Friday Farm Photo: Have a Warm & Cozy Weekend.

We're snowed in! We have 10 inches of snow (over a layer of ice) on the ground, and it looks like it's going to be here for a while. Tonight it will probably dip down below zero (F), and the highs for the next several days are the usual lows. It's cold but beautiful.

Thankfully we had plenty of advance warning about this big storm, and except for a collapsed mini greenhouse full of baby spinach in the garden and the already frozen freezeless hydrant at the barn (which means lots of water hauling from the spring 200 feet away) things are, knock on wool, so far going smoothly.

Everyone has food, water, and shelter (not that most of them are using it), and we are tucked in for the night, binge watching 24 and basking in the heat of the glorious wood furnace, which is such a change from the little old pot bellied stove in the uninsulated Shack.

We have hot homemade pizza, cold champagne and potato chips, and a reassuring stockpile of chocolate. Inbetween feeding treats and breaking ice tomorrow I plan to slow cook a couple of lamb shoulder roasts for hours in the dutch oven and create a new sourdough starter.

Life is good.

© FarmgirlFare.com, where the occasional big snowstorm is hard work but fun—and a reminder that this former California girl would probably never survive on a farm in Minnesota (which is where our way-too-much-for-us furnace was made).

Friday Farm Photo: Have a Lovely Weekend.

Morning view out the bedroom window (taken on 10/25; that tree is bare now).

More hayfield? Here.

More farm landscapes? Here.

© FarmgirlFare.com, where white-tailed deer have taken over the hayfield. On Wednesday morning we even saw four big bucks at once. This evening Bert and Bear started barking like crazy at three does up close to the house; all three of them just stood there staring at us. Mom and the twins are still out there and doing just fine; we see them nearly every day. The babies are almost grown up!

Tuesday Dose of Cute: Color Me Autumn

Mother Nature always gives us a leaf changing show in the fall, but we never know how good it will look or exactly when it will happen. This year? The time is now. And it's looking very nice indeed.

7 more photos below. . .

Saturday Dose of Cute: Front Field Afternoon

11 more photos below. . .

Friday Dose of Cute: Heading into the Weekend

Have a good one.

More sheep? Here.

More farm landscapes? Here and here.

© FarmgirlFare.com, always moving toward the food.

Friday Farm Photo: Have a Beautiful Weekend.

After a brief rainstorm yesterday.

More hayfield photos? Here.

More farm landscapes? Here.

© FarmgirlFare.com, shiny and bright, not a coyote in sight—but we can hear them howling out there all night.

Sunday Farm Photo: Happy, Happy. . .

First day of fall.

It's that time of year when you can feel the entire farm breathe a sigh of relief.

© FarmgirlFare.com, thrilled that it's 45 degrees cooler than it was just a couple of days ago (at night at least!)—and already pulling out the vintage quilts while snuggled up in sweats.

Monday Dose of Farm Color: Double Delight

Double rainbow over the hayfield (it was brighter in real life, but you can just make out the second one above the first).

Did you have a good weekend? We were thrilled to get over two inches of much needed rain in the past 48 hours, with a chance for more in the next few days. Woohoo!

I'm loving the break from my daily sweat-drenched watering sessions in the kitchen garden, though they're much more enjoyable since I bought some of these awesome, ultra light (made in the USA!) Water Right hoses two years ago. What a difference. I used to dread watering.

We're slowly getting back into the swing of things after a whirlwind 10 days of plane travel and cross-country road tripping (Joe), stocking up on a ton of groceries in the big city and getting 10 inches of hair lopped off (me), enjoying the company of a hard working houseguest (Joe's older brother, who hasn't been here in 6 years and who managed to squeeze in two fun bread baking lessons in between helping Joe with the enormous job of cleaning out the spring boxes), and stuffing ourselves with lots of wonderful homemade food (everybody). It's been crazy hot and humid, but that's sum, sum, summertime.

Wishing you a wonderful start to your week!

Want to see more of this place?

