Missing Willow Farm

Originally, I planned to work in our in-ground garden bed today but it was snowing when we woke up this morning.  I refuse to dig in the ground while it’s snowing…. I spent a few hours in the greenhouse potting up tomatoes instead.  We need more pots!

Composted manure from our barn also went onto our garden bed this week, along with the four tons of commercial compost.  We once had a cow named Professor Thistle Cobblebottom who contributed greatly to this project.  She hogged the hay from the sheep and goats and was very annoying… and delicious.

Bindi is drawn towards anything with water in it.  She waits for the shower to turn off so she can lick the drain.  At least she waits!

Tha’ts what we had delivered yesterday from a food waste composting service.  They collect compostable scraps from grocery stores, restaurants, schools & hotels and process it for 8-10 months at their facility.  It arrives as perfect 7 pH black gold.  We used to purchase soil amendments from garden centers in bags.  Never again.  Even with the $1/mile one way delivery charge it was a good deal and a gorgeous product.  We’ve already got our raised beds amended and huge containers of it stored in the greenhouse.  We’ve got other beds around the house and in the back yard that will get some.  Thank goodness we have a tractor.  The remainder will be worked into the bed we had it dumped onto.  It was our potato bed last year and I have just received some beautiful seed potatoes in the mail.  But we’ve already expanded it beyond the size we had it last year and I’m hankering to plant some other stuff.  Could this possibly be the year I get a pumpkin??

P.S. Those three beds full of green in the foreground contain the garlic we planted last October.  Yum.

 

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Mina’s twins are less than a week old and getting big fast.  They stick to her like glue.  It’s been warm these last few days.  She takes them on the far side of the pasture where there are big shade trees.  It means we have to go all the way over there when it’s feeding time in the late afternoon.  We just scoop them up.  They’re soft like puppies and don’t seem to mind being handled.  She happily follows.

Today was a first.  We pulled a lamb this morning.  It’s exactly what it sounds like.  Savannah pushed and pushed until she was exhausted so we put on surgical gloves and went in after him.  He’s a strong one.  He was up on his feet before his mama was.  We gave her a few shots and some calcium gel and she’s up and on the mend.  Now that we’ve done it once, we’ll be able to easily do it again.  But are hoping we don’t have to!

Bindi got into the upstairs bathroom again and procured the remaining toothbrush from the holder.  We decided to let her have this one, hoping to spare ours if she ever clamps her eye on them in the master bath.  She also procured a mousetrap (with a mouse) that we searched for days to find.  Bad kitty.

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Mina finally delivered.  Despite her huge girth, she really and truly only had two in there.  A buckling and a doeling, born on St. Patrick’s Day.  Jenna is fascinated by all of our farm babies, particularly the white ones.  I think she’s trying to figure out if they’re sheep or not.  They’re doing fantastic.  We’ve got them moved to the big pasture where they’re running amok with the other babies, while keeping Mom in close range.   We think we’ve got one more doe left to kid, and four more ewes left to lamb.

That’s how much fleece we got off of Beatrice last weekend.  It’s going to be 80 degrees today so the sheep are pretty happy to have their winter coats gone.   I’m going to list a fleece on ebay this weekend to see how it goes.

Lettuce, spinach, carrots and a few beets.  That’s what we’ve got growing in our greenhouse bed.  We haven’t fired up the heater yet, we’ve just been making sure everything stays watered.  We’ve been eating from here all winter, and plan to quadruple the indoor garden space before next winter hits.  This will become unusable when it gets consistently warm out.  The greenhouse gets really hot inside during the summer.  But it’s genius for growing cool season crops in the winter.