our homestead: good things from my week

1. Bienenfreund flowers in full bloom. Seeds from Uprising Seeds of Bellingham, WA.
2. Collecting German Chamomile flowers for winter sleepy tea. Seeds from Uprising Seeds.
3. My mystery duckling. Hatched between clutches.
4. Nesting in my palm.
5. Visiting my parents, Flying Tomato Farm, at the Thursday Snohomish Farmers Market.
6. The "Uglies".
7. Flying Tomato Farm offerings.
8. My niece, Sofie, searching for flowers under an old apple tree.
9. This is what summer is all about.
10. Our homegrown raspberries.
11. Making berry soup with Sofie using raspberries and pie cherries from our backyard.
12. The first of our tomatoes: a Pink Brandywine/Black Prince cross.
13. My tomato jungle.
14. Sunflowers growing taller and taller in front of the bird coop.
15. Spyder Munggins in "outer space".
16. Ghosty Cupcakes taking a front porch snooze.
17. Me and my loyal sheppy, Banjo.

our homestead: a winter walk on the slough

I took my boys, Oswald and Banjo, out for a dusky walk on the slough today. As I headed down a ridge and looked below, I noticed my woodcutter neighbor now has three small brown pigs in a pen made of wood pallets. These pigs are replacing the giant pig that used to lounge in this pen. As I continued on, another neighbor's cattle (most of them are black but there are a few shaggy long-horned ones) were out grazing by the road, moo-ing at us as we passed. Me and the pups walked all the way to the river, to have our path crossed overhead by a triangle of swans, followed by my neighbor driving down the road on his red tractor.  He was heading over to feed the cows and they all came and swarmed him as soon as he entered the gate to the field. Oswald, Banjo and I relaxed on the river bank for a little while, watching the water slowly move past. We always look for otters peaking up when we come down here...saw two last time. Didn't see any today though.