Farm landscape photos 2011

Farm landscape photos 2012

Farm landscape photos 2013

© FarmgirlFare.com, the eyes to the sky foodie farm blog where we're hoping that tonight's supermoon won't be obscured by cloud cover like June's was, but if the clouds mean we're getting more rain, then so be it. We'll just raise a champagne toast to the ceiling and use our imaginations.

Tail End of the Week: Get Your Friday Farm Fix #32

Welcome to the Friday Farm Fix, a sporadic series where I share a random sampling of what's been happening around the farm during the past week (sometimes actually on Friday). Just joining us? You'll find all the previous Friday Farm Fix posts here and here.

Marta and Daisy snoozing in the creek bed shade during the heat of the day.

Wondering what was happening on the farm this time last year? Check out the Friday Farm Fix #16. (It's so nice to still have grass in the fields this year!)

Hot, hot, hot. That pretty much sums up the first week of summer on the farm, with each day hotter and more humid than the next. We all spent the week just trying to beat the heat.

Thursday night a huge thunderstorm crashed and boomed around us for most of the early morning hours, bringing high winds and a much needed 1½ inches of rain. Thankfully it's a little cooler today, and there's a gorgeous breeze blowing. We may even get some more rain tonight.

After 18½ years in Missouri, this San Francisco Bay Area girl still isn't used to the noise and ferocity of thunderstorms, especially at night. A few years ago I learned that the Pacific coast is one of the few places that doesn't regularly experience thunderstorms. The rare appearance of thunder and lighting was always a big deal when I was a kid. Now I just whimper and snuggle up to my hunky farmguy Joe, then lie awake worrying about things like big trees falling over and how badly (and in how many places) it's raining inside The Shack.

The best part of the week was the daily sightings of a young doe and her spotted twin fawns in the hayfield. This graceful trio has been coming out of the woods near the house each evening, but now we're seeing them in the afternoons too. Mama strolls through the grass, alert at all times, while the babies scamper and play around her.

All week we've been calling each other on the radio announcing "Doe and twins alert! Doe and twins alert!" (These handy little two-way radios are one of our best farm purchases ever; we've been using them every day for years.)

In other (much less cute) wildlife news. . .

18 more farm photos and the rest of the weekly recap below (hover your cursor over each image for a description). . .

Tail End of the Week: Get Your Friday Farm Fix #31

Welcome to the Friday Farm Fix, a sporadic series where I share a random sampling of what's been happening around the farm during the past week (sometimes actually on Friday). Just joining us? You'll find all the previous Friday Farm Fix posts here and here.

Beagle Bert still likes his chicken TV.

Wondering what was happening on the farm this time last year? Check out the Friday Farm Fix #15. (I miss not having all those baby chicks around this year!)

Happy first day of summer! We spent it recovering from cutting the third—and final—section of the hayfield. It's been sweltering this week, which is great for the hay but rough on the hayers.

It felt ironically appropriate to be lugging 148 square bales of hay from the field into the barn on the longest day of the year, since that itchy, exhausting, sweat-drenched job always makes you think that the day is never going to end, especially if you aren't as young as you used to be (which is why we broke down last year and bought a 25-year-old round baler to help out).

But it also feels really good to be done with haying for the year, and to have a nice crop of hay in the barn. The 330 square bales—which we're figuring as 300 since some of them are really light—along with the 26½ big round bales from the second cutting, plus 43 high-dollar square bales of alfalfa leftover from last year, should (knock on wool) be plenty enough for the coming winter and next spring, no matter what might happen.

In comparison, two years ago we put up just under 900 square bales (and had plenty of hay and more sheep), and last year we didn't put up any hay because of the horrendous drought.

This year's hay all looks pretty good, and it's such a relief to know that even if the fields burn up in a summer drought, or the cool season autumn grass doesn't grow, or we get extended periods of early snow on the ground, or there isn't enough rain and the grass gets a late start in spring, the donkeys and sheep will still have plenty to eat. You never know what Mother Nature is going to throw at us.

20 more farm photos and the rest of the weekly recap below (hover your cursor over each image for a description). . .

Tail End of the Week: Get Your Friday Farm Fix #30

Welcome to the Friday Farm Fix, a sporadic series where I share a random sampling of what's been happening around the farm during the past week (sometimes actually on Friday). Just joining us? You'll find all the previous Friday Farm Fix posts here and here.

