Missing Willow Farm

Brian and I signed up to donate 50 bowls for our community’s Empty Bowl Event to fight hunger http://www.emptybowls.net  and we ended up making 75.  I am a lot better on the pottery wheel because of this project so win-win!

Kat’s little ram has legs that don’t quit. He’s a handsome little thing, and very fast.

These two are BFF’s.  They run and leap together (near their mamas of course) then flop exhausted into the hay for naptime.  They’re fun to watch, hard to catch and awesome to snuggle with.

It looks like I used a blue filter for this photo but that’s the actual color of our front yard when it snows.   We don’t get much around here and it leaves us pretty quickly so it’s fun while it lasts.  The goats hang out and pout in the barn while it snows.  The sheep could care less, they are wearing winter coats after all.

Not the best photo, but we had our microgreens served to us  across all courses last evening when we had dinner at the restaurant that has been our longest standing customer.   We get a kick out of eating incredible food that we had a small part in.

Summer’s little buckling is out in the barn with her and doing well.  They seem to be surviving their forced bonding time penned up together splendidly.  In related news, baby goats are super soft!

A lamb or kid in our spare bathroom means it’s not thriving it’s first day/night with it’s mom.  This is Summer’s first baby, a little buckling.   It’s been particularly cold lately and she’s not quite gotten the mom thing down yet.  Our job is to warm him and tube him for a few feedings.  That means he gets a feeding tube threaded down his throat into his belly and we feed him colostrum that way until he’s strong enough to stand and nurse.  There is no end to the amount of things you NEVER thought you’d have to do in your entire life until you bring livestock into the picture.   The good news is he’s back out in the barn with Summer where we’ll keep them both penned together for a good while until she learns he’s her responsibility.  The bad news is he’s been replaced by one of Nellie’s newborn lambs who’s too weak to stand and nurse just yet, unlike his brother.

They’re all made from paper with flower stamen antennae.   Pinned inside a shadowbox.

Feeding time means a sea of sheep hineys as they attack the bunk feeders.  As enthusiastic as they are, the goats are worse.  They get fed in the barn and I have to race them from the feed room to their feeding trough otherwise it’s ‘woman trampled by goats, news at 11’.

We were lucky enough to have our first lamb born while the family was visiting.   Kat, our best mama sheep, is always first.  She has beautiful babies.   Our daughter Tracy scooped him up and named him Ramses.