Fall, Frankenstorm, and 400 bars of soap!

Mitzi teaching Dorian to knit

Athena loaded up and ready to go breed.  Her favorite day of the year.  Gooooooooood!!!

Shaggy Rogers made his appearance for Halloween.  Like totally radically man!!!

The collards were enormous this year!  This was a month ago and now you can't even walk through the rows.

We grilled out teriyaki steak and chicken kababs.  With the sauce and added fresh basil.

Soap in the boxes wet and ready to process overnight and below bars that are waiting to be cut.

Mitzi was a lovely addition to our farm.  She embraced milking and below is touring Ripshin Dairy Goat Farm, a favorite with all the wwoofers.

Mitzi and I selling product at the Molasses Festival.  It was a COLD morning, but turned out to be a beautiful day.

We got home to find Marilyn milking.  You remember Marilyn, she spent August with us and came back for part two.  This is us after the festival enjoying Octoberfest:)

Marilyn and Mitzi giving us a concert that evening.

Then it was off to my cousin's farm for some baby goat love!

That adorable little Sarah won everyone's heart.

First they tried their hand at milking a pygmy, and then helped bring in the winter hay harvest.

Then everyone got to ride the horses

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This is always a crowd pleaser.  BBQ chicken pizza with toasted pine nuts and carmelized onions.

Marilyn bring in the haul.  Collards, Kale, and Rosemary below.

My husband said if there's one thing he loves is a collard green wrapped around a pork chop and rice Polynesian style.  I'll be making these again.

Which one of you chickens let that quail in our coop???

Me taping up the floor on the wwoofer cottage.  We insulated under the floor so it would hold in heat and cold.

The goat girls were loving the new barn front.  Now all we have to do to finish is install the door.

After a hard day of work, smores by the fire make it all better:)

Marilyn played us a tune.

Marilyn stinging hot peppers.

A surprise visit from some dear friends.  Kearsie is a friend from college and she brought her girls to learn about farm life.

We had fun eating out at our favorite Chinese buffet.

One of the things every wwoofer has wanted to do is go shoot.

Isaac having his turn

Dorian is an ace!

Marilyn with the AK

The firing range.  Below is a friend of ours who make custom knives.  Let me know if you are interested in purchasing one.  They are awesome!

Mystery Inc. at the Lenoir Halloween Costume Contest

The kids enjoying some Mexican night

Fred with the Scooby Gang

Velma finding clues

Scooby kicking back for a photo op

Daphne getting ready to get her groove on

Mitzi came back and made us Sweet Potato "Frankenmuffins"  It was a purple sweet potato and it turned green in the cooking process

Dorian after his bar fight LOL!  He got it painted and the lady did an awesome job!

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