Haying round two: cutting the far end of the hayfield.

Wondering what was happening on the farm this time last year? Check out the Friday Farm Fix #14.

I was going to just blow off this week's Friday Farm Fix—seeing as how it's already Sunday afternoon—but while sorting through the past week's photos (so many!) I realized there were some things I wanted to capture and remember, like all that really tall and thick hop clover in the front field. It feels like something out of The Wizard of Oz out there. Picking the first spring green garlic (so good chopped up in tuna salad). Fearless Jasper working on his junior stock dog badge.

And, most importantly, that we put up 26 big round bales of hay. Or, more correctly, that my hunky farmguy Joe put up 26 big round bales of hay. All I did was make lunch, deliver gallons of ice cold fresh mint sun tea and snacks, and drive the truck with the flatbed trailer back and forth when we brought the bales into the haybarn.

The only time I even touched any hay was to help move a bale that had rolled down a slope and onto one of the windrows of raked hay. Compared to the hot and sweaty effort required to bring in square bales, I practically felt guilty.

Putting up round bales is a whole new thing for us, and I'm hoping to write a separate post with more about it, but since I was also planning to put up a separate post about our first 2013 cutting of hay (in square bales) a few weeks ago and still haven't, I figured it might be now or never.

Something I did finally get around to posting this past week is an update on my garden blog about everything that's growing in my organic kitchen garden right now. We've been savoring the last of the beautiful lettuce, lots of green onions, and the first of the spring onions. Also on the menu this week:

29 more photos and the rest of the weekly recap below (hover your cursor over each image for a description). . .

Tail End of the Week: Get Your Friday Farm Fix #29

Welcome to the Friday Farm Fix, a sporadic series where I share a random sampling of what's been happening around the farm during the past week (mostly on Fridays). Just joining us? You'll find all the previous Friday Farm Fix posts here and here.

Lucky Buddy Bear cooling off in the creek.

Welcome to the Saturday evening edition of the Friday Farm Fix! The best news of the week is that last Thursday and Friday's five inches of rain started the wet weather creek running again on Saturday. A week later it's still gently flowing, thanks to another half inch of rain we got on Wednesday, most of which slammed down during a five minute period while I was out in the kitchen garden. I was afraid that if I went inside it would stop, and sure enough it did.

The biggest news of the week is that an enormous black walnut tree fell over in the barnyard during last Friday night's thunderstorm. Sometimes you don't realize just how tall these trees really are until they're horizontal.  Miraculously, nothing was smashed or hurt.

I laid awake half of Friday night worrying about the sheep while the storm raged outside, because we'd locked them in a section of the driveway adjacent to the barn without much protection from the elements. The next morning when I saw the fallen tree, I was so thankful I hadn't sloshed down there through the downpour at two a.m. to let the sheep into the barn and barnyard like I'd contemplated. And, like my hunky farmguy Joe assured me, they weathered the storm just fine where they were.

What else has been going on? Joe brewed a double batch of beer, and I made a double batch of these classic beef Cornish pasties (only this time I added an egg yolk to the crust); they're great to have on hand in the freezer for quick meals. I also bought and froze another four quarts of Amish strawberries to sweeten up our so-healthy-you-feel-virtuous-for-the-rest-of-the-day morning smoothies.

The weather has been hot and sticky (hello June!), so we've been drinking lots of fresh mint sun tea. So refreshing, so easy to make: just stuff a handful or two of fresh mint leaves in a glass jar, fill with water, set in the sun for a few hours, then strain and chill—or serve over lots of ice if you want some right away.

Lemon balm sun tea is wonderful too (you can read more about growing lemon balm along with my five other favorite herbs here). I love these half-gallon wide mouth canning jars and plastic screw-on caps for sun tea and so many other things.

26 more photos and the rest of the weekly recap below (hover your cursor over each image for a description). . .

