Missing Willow Farm

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Our bees are done making honey for the year.  They gave us almost 20 gallons the past few months.  We left each hive a full super of honey (that’s the support that holds 9 full frames) to last the winter and also have started feeding them.  We’ll continue to feed until it gets too cold out to open the hive.  I’ve included a few photos from our last harvest.  We bring the frames full of capped honey into our kitchen where we slice off the wax caps from both sides of the frame.  Two frames at a time go into our extractor, which spins the frames so the honey is removed using centrifical force.  The extractor has a gate valve at the bottom where the honey pools, along with bits of the comb.  We filter that into a large food grade container and bottle right from there using a ladle into sterile jars.

In a deep meadow?  A fairy glen?  A pasture that needs haying?  Nope.  That’s our front yard.  Our ZTR mower has been in the shop with a backordered part for over a month.  It’s coming in soon, thank goodness!  We don’t have a backup mower because, with 5 or so acres that need mowing, it’s just not cost effective to own two and a push mower would take a few days to get the job done.  It’s a good thing we don’t have a homeowner’s association.

In completely unrelated news, today marks the third anniversary of my blog.  Our daughter Tracy decided she needed to see farm updates on a regular basis and set this blog up for my birthday.  Thanks again, Tracy, and thanks to all of you who also like to see our farm updates on a regular basis!

Today’s agenda includes making cheese & creme fraiche, steaming lobster for tomorrow’s breakfast, roasting tomatoes, curing fresh salmon, finishing off a batch of fig preserves, and Brian is making a frozen key lime pie.  That’s a broccoli quiche from our freezer for dinner tonight. I think we’ll be tired of the kitchen by dinner time!

I purchased a tiny fig tree at a garden club sale four months ago.  It was about 3 inches high.  It’s now over 2 feet tall and has figs on it.  Wow!  We’ll overwinter it in the greenhouse.  Roasted figs and goat cheese anyone?

I hope it was tasty.  Stupid bunny.

Actually, quite a lot.  More than half a gallon.

It’s all about cherry tomatoes and hot peppers these days.  It sure makes for a gorgeous display.

We do an annual farm/garden/winery tour with friends every August.  This weekend’s farm tour included piggies, cattle, turkeys and ducks.  I officially want ducks.

We’ve got them growing on the deck and in the garden.  When it gets cold out we’ll move them into the greenhouse, which should give us a jump on next year’s crop.

is that we finally got apples from the trees we planted in 2005.  The bad news is these are all the deer left us.  I think we need to be spraying them with some nasty chemicals or something and fortressing the trees if we want edible fruit.  In related news, we have pears about 30 feet off the ground that the deer couldn’t reach.  Luckily, we have a ladder.