Walking by Willowbrook ~

The Cascade Trail travels adjacent Willowbrook Manor. Through the tall grass, willows and evergreens you can catch a peek.

Mom and Me ~

For those of you who are new to The Willowbrook Word, I’m Terry, owner and caretaker of Willowbrook Manor English Teahouse and Farm Stay. My mother, author Liz Adair, lives here as well. (The picture above is us coming home from filming for Red Falcon Road.) Mom has her own corner of this newsletter. We always have a giveaway, so make sure to read to the end.

What’s New at Willowbrook?

We hatched a plan! Mom and I talked about the cost of eggs and decided to add one more thing to managing the farm. Fourteen little chicks are now growing under Mom’s watchful care.

This was that day they graduated from the cardboard Amazon box to the puppy pen. The transition took a bit of doing as you can see with the shavings all over the place. Squidge sleeps beside them, and I wonder if the chicks are going to think she is their mama.

Moving the Coop ~

We found a chicken coop for free. It just needed to be moved, so I called my kids for help and let Jim know he was in for a great adventure! It was a rainy day, but that added to the magic of this team-building family time as we hefted this prize on to our farm trailer.

Meet the Builder ~

It was delightful to meet Susie and learn the story behind this darling chicken coop. It began when she found four kitchen cupboard doors at a garage sale. She brought them home and told her husband they would be great doors for laying boxes in a chicken coop. With that she began building. The project became her grief-therapy as she had just lost her father.

Susie’s mom came to live with her, and together they raised chickens. They put the names of each chicken on a sign that hung on the outside of this precious little chicken coop. That was ten years ago. Her mom has since passed, and Susie and her husband will soon be moving out of state. So the chicken coop had to go.

When I shared with her that my mother now lives with me after my fathers passing and that we have taken to raising chickens, Suzie and I both knew that this chicken coop was meant to come to Willowbrook Manor.

If you come for Tea and Tulips, most likely you will see the coop still on the trailer. The ground is too soggy to place it in the orchard, where it will reside. Mom wants to put a bench by the chicken run, so guests can watch the chickens. I think the bench is more for her, though. She has grown accustomed to their company.

Getting Things Ready!

My ‘minions,’ as I affectionately call them, have been helping me get things tidied up for Tea and Tulips which begins the first weekend in April.

The tulips I planted last fall are promising to be a beautiful display of color for guests who come from all over to visit the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival and to come to Tea and Tulips at Willowbrook Manor.

Toasting In the Tulip Festival ~

The opening ceremony for the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival was a wonderful event. We all raised a glass to toast in the 2025 Tulip Festival. There are five farms with fields of tulips for visitors to enjoy. For information about the tulip farms click HERE.

Book a Table for Tea and Tulips ~

We have a few tables left for Saturday sessions of Tea and Tulips. If you want a less-crowded tulip experience, I would suggest a Friday visit to the tulip farms, followed by afternoon tea at Willowbrook Manor. (Please note you will need to make two different reservations, one for the tulip farm you plan to tour and one for Willowbrook Manor.) Traffic is heavy during the Tulip Festival, so I suggest putting on a Jane Austin audiobook to make the ride pleasant and set the mood for tea in the country. Click HERE to book Tea and Tulips.

Only Fridays Available for Mothers Tea ~

Our Saturday sessions of Mothers Tea are sold out but there is still room for you to come for English Tea on the Friday before Mothers Day. Click HERE to book your table for Mothers Tea.

Red Falcon Road ~

The English Thyme Room has been transformed into a claymation studio, complete with a fabric topographical map of Skagit Valley. Michaun is my videographer and is doing a fabulous job creating the stop animation that will make the intro for our YouTube channel Red Falcon Road absolutely adorable. We are having a great time crafting vignettes that showcase the places to shop, eat and sleep in Skagit Valley. Click HERE for more information.

Time for Liz ~

This is where I turn the pen over to my mom, author Liz Adair.

Liz Sez:

Terry was ten when we bought our first five-acre farm. The house was only 1100 square feet, but it had four outbuildings: two barns, a garage, and best of all, a spacious chicken coop. We plunged into rural life with abandon, and I soon had a small flock of chickens.

We let them out of the pen during the day to range free. One of them, a Rhode Island red, hung around the house, waiting for the chance to sneak in when the back door was ajar. Many times, I came home to find her lurking in the bathroom. The room was close to the back exit, and getting her out entailed lots of squawking and flapping—mostly on her part, but I did some flapping too.

Our first year as farmers we bought twenty-five day-old chicks and raised them for meat birds. That went so well that we decided we’d get a hundred the next year. We put that plan into action, and when it came time to process them for the freezer, we calendared out ten chickens each summer day.

Our crew comprised of me and three pre-teens. Butchering poultry is very labor intensive—besides being dirty, smelly, bloody, and gross. At the end of the sixth day I was done, but we still had forty chickens in the barn.

“Let’s do them all tomorrow, and get it over with,” I said. “How bad can it be?”

It was pretty bad. I was young and vigorous, but that day just about did me in. The catch-and-kill team was so efficient that they had dispatched the forty birds before I had the first five plucked. There was no way I could have changed my mind halfway.

We started early in the morning and worked until dark, which is after ten o’clock in the Pacific Northwest summertime.

It was a month before I could even think about cooking a chicken, and we never again raised fryers. But that bloody, smelly, unending summer day is now part of family lore.

-Liz

Now back to Terry

Times have changed, and neither Mom or I can fathom eating these little chicks we are raising now. Egg-layers is what they are to be. Though there are a few roosters in the mix…

Now for the giveaway!

This Month’s Winners ~

Our five winners of magnets with Addy’s art are:

• Mary H from Ferndale WA
• Dan R from North Attleborough MA
• Sue W from Sedro Woolley WA
• Dianne K from Sydney Australia
• Elizabeth from Bellevue WA

This Month’s Giveaway ~

Feeling Good Flower Tea is a favorite of Willowbrook’s tea guests. With chamomile, rose petals, orange peel, oat straw, lemon balm, lavender, and stevia, it makes a feel-good herbal tincture to enjoy, especially this time of year. I will be giving away a bag of tea to four winners. Enter for the drawing HERE. Don’t forget to include a little note to let Mom and me know how you are doing. We enjoy hearing from you.

That’s All For This Month ~

A special thank you if you have read to the end. I’m grateful for your support of my newsletter.
Sending lots-n-lots-a luv.
-t

P.S. Here are a couple more upcoming events at Willowbrook Manor. Click on each picture for more information.