she needs to know it can provide shelter.