Missing Willow Farm

Jenna lost her 6 month battle with bone cancer and we lost an integral member of our family and farm team.  It now takes both of us to keep the sheep and goats from eating from our cow’s bucket at feeding time, and some of our sheep missed their grain this morning because we didn’t run out and get them like she used to do for us.  We’re lazy.  We miss her.

A guest post from my husband Brian: We had never had a dog, so we didn’t really know what it would be like to have a border collie.  Because I’m allergic to dogs, we went out and bought a dog lot enclosure to put next to the house and got her a Canine Condo, a ridiculously expensive Cadillac of dog houses with a heated dog bed.  Of course, within 2 weeks we went out and bought a cheap kennel from Walmart and she moved into the house.  The outdoor kennel sat idle for 4 years.  She was a part of our family and we will miss her dearly.

Checking in on the chickadees the other day, all I saw was a mass of feathers in the nest.  I thought they were dead because they didn’t move no matter how close I got.  Yesterday, I went to check on them, got in close and they all flew out at once.  Almost scared me to death!  They flitted around the feed room and eventually made their way back to the nest.  Today they’re gone.  They grow up so fast!

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We brought home a chick to teach our turkeys how to eat.  That’s right, turkeys need someone to demonstrate how not to starve to death.  We got a white crested black polish chick, like our Marsha.  It already has the little top knot!

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We got our Thanksgiving turkey today.  We bought three bourbon red poults (plus a chick) with the hopes of ending up with at least one come November.  They can be difficult to raise.  My bottle baby Summer was very curious about the chirping box we brought into the barn.  For now, they’re in their own special room in the barn inside our brooder where they’ve got a heat lamp, vitamin fortified water and high protein game fowl starter food.   We’ve tried raising poultry outside of the pasture in the past, but had issues with nocturnal predators.  This way, they’ve got the guardian dogs for protection.  Milos and FiFi watch over everyone.

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Here are the plants we started from saved seeds in January.  They will eventually end up on our back deck.  We have two other sizes from later plantings.  The next size down comes with me to the farmer’s market to sell as starter plants, and our small ones will be planted out in our raised beds once it’s safe to  do so.  We’ve been hand pollinating the flowers every morning and already have some tiny tomatoes.  Once again, we should be the first vendor with tomatoes at the market.

Jessica likes to taste everything.  She believes it would be impolite not to.

Potatoes are still growing in one of our greenhouse beds.  Just a few of them, we’ve already harvested and eaten the rest as small or new potatoes.  I was saving the last few plants, hoping these would grow to maturity but a bunny kept hopping through our open greenhouse side curtains and digging them up and leaving them half eaten.  I threw a couple of bell jars (normally used for protecting tender plants from freezing) on the area where they were digging and look what happened.  Plants have sprouted and are growing like crazy.  We learn something every single week in our garden.

Those potatoes we planted a few weeks ago are coming up nicely.  IF we find the time to deal with these correctly this year, we’ll mound soil up around the plant as it grows taller which is supposed to result in a lot more tubers per plant.  Oh… and keep the plot weeded.  That’s a big if but it’s in the plans.  That’s an official gardening objective for 2012.   That’s poopy straw from underneath our chicken roosts.  We remove it every morning.  It’s there for both weed suppression and fertilization.  Pretty cool, eh?  I’m also planning to actually read my pumpkin seed packets for days to maturity in an attempt to have pumpkins (more than one would be lovely) in October this year.

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Jenna’s feeling well enough to follow us out to the pasture so we’re letting her come along for the exercise.  She won’t get her stitches out for almost two more weeks so we don’t let her go in.  She wishes she could help get the sheep up for their breakfast.