Thursday, September 27, 2012

A WWOOFER Summer

 This is a really long post, because it was a really long summer.  But man, was it a good one!  Here are  some pictures highlighting what we did and who we did it with.
 Tomato plants going crazy before we got them staked up.
 Rosemary and mint at their peak
 Gobs of zucchini!
 More of the beautiful tomato plants
 Raised beds and goats.
 Herb bed with lots of asparagus
 Some tasty treats, roasted rabbit, tomato basil mozzarella salad and eggplant salad

 The new goat barn and chicken coop.  Compliments of me and Zak
 Beautiful Black Eyed Susans
 Finally got the mass of tomato plants staked up
 Our front porch flowers and yard
 We had over 300 lbs of tomatoes this year!
 Zucchinis were crazy!!!  Every week we have gotten at least 6 eggplants, I have 5 gallons of jalapenos on my bar right now!
 Zucchini for Zucchini Bread
 Baby goats and goaty products.  It's all goooooooooood!!!
 Zak and the girls with their new barn.  Zak's goooooooooood too:)
 Power tools, dude, this is better than the Marines!
 Dorian with chickens and my new English Lop doe, Precious
 The broccoli was manic!
 I bought Steve a new toy.
 Isaac won the blackberry eating contest at the Blackberry Festival in Lenoir, and a fat check for $50!
 Dorian's Netherland Dwarf had babies again
 We pickled good things and ate good lettuce.
 Baby goats all aglow!
 This was our garden in the beginning of Spring...looks sad without the 6 foot tomato plants!
 We started grinding our own wheat and Zak made a new friend
 Many hands helped get the goat mammas in their new digs.  Just call us Habitat for Herbavoires!
 Giant tomato! 
 Ariel and Marilyn prove they can hold their on with world domination!
I kept the food coming while they played board games all day.  These are bacony jalapeno poppers.
Isaac helping out with zucchini prep

 There's only two things that money can't buy, and that's true love and homegrown tomatoes!
Chinese chicken and rice casserole
 I learned how to make mozzarella with sun dried tomato and fresh basil.  THE BOMB!!!
 Putting the chicken coop together
Cheve, cheve, cheve
 Marilyn and Ariel helping out at the Waldensian Festival in Valdese.
 The Pop Ferguson Blues Party at our house
 Lynn and Mary Lou:  Working out and staying cool
 Working the summer festivals:  Hot, exhausting, but so much fun to meet new people.
 More of the Pop Ferguson Blues party in our yard
 Steve is a kid gatherer.  Everywhere he goes kids are just attracted to him
 Wanda and Marilyn enjoying the dessert table
 And the smores making begins
 The gals whooping it up on the porch
 Pop singin the blues in the background
 Smores late into the night
 I had a gallery showing at the Caldwell Arts Council
 Five photography artists put on shoot
 Opening reception night
 I got to finally meet Warren Daniel, our Congressman
 With Mayor Joe  and some other guests
 More board games, these people are fiends!
 We told them it was Marilyn and Ariel's birthdays!

 The girls and Isaac at Carowinds Amusement park
 Woo Hoo fun day!
 Wwoofers, Myles and Tami enjoying a picnic with us in the mountains.  We treat our wwoofers right:)
 Marilyn working a festival with me
 Tomato sauce...it's what you do when you have 10 gallons of tomatoes:)
 Steve even taught Marilyn how to taxiderm a rabbit pelt

 Fun times
 Enjoying the quilt and shady trees:)
 Hiking at the viaduct
 Marilyn teaching Tami and Myles how to milk
 Beautiful eggplants
 It's starting to look like breakfast
 and here it is...
 Tami helping at the afternoon farmer's market
 Myles sampling out lotion
 We visited the bakery from the hunger games.  It's just right now the road from us.  This is Isaac, the boy with the bread!
 Here's Dorian with the bread
 Marilyn, she didn't have any bread:)
 This is Katniss's house
 The Seam, yes I know, but it is beautiful scenery...living in the seam ain't easy;)
 This is the dam that Katniss crosses in the beginning of the movie
 Marilyn learning to use big power tools
 Releasing the rubber ducks at the Fiddler's Convention
 Dorian headed out on the trail
 We took time out from farming to visit Washington DC
 We got a temporary new pet from the yard.  A baby black snake
 Dorian on Dress Like a Pirate Day
Joao and Dannie our surprise wwoofers.  They could only stay a few days, but we had a blast