Summer Sneaking up

The first Farmer's Market was yesterday, and despite the rainy weather we've been having, it was a beautiful and relaxed morning to see old friends and meet new ones.

The farm crew in sleepy Cedarville.

An early morning walk through the wet grass to the farm reveals rows of cabbage and broccoli that will be ready to pick in just a few weeks, lush potato plants working away at making little spuds of all kinds, and of course, weeds. New watering systems, the herb and flower gardens, and the future Lake City Harvest Festival pumpkin patch are making themselves at home here.

A beautiful cabbage.

Our newest WWOOFers, Claire and Chris, are fitting in beautifully, and somehow their focus and determination have inspired everyone to be just a little more creative. Good things are happening on the farm. Next Sunday we'll be sponsoring a potluck celebration of community and abundance on the first day of summer, and not too long after that, we'll open the U-Pick for the season - some time between the 4th of July and the middle of the month. We'll see how everything is growing. For now, we are starting to get delicious greens and radishes for the people who live here, and the cloudy mornings will soon give way to bright sunny days in the garden. There's so much work to be done and so much to be learned and discovered.

Grown With Love.

Hellos and Goodbyes

The farm looks more farmy every day, and we're saying hello to new squash seedlings, corn starts, and tomatoes each morning. The magic is beginning! Our new WWOOFers, Claire and Chris, have arrived and made themselves at home and invaluable. What an amazing thing it is to have such interesting, kind, capable people coming to stay with us and help us create the farm.

This week we also bid a fond farewell to Kaitlin, our improvisational hip hop opera-singing expert chef WWOOFer. Oh Kaitlin, we are lucky to have had you visit! Thank you for your creativity and positive energy!
I’ve seen beautiful in many places. How surprised was I by this valley; it smuggled me away for two lucky weeks. And aren’t you lucky to inhabit that corner of paradise? I think I might happily enslave myself to the dirt, it be porous enough to absorb my meditations, if my legs were not so anxious, for whatever foolish reason, to ramble more dishonest terrain. Now my knees ache from the unforgiving asphalt. Locavore Farms is a gift; I played in the dirt and I toiled too, in that soil. I left begrudgingly. At the mercy of an artlessly crafted metaphor, I do truthfully say that my personal convictions are also sowed thanks to that cozy, happy, kind little experience. May I spare you further wilted tropes by simply saying thank you to Laurie Wayne and other hospitable Bidwellians. You did bid me well and I hope my legs ramble your direction again.

A Note from WWOOFer Rose

Well, I’m sitting in the muggy Medford Greyhound Station next to a sweaty bearded man who keeps coughing on me, and all I can think about is how much I would give to be back in WWOOFer Hollow right now.




Locavore Farms is Paradise on a stick. Dipped in chocolate. With chopped peanuts on top. And some of Kaitlin’s orgasmically good cinnamon ice cream on the side. But all I have right now are the last of the Skittles that I bought with the very last dredges of my money. (Well, I have 3 cents left. Maybe I’ll ask the sweaty man if he wants a penny for his thoughts. Or maybe not.)

What can I say in my final farewell? I am honored to bear the title “First LJP WWOOFer of 2009”, because technically Laurie picked me up an hour and a half before Amanda :) Unfortunately I am also “First LJP WWOOFer to Leave in 2009”. So it goes.

I promised Laurie I’d throw in some iambic pentameter, so here it is. They’ll rhyme too, just for fun:


Philip, your music was simply superb
You always make me laugh and go “kaplurb!”
Kaitlin, perfessional photographer,
Or, no, should I say photograWWOOFer?
Amazingly generous Amanda
Nothing rhymes with you except “a panda”
Laurie, oh Laurie, you are the best… est
Sharing your home and your food and your wine and your hammocks and your time and your cots and your sunscreen and your shirts and your computers and your movies and your proctologist gloves and your books and your knowledge.

I’m soosososososososososososo riDICulously glad I was able to come to Ft. Bidwell, meet so many awesome people, and get my first taste of “farm livin”. After 2 and a half weeks at Locavore Farms, I do believe my City Girl feet have been toughened up a bit. (Thanks for pointing that out to me, Gerry. I’ll keep working on it.)



I’m sending happy thoughts to the plantlets and the peeps!!!

