Missing Willow Farm

At sea!  Three weeks on the Queen Mary 2, across the Atlantic, up through Northern Europe and then back across the pond.  When I get a chance to catch my breath, I’ll post some highlights.  Many many thanks to my parents who took farmsitting duties on while we were away on our first ‘real’ vacation, first cruise and Brian’s first trip to Europe.   Best. Vacation. Ever.

Summer is over and our raised beds are done but the greenhouse is still going gangbusters.  It’s so nice harvesting tomatoes while it’s crisp and cool outside.  Too bad the deer got our pumpkins.  Again.

We cooked at the Euphoria wine and food festival in Greenville, SC last weekend and shared a cowboy cauldron with LaFarm Bakery.  We were cooking lamb ribs and kebabs while they were cooking lamb sausage and feta baguettes (yes, they are as good as they sound)!  At the end of our evening, we were gifted one of their signature sourdough loaves that is now living in our freezer waiting for my parents to visit later this week.  Yum!

If Bindi isn’t in my lap or Brian’s, she’s hijacked a blanket somewhere in the living room (but she prefers a lap).   It’s been our experience that sphynx cats are generally very social. We’ve had one (or more) around since 1994. She loves meeting new people and has been known to jump up on a guest’s shoulder in the middle of dinner.  Bad kitty.

We spent the day helping friends harvest their grapes yesterday.  We filled five of these delivery containers with cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignon grapes.   Each bunch had to have any damaged grapes removed before including it in the bin.  It was overcast and in the 70’s all day, just perfect weather for being outdoors.

We had the pleasure of participating in a blind sparkling hard cider tasting carried out on our back deck.  What we learned is that Virginia cider reigns supreme, absolutely no surprise to us.   If you can find Foggy Ridge Cider at your local wine purveyor, we highly recommend it.

Lizzie is so rambunctious and full of energy, she’s hard to photograph.  Here’s the best of the most recent batch.  😀

This is my first go at a wonky quilt.  The fabric is from the Alexander Henry Ghastlies collection.  The entire line is a lot of fun, they even have a Christmas edition.  I think I  need some more in my fabric stash.

Lizzie found her big girl voice and is using here it to warn off a flock of turkey buzzards.  We’ve also seen her barking at that little fox that’s been hanging around.  Good girl.

They figured out how to jump over our garden fence.  Here’s what’s left of our pumpkin patch.  The only thing left in our outdoor raised beds are hot peppers, but thankfully we’ve still got tomatoes in the greenhouse.  We start our annual gardening process in January with planting seeds under lights, so maybe 9 months of fussing with stuff is enough.  It will be nice to have a break from daily watering but we still need to clean up all the beds, clean out the empty clay pots, plow the potato patch, get more greenhouse flooring to kill weeds between beds, bring in the tomato cages, supplement indoor and outdoor beds with compost from our barns, order garlic and plant spinach, carrots and lettuce.    All in the next four weeks.