Missing Willow Farm

Our chicken feed is being pilfered overnight again.  This is what we’re finding in the morning.  Something’s gonna get it…

Our chickens chatter and cluck when they hear me approaching in the morning to let them out in the yard and feed them treats.  They are really lovely at ‘good morning, glad to see you’.  They’ve been showing me it’s getting colder overnight here by huddling together on their sleeping roost (said the person who scoops poop every morning).  Winter is coming…

It’s up and ready to face the winter.  Me, not so much.

One little tree across the pond waited until almost everything else was dead to give off it’s color.  Showoff!

We did it, first time ever.  Customers at the farmer’s market are always asking for tomatoes in April and October, when lettuce is available.  Tomatoes ripen around here in July and lettuce is a cool season crop.  But we’ve got a few tomato plants in the greenhouse still going, despite extremely cold weather.  To keep them producing, we are hand pollinating the tomato flowers every morning.  Considering how tasteless grocery store tomatoes are, it’s worth the effort.

We produce microgreens, which are tiny tasty plants.  Beets, garlic chives, parsley, kohlrabi, broccoli are all examples of what we grow.  These little containers anchor us to the farm more than the livestock as they are watered twice a day.  Vacations are elusive, thankfully we love being here.

Our sheep flock together for safety when Jack is around.  Hermione couldn’t care less.  He ignores the goats and visa versa.  Occasionally we’d like him to fetch our goats from the far side of the pasture but it’s not an option.  We have to resort to shaking a bucket of food.  Works every time.

The deer bedding, aka our potato patch, has been plowed under for the season.  As always, I am thankful our ‘real farmer’ neighbors can’t see us plowing our teeny tiny plot with a non-tiny tractor.  We also use it to bush hog our pasture, turn our compost, dig holes, transport immobile animals (don’t ask…),  scrape our half mile driveway and we’re mighty glad we have it when it snows.  And it keeps us from a backbreaking day of hand turning that garden patch.

Not the running kind, silly.  We do a zombie movie and game marathon this time every year.  Do you have any favorites?  Happy Halloween!

What’s a new deck without an awesome smoker?  Brian’s been playing with our new Green Egg ceramic smoker.  He’s smoked ribs and salmon so far and is planning to crank it up to try pizza.  So far, everything is delicious!