Harvested for you, for Saturday: Lots of sweet potatoes, sweet potato greens, bunched arugula, pumpkin, seasoning peppers, garlic chives, parsley, rosemary, lemongrass, papaya, a few dragonfruit. 

From our partner farmers we have beautiful local mild goat cheese from Fiddlewood Farm and hopefully we will also have avocados from Tita!

The number one problem for livestock farmers on St. Croix is feral dog attacks. Even dogs as small as 10 to 30 pounds can wreak havoc, gravely stress and injure, and even kill a turkey, chicken, sheep or goat. Early Thursday morning a pack of three small dogs slipped through a woven-wire fence into the paddock where our rams were grazing. The dogs inflicted deep, painful, severe bite wounds on the face, neck and legs of one of the rams, who has lost a lot of blood and has been in a state of shock. We treated him with medication and palliative care and further increased the fence security for the other rams. So far we have been unable to trap the dogs responsible and have had three stressful sleepless nights protecting our livestock as the pack continues to roam widely across and around the four farms in this area. 

All this to say, NEVER abandon a dog or cat.  Please instead find them a responsible home or release them to the animal shelter. It is kinder to ALL animals to do so. Stray animals often injure and kill other wild and domestic animals, only compounding the misery from overpopulation. It’s sadly true that the shelter sometimes has to euthanize unadopted animals, but by releasing animals into the ‘wild’ instead of bringing them to the shelter, it is much less likely that they will ever be adopted (they can become untame-able and can contract heartworm, injuries other health issues) and in the meantime they may be hurting or killing yet more animals, acquiring and spreading disease or injury, or even breeding. 

Do not let pet animals roam off your property – keep them indoors, on a leash, or use a secure fence and train your pets to respect it. Never assume that your ‘gentle beloved house pet would never’ wander quite far, join with other animals, and act instinctively and violently when it is loose away from you and in the presence of prey animals such as poultry or sheep. A pet animal caught injuring livestock may be fatally injured and the pet owner held liable for damages. Most pet owners would be quite surprised and shocked to see the instinctive behaviors their pet is readily capable of.

Please, support the St. Croix Animal Welfare Center. We thank the staff there and all the other animal lovers on St. Croix who work hard to recover feral dogs and cats from the bush or the streets, and find them homes.