Ready, Set, Go Like Hell

Soaps and toiletries side. First market of the year in May.

Well, June is turning out to be a busy month. I started with the Downtown Walla Walla Farmers market on Saturdays in May. Then on the 4th of June I added the Milton-Freewater afternoon market on Wednesdays and the twilight market on 2nd Street in Walla Walla on Thursdays. Sales have been great. But doing three markets a week is a lot harder than doing two. Especially when my booth at the Walla Walla Thursday market was on the sunny side of the street, on heated black asphalt until the sun dips behind the buildings at about 6:00 pm.

We’re working hard to streamline the set-up for all the soaps, so that we don’t have to unbox and rebox 20+ kinds of soap plus lotions, lip balms etc. at every market. But three markets, making product for three markets, keeping up with planting and weeding and picking and packaging…well, its made my picture taking and blog posting a little less frequent than I would like. So, here’s an assortment of goings on from the last few weeks.

Produce, plants and eggs side.

June 5th, 5:58 pm. first Thursday market, and the sun finally dips behind the building and there is blessed shade.

Radishes, a few weeks ago.

Radishes a few days ago. This variety is called Cheriette. It holds REALLY well for a radish. Got big and didn’t bolt.

Lettuce, spinach, kale, arugula.

Chickens have been producing well. Still have some old girls in the flock who aren’t laying, but I don’t know which ones, lol. So for now, everyone stays.

This is the cuckoo maran who went broody but only hatched out one chick, so I bought her two more from the feed store to raise. This was a few weeks ago. She’s in between these two pieces of fence by her own choice, because its a safe place to take a load off. Everyone is doing well, and now a second bird has three little ones as well.

The 17 bunny babies (this is a shot of one of the two batches) born mid April are all growing fast and doing great. They appreciate this time of year, when they get the culled greens on market days. Interested in starting your own rabbitry? Email me. They will be ready to separate in a week or so.

A custom order of guest soaps for a local B&B, finished and delivered. Total of 68 bars of soap, all weighing in at just over an ounce. This shot was taken just after they were cut. They DID get cleaned up before they were delivered, lol.

Lastly, Fiona and her daughter Apple went back to the farm where I originally purchased Fiona. The original owner came down with a friend and loaded them into the back of a pickup and took them back at my request. The goats (who tested every fence weakness every day) got into the chicken poultry yard and ate every leaf off of the two new apricot trees that were doing so well. It was the final straw. This was NOT their first offense. You can have goats, or you can have landscape, but if you have both, you better not have landscape you care about, because eventually, the goats will eat it. We still have Fawn, who is the friendliest of the three and tends to get into less trouble. Jury is still out on her future. We originally got the goats for weed control. The weeds are pretty much under control, and we’ve learned that our sheep have a pretty good appetite for weeds themselves.