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

And the Rains Began to Fall...

Our chicken girls helping till up the compost

The garden is all planted now.  Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, squash, and more.

Dorian inspecting some of the new plants

Compare the mint and rosemary beds to previous pics, they were so little!

We have been eating kale and broccoili for weeks!

Memaw can't eat with you in the hay box

One of our beautiful heads of Romaine lettuce

The herb bed has gone CRAZY!!!

This is Cuban Beef.  It is really interesting with potatoes, raisins, green olives, and tomato sauce, among other things;)

Broccoili leaves and kale stir fryed.  Delicious!

Turkey and veggies pizza and 'Olive Garden' salad

This is a delicious potato soup that we ate in the Sinai, Egypt.  Simple, but wonderful!

Ground turkey greek pita and roasted brussel sprouts.

Our first double yoke egg from the new chicken girls.

We helped load and watched the bucklings ride away yesterday.  Although I know they are going to a great farm in the mountains, I still miss them today.  We planted the garden for three hours in the rain.  The boys really stepped up to the plate.  Dorian and Isaac took turns planting rows of vegetables and I wish we could have gotten pictures of us when we were done!  Covered head to toe in red mud - that was us!  Tomorrow we go to the airport to pick up our first WWOOFer.  She will be here for a few weeks helping us build the new goat barn, chicken coop, and hopefully a new guest cottage for the back yard.  We will also be beefing up the Thankful Goat product line for the Pop Ferguson festival that will happen on June 9th.  Downtown jazz festival in Lenoir, NC  Come out and see us if you can.  There will be some great Jazz groups and individuals from all over the country performing live right here!

Sun, Stars, and Hose Water

Here it is! My new Nutramill 5000 LOL! I don't think it's actually a 5000 but man can it grind up some wheat berries:) We are eating fresh bread everyday thanks to this baby!

Bread making couldn't be more simple and easy. Water, flour, yeast, salt, and brown sugar.

Those glowing little baby goats...I could just eat them up!

Rosemary and mint beds. We should have plenty for the year.

Four kinds of lettuce for fresh salads every night of the week.

The herb bed sharing it's home with 18 asparagus plants. Looking forward to pesto, bread dip, and fresh made sausage with the sage.

Kale and broccoili did well together. The broccoili shades the kale so it won't bolt, and we are eating the larger leave on the broccoili so the kale keeps growning and the broccoili puts more nutrients into making the spears and not the leaves.

So we are off and running into this big and beautiful summer. The sun has been out every day for over a week. The goats are enjoying evenings looking at the stars. And the hose water never tasted better, just ask the ducks! Everything has greened up on the farm and looks amazing again. It's a work in progress, always. But I would rather have a work in progress than lawn...who can eat lawn??? So we have a bigger garden, more raised beds and now that I met Clarence we will get more boards to have even more raised beds;) Oh and a new goat barn, chicken coop, outdoor shower, and guest lodge. Hmmm...let's see how far we can go with this sustainablility thing:) I'm so excited too for the building of a cob oven this summer. I can bake pizzas and bread in no time flat in that little number!