Tail End of the Week: Get Your Friday Farm Fix #28

Welcome to the Friday Farm Fix, a sporadic series where I share a random sampling of what's been happening around the farm during the past week (mostly on Fridays). Just joining us? You'll find all the previous Friday Farm Fix posts here and here.

Tiny fawn hidden in the hayfield.

Whew, what a week. In five days we managed to accomplish three big tasks that had been looming over us: clipping poor matted Marta Beast, putting up the first batch of hay, and getting the sheep sheared. I just realized they all have to do with cutting.

Tuesday morning we were so wiped out that we both slept in until 10:30, and that was before the hardest work even started. Then the power was out all Tuesday afternoon (which also means no water pumped from the well), making us even more discombobulated.

Saturday we spent an unplanned four hours wallowing on the ground in the sheep/bunny barn with our new animal clippers and a (thankfully) drugged Marta, who is a 100+ pound mix of three thick-coated livestock guardian dog breeds: Great Pyrenees, Komondor, and Anatolian Shepherd. She's also a big mess. Marta could find a mud puddle in a desert, and unlike her Great Pyrenees partner, Daisy, she wasn't blessed with that amazing self-cleaning gene. She also hadn't been clipped in two years, so this was a real challenge.

The last time we had Marta professionally cut it took them five hours and cost a small fortune. The 80-mile round trip drive wasn't much fun either. So we decided to invest in a good electric clipper—which actually cost less than the last grooming session—and try tackling her ourselves.

I wasn't sure it (and we) would be up to the job, but this little Andis professional clipper outdid itself. If it can handle Marta, it can probably handle anything. She won't be winning any beauty contests (which is our fault, not the clipper's), but she looks much better than she did, and I'm sure she feels a lot better too. (Note for home dog groomers: blowing off the blade every several minutes with compressed air to clean and cool it and then oiling it made a huge difference. We're also going to buy a second blade that doesn't cut as close; parts of Marta are very pink!)

34 more photos and the rest of the weekly recap below (hover over each image with your cursor for a description). . .

Tail End of the Week: Get Your Friday Farm Fix #26

Welcome to the Friday Farm Fix, a sporadic series where I share a random sampling of what's been happening around the farm during the past week. Just joining us? You'll find all the previous Friday Farm Fix posts here and here.

Incoming!

I'm not quite sure where this past week went, so I'm not quite sure what all we did during it besides a whole bunch of laundry. I think we had some rain; I know we hoped for more.

We said farewell to the wet weather creek, which hasn't run this long in years. Hopefully we'll see it again before next spring.

There was lots of lawn mowing and weed whacking and mulching the raised kitchen garden vegetable beds with green gold (aka grass clippings).

I cooked a fresh ham roast and made a batch of Soft and Chewy Oatmeal Coconut Cookies and a batch of double chocolate chip cookies and baked three Four Hour Classic Parisian Daily Baguettes.

We hooked the 16-foot flatbed trailer up to the '86 pickup and spent 11 hours out buying lumber and groceries and supplies while the new cat, whose name at this point is still That Cat, went to the vet to get tutored (my mother is probably the only one who will get this decades-old Far Side cartoon reference).

We ate big freshly picked Swiss chard and kale chopped salads most nights and had macaroni and cheese with leftover ham three times (I may have made a little too much).

Oh yeah, there were two (!) big black snakes curled up together in one of the nesting boxes in Rooster Andy's coop. Black snakes LOVE fresh eggs. The slithery couple was put in a cooler (which wasn't easy) and relocated to another part of the farm, hopefully far enough away so they don't make their way back. I actually snapped a couple of pictures, but I didn't think you'd want to see them.

And I guess that's about all—or at least all I can remember. The rest is in pictures.

18 more photos below (hover your cursor over each image for a description). . .

Tuesday Dose of Cute: Hello, Spring. Hello, Creek!

Hello, spring. You're looking a little pale this year.

In the past five days we've had more snow than we had all winter. The biggest snowstorm of the year arrived late on the second day of spring, with big, soppy flakes that piled up to about five inches in no time. By the time I made it outside the next day with my camera (we're both down with the flu now) most of it had already melted, but it was so pretty while it lasted.

11 more photos and an update below (hover over each image for a description). . .