On Tuesday I was very busy. I had dehydrators to unload, laundry to finish, peppers to prep for the dehydrators, dehydrator trays and liners to wash up, farm chores to do, house plants to fertilize, and onions to put in the root cellar.
My helper friend was here and he helped me get several of these jobs done. He found one of my pumpkins in the compost pile had ripened.
When he left, I picked a second huge bowl of dandelions from the front pasture and got them into the dehydrator.
I had just sat down with a bowl of popcorn and an Agatha Christie book when this cutie appeared. This is Hazel, age 4½, and the closest thing I will probably have to a grandchild. In this photo, she has a sunflower hobby horse she made.
I had not seen her or her mom since before this covid mess started and it was such a delight to see how much she had grown. She had also gotten her long curls cut.
She and her mom are taking 6 of these pullets and 6 of the older layers, and Hazel wanted to see them. We are looking for eggs here, and I have found 1. I hadn’t put my hat on to come out to the chickens. I’ve long since learned that’s how they identify me. Without my hat, the Barred with the red band wasn’t sure who to follow around… Plus there was this zippy little person zooming around…
They stayed for a couple hours, harvesting vegs and herbs and flowers. Her mom got ashwagandha, chamomile, and several other herbs and a whole bunch of kale.
Hazel harvested most of the ripe cherry tomatoes. Then I told her she could pick any flowers she wanted. She was completely enamored with snapdragons, because they could talk. Once she’d collected some of every color, she went around trying to get other flowers to talk. She found some turtlehead, but they wouldn’t talk. I said turtles don’t talk…
She ended up with half of a small bag full of tomatoes and flowers.
It was a magical visit, after so long, and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. She’s gotten so big I can’t pick her up and swing her around like I used to. But we managed to play anyways.
Wednesday my intern will be here and we will be tackling the Big garden. There’s a lot to harvest and clean up out there.