Island Hopping and our Feast

We've been so busy relaxing with Nathan's parents and grandmother that I haven't had a chance to update the blog! They got here last Wednesday and my parents and sister arrived on Friday for a big belated thanksgiving feast. 

Bright green home grown beans and brussels sprouts - boiling before getting put into this recipe:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/brussels-sprouts-gratin-recipe/index.html

Yum.

My thanksgiving plate. I have a lot of practice at piling my thanksgiving plate for a maximum 1st helping...but I think this one took the cake. Turkey was from Nathan's work, yams, potatoes and buns were from the supermarket and pretty much everything else was grown on the farm.

After a day of recovery from stuffing ourselves, we left for a trip to the San Juan islands. On the ferry, I kept saying how I really wanted to see a fox for the first time....and look who appeared within the first half hour!

Then I said that I wanted to see a grey fox...and look who was posing in the leaves by the road:

The million dollars and orca sightings that I hoped for next didn't appear...but this unimpressed baby alpaca did.

Possibly unimpressed because his wool went towards this:

Some more fall in the San Juans:

360 degree ipad photos:

Now we're back on the farm for some more fall sun. 

Relaxing with the chickens:

Saul is growing into a gorgeous rooster.

SoZH is huge! He takes after his dad.

Zebra Head got stepped on accidentally by one of the goats when I was scaring them away from the chicken food. He wasn't putting any weight on his leg at first and we were carrying him in and out of the coop. Now he's getting around well but still limping. It seems to be his foot that's injured but it's hard to tell. Hopefully it will keep healing.

Garlic is all planted:

Magpie hanging out on my car. I decided to move it off the farm before the goats hopped up on the roof.

We made the tough decision a few weeks ago to bring Ewean in to be slaughtered. After treating her feet diligently (and since we've had her!), she started limping again on a different foot than the two that had already had issues. We checked her again and another hoof was infected...she seems to be an animal that is chronically susceptible to foot problems and we were worried that she'd continually infect the other sheep. It was hard to do since I'd let myself get a bit attached to her, but we brought her to the butcher this morning. Hard lesson learned to be very careful where you purchase livestock from!