Farm News

At my spinning zoom, I was asked about this barn quilt and its history. It turns out it is based on 300 year old European beliefs about decorating barns to ward off evil but was revived in 2001 by a woman in Ohio to honor her quilting mother. More information is here.

We later had a discussion about yarn stash reduction. Penguono sweaters were recommended. Here’s a gorgeous one above.

On the farm, besides spinning my sheep’s wool, I have been looking after animals and plants. The turkey poults are growing quickly.

I brought the lemon tree outside for some sun and hopefully pollination. I also attempted to make a sun tea from a Mother Earth News recipe with raspberry, blackberry, lemon balm and mint leaves with rose petals and chopped apple. It sounded intriguing but wasn’t flavorful.

I took a moment to admire the flowers. Here is one of our rhododendrons with bees pollinating it.

Here are a couple of our rose blooms.

Poppies by the garage.

Columbine by the porch.

And even the thyme flowers are looking pretty.

Last evening I made my favorite ham and bean soup.

And then we settled down to watch Stephen Colbert’s final shows. It was bittersweet of course and reminded us about how important the Late Show has been to both of us over our lives. We managed to mostly awake to the end.

This morning I did some chores. Jameson ran over for his bottle. He is still incredibly cute.

Posted in Farm, History, Recipes- farm | 2 Comments

Sheep Faces

The Sheep Detectives movie inspired me to take new photos of my sheep’s faces.  They are all distinctive as are their personalities like the movie depicts.  So here are the faces (roughly young to old):

Harlen

Priscilla

Wendel

Maybelle

Walda

Hodor

Diddley

Bambam

Vanessa

In other farm news, Jameson continues to do well.  He is eating more grass and grain all the time, emulating his grandmother.

I fenced off the area immediately in front of the barn to provide an area where the birds could enjoy more sunshine, hopefully without the eagles eating them.  Here are the birds starting to venture into this area.

Wally is definitely a farm cat.

And today for lunches I made a French Lentil Salad.  It is pretty as well as tasty.

Posted in Farm, NYT Cooking recipe | 2 Comments

Date Night

Last night, we had a date night with a dinner and a movie.  Actually the movie came first.  We saw Sheep Detectives which I knew I wanted to see as soon as I saw the preview.  Any sheep movie I am going to, and Tom will humor me.

The movie was great and highly recommended, particularly for people like me who love sheep.  It was a who-done-it which I am always bad at and was again. But it was incredibly engaging.  Loved it.

Then we went to the Black Cat in Fairhaven for dinner. Most other places were closing down for dinner, but this was available and quite yummy.

I chose the In Sheep’s Clothing wine, of course.

Today there was a change in the weather.  We finally have some rain.  It seems like forever since I have seen clouds against the hills.  It was nice to see again.

While I was away for Mother’s Day weekend, the turkey poults grew up enough to be able to roost.  It is nice to see them growing up and thriving.

Today I made Orgeat per one of my cookbooks.  Tom had to buy a nut bag for me which was amusing.  It turned out well.

And I made spruce tip syrup.

Everything is going so well with my family, the animals and the garden that I am worried something bad is going to happen.  I may actually finally be a farmer that I realize that things don’t always go well.  Hoping my feeling is wrong.

 

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