Missing Willow Farm

Spring gardening is in full swing here.  We’re a few weeks from our last possible frost date, but it’s been so warm we’re thinking about planting a few tender plants.  Inside the greenhouse, our tomato plants are 4 feet high with flowers and tiny tomatoes on them and the hot peppers have started to bloom.  Outside, we’ve got peas, carrots, chard, leeks, and cabbage planted, and our garlic looks fantastic!  That wire hoop structure is just a cattle panel secured between two beds.  The arch is like 7 feet tall so it’s easy to walk under and will provide support for anything that ‘runs’.  Brian and I are constantly surprised that we’ve figured out this food growing thing after lots of failures in our early years.  We learn something new every week.

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We finally found a shearer to come to our farm and shear our sheep.  This is the first year we’ve had it done here, we usually take them to another farm on their shearing day.  You’re supposed to have them ‘put up’ in close quarters for a few hours prior to the shearing.  The warmth gets their lanolin flowing and makes the shearing process easier on their skin.  Our appointment was at 5PM so we got them up in the barn during our morning chores.  Since Jenna’s still convalescing from her surgery last Friday, Brian and I did the task ourselves.  It took an hour to get our sheep into the barn without her help.  It really makes us appreciate what a partner she is on our farm!  When the shearer arrived, most everyone was good except for Beatrice.  She’s a kicking, thrashing brat!  After she was shorn, she came and stood right by me and let me pet her head.  She was probably looking for a ‘good job!’ but didn’t get one…

Spring is when we do preventative medication for different intestinal parasites.  One preventative method consists of mixing a medication into a very large tub of water and restricting access to the Ritchie, which is continuously fed from our well.  This forces them to drink the medicated water.  We tied concrete blocks together over the Ritchie access points to force everyone to drink from the tub.  They ended up draining it in a day so they figured it out!

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Our belty cow Jessica gets fed once a day and it’s in the morning.  She waits patiently by the gate for her bucket of sweet feed.  When we go out in afternoon for our second set of animal chores,  she’s right in the middle of everything.  She’s particularly curious about Summer’s bottle.   The dogs are usually in there, too, looking for dog biscuit handouts.  Thank goodness she’s gentle!

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We switched from small square to large round bales of hay this past winter.  That means we don’t have a lot of baling twine laying around any more.  Since we’re no longer constantly shoving twine into the feedsack in our feed room, a chickadee decided it was the perfect spot for her nest, with an unending supply of hay and straw to build it with right on hand.  They hatched out yesterday, and scared the crap out of us as we had no idea they were in there!

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I received the BEST package in the mail yesterday… a painting of Jenna that captures her heart and soul!   Isn’t it just perfect?  The artist is Kristin, a friend from Craftster.  Here’s her own blog post about it – http://kbatsel.blogspot.com/2012/04/jenna.html   Jenna approves and so does Bindi.  The photo she used was one I took of her the day I gave her a fleece filled bed I had made from ‘her’ sheep.  Jenna goes in for another surgery this morning.  She’s having tumors removed from her belly, poor baby can’t catch a break.

 

 

Summer will be weaned in a few weeks.  We’ve started cutting her formula back and assuring she can hold her own at the grain feeder.  All the babies are eating grass.  She’ll eventually get only water in her bottle then it will disappear.  I think we’ll tell her the Easter Bunny took it.  🙂

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We’re getting ready to plant our bed of potatoes for the year, aside from the few plants we have remaining in the greenhouse.  We ordered Yellow Finn seedling potatoes.  They come with small eyes already growing on them.  We cut them into chunks that have around 3 eyes on them then let them sit overnight.  We saved some starter potatoes from our batch of red, blue, and white fingerling potatoes from last year.  They’ve been sitting in a vegetable drawer in one of our refrigerators since last summer.  Those have quite large eyes growing on them!   Here’s hoping for a banner crop.

Apple blossoms are bursting everywhere on the trees we planted six years ago.  We are really lousy at growing enough apples to actually eat.  We usually only get a few on each tree then deer and insects take them before we can get to them.   This year, we’re hoping to get more apples to start with, so we’re hand pollinating.  I hate the idea of fencing the orchard, but maybe we can put up some fishing line fence if we get a lot of fruit.   Does anyone have suggestions on spraying for bugs?  I think we’re too late to apply dormant oil.

Gratuitous adorable lamb photo because there are no photos of yesterday’s discovery.  The good news is our guardian dogs killed a snake in our pasture… the bad news is there was a serpent in our pasture!!!  I hate this time of year, and the rest of the warm months when those legless lizards are on the move.  I grew up in Florida and was terrorized by them my entire childhood.  Chased around the yard by one?  Yep.  Slammed one in the front door trying to get in?  Check.  7 foot rattler waiting for us at our bus stop?  Yep, and a deputy had to come shoot it before they let us of the school bus.  Coral snakes in the yard?  More than once.  And hognose rattlers.  And diamondbacks.  Oh, and the water moccasins when we lived on the lake.  What’s that under the refrigerator?  Lovely discovery.  Just last year I dug one up in a flower bed with a hand trowel.  My heart almost burst open!  At least I can spot one a mile away now, I think my brain constantly scans the ground for them.  Thank goodness Brian’s not afraid of them!  If he was, we’d probably have to move somewhere really cold.