Love you all,

Rose

Farmin' Hard

The weeks since the last post have flown by. Our wonderful WWOOFers have arrived - Rose, Philip, Amanda and Kaitlin, our drip irrigation system is in and functioning (though the pump threatens to quit working every single day), and life at the farm has settled into a steady rhythm of early mornings, hard work, mid day naps, and in the evening there may be music, meals, visits from friends, or more farming. The bright sun and warm temperatures are accompanied by mosquitoes, who attack some of us more than others, and there are hardly any goldfinches any more at the bird feeder. The Sand Hill Cranes have moves along as have the Canada Geese, and a white egret was spotted at the pond in th last few days. The roses in front of the Hornet's Nest are starting to bloom, as have the irises planted by Montez Bucher in the 60's (we think). The first batch of chickens have their feathers and look like official chickens. They spend each night outside - they are sweet and love people. The little peepletons - Reddy, Spot, Arrow, Rocket, Blackie, Buffy, Buffy, Buffy, and Buffy - are getting their tiny feathers and gradually getting used to the 20 seconds of affectionate human touch which is administered to them twice each day.

Our little acre of paradise is coming along nicely - the rocks and weeds who have had complete dominion are being moved out and aside for squash and cabbage and eggplant. The first block of corn goes in today, and the beans will probably get planted today too. Though we may still get a sold snap, it's looking like warm days with just a suggestion of thunderstorms in the afternoon as far as the forecast goes. There's still an awful lot to do to prepare for the season, but it's a wonderful time to be busy on the farm.

Bright Days

The days of rain and clouds have given way to sunny bright spring days, perfect for planting and even more importantly, for growing! The creek water has made it up to the field, the onions have been planted, the tomatoes are stretching out their necks (they really want to be in the ground!). New chickens, and the chickens who will now probably be called "the old chickens" even though they are only a month or so old, lend an air of serenity and humor to the farm. This is a delicate time in Surprise Valley for gardeners and farmers. The daytime temperatures are in the 70's and at night it barely freezes, but conventional wisdom says it's going to turn cold again before it turns warm for good. When do we risk our tender seedlings to the elements? Maybe not quite yet. The first WWOOFers will be arriving in less than a week, and if the weather holds out, we'll be planting like crazy. In the meantime, the Hornet's Nest is experiencing its last moments of quiet before months of activity and good times begin.

There's so much to be done on the farm - planting, laying the irrigation, making WWOOFer Hollow cozy and comfy, designing the herb and flower gardens, digging, weeding, gazing at the sky, teaching and learning, meeting our new friends and customers, having parties. For now we're provisioning up and hoping for the best with every expectation that our summer will be full of love, joy, peace, and veggies.

Older Chickens, meet your new friends! Hope they are as nice as you!

Localer and Localer

The amount of farm work seems to grow right along with the weeds, er, cover crops, but the days are growing longer and warmer which makes the world seem like a giant playground with a million toys called things like "pump" and "dirt" and "fence". The goldfinches (American and Lesser) have discovered the bird feeders, and the lovely song of the red wing blackbirds has (temporarily, we hope) taken the over robins' place as most common evening bird sound. The morning bird sound crown still belongs to the sand hill cranes by the creek and the pond.

A lot of work and talk (and soon, money) is going into a new irrigation scheme this year. It will be water-wise, crop-friendly, and should form the basis for an almost completely-passive irrigation system in the future. We are lucky to have some great advisors in the irrigation field (hardly any pun intended), and some wonderful WWOOFers coming in just a few weeks to help create what will be beautiful gardens on the property, and who knows what else they will come up with!

Today at lunch was the first double-year locavore-ish meal ever -- pasta with sofrito made from last year's onions, peppers, and tomatoes, and a delicious spicy herb salad made from clippings from the greenhouse. We are so lucky.

The robins have selected their nests for the year and are singing outside the window - is it a song of hope for the new lives that will hatch from their beautiful blue eggs? More chicken chicks are arriving in just a couple of days, and then a few days after that. Just as new life comes to the farm, some lives must end, and this week we said goodbye to our dear farm dog, a stout and somewhat curmudgeonly terrier who spent 18 years on this earth bringing laughter to humans and vengeance to mice. He has gone from chasing sticks into the creek to swimming back into the river of life, sent along his way by many loving friends.

Beginnings, Beginnings

It's funny to think about how much of the farming year is "beginning". There's planning to do, and more planning, and scheming, and dreaming, ordering seed, and building the soil, and starting seeds and more. This has been going on for months, and it will go on for at least another month before the first bed is planted. Appreciating and being present with work that is focused on the future is a schizophrenic experience. This is a sweet and quiet time on the farm and it's easy to be alone. This morning the wet snow fell outside the window and the juniper burned fragrantly in the stove, keeping the chicks warm in their cardboard box home. Things seem to move slowly, but like the first big hill on a roller coaster, there's the anticipation that at some point the ride is going to get wild. The chicks, just a week old, have started sprouting feathers. The transition from peep to hen is magical, fast and slow at the same time.


We've proposed our first CSA this year. It looks like it's going to be quite doable. The farmers' markets meetings have started, and we're nearing the top of that roller coaster hill. There's going to be a lot of creativity and hard work around this summer, and this is what the beginning of it looks like.