Summer Projects & Progress

A Few Recent Farm Projects:

Gordita, the gourd-headed scarecrow, finally got a new outfit, She now has red rubber garden boots!

I don’t think I ever posted  a photo of my very first welding project, this heavy-duty trellis made from elaborate ornamental ironwork scraps. (I hung the ceramic mask from Mexico on it.)

A sweet little  thrift store plant stand find.

Two matching iron headboards  are now a fence in front of the chicken coop.

Fairy garden in a metal bowl.

One of those Pinterest ideas I had to try. Rog is not very fond of it--he thinks we have too many cockeyed, askew structures on the farm already.

We inherited these three amusing (but comfortable), patriotic tractor seat stools from a friend.

Garden Update:
The gardens are looking glorious, thanks mostly to our awesome WWOOFers. They are weeding machines!

The lilies and wildflowers along the  driveway are stunning.

Healthy tomato plants, laden with fruit.

WWOOFer Jessica whipped the granary flower garden into shape before the wedding a week ago.

The large pepper and tomato sculptures (that often cause people to do a double-take) are back in the garden.

Currants will be ripe soon.

We have begun to harvest the first zucchinis and squash blossoms from the straw bale plantings.

Calla lilies.

Red Russian kale.

A salad from te garden for last night’s supper -- featuring  mesclun salad mix, large purple radishes,  Egyptian walking onions, baby zucchini and squash blossoms.

Splotch, the calf, is growing fast and is  much larger than Zinnie (our collie/border collie pooch) now.  He was banded today -- a life-changing event that makes him a steer, not a bull.  He gets to nurse from LaFonda, and even though we are milk-sharing with him, we are still getting  3.5 to 4 gallons of milk per day.

Our newest WWOOFer, Lynette, learned how to make  mozzarella and  ricotta cheese from the fresh cow’s milk.

Lynette has also  transformed the barn stage into a yoga studio. (A great way to work out the kinks after a hard day of weeding.)  Zinnie is waiting for “downward dog.”

Rog finished digging (through rock!) and pouring the footings in the north end of the barn,  they passed  inspection, and the Lull came to move the 2 1/2 ton  oven into place.

The oven is successfully sited in the barn-- the first major, visible step in constructing our commercial kitchen!

Once this oven is operating, it will be able to bake 60 loaves of bread at a time.  I will need to step up my game and expand my bread-baking repertoire!   I made some fancy roasted garlic sourdough boules last week for the Farmers Market --it’s a start.