Before we went out trick-or-treating we milked the goats.
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Sunday, October 31, 2010
Work day at Gene's
Several of the Love Apple Farm workers and I went to Gene Lester's today to help spread wood chips, fertilize, and stake apple trees. We got a taste tour of the citrus orchard after all our hard work. Aahhhhh refreshing!
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Saturday, October 30, 2010
Small farm dinner this week
All the interns and apprentices were at a "Young Farmer Mixer" at Pie Ranch. We missed you guys! This week's farm dinner was small but fun as we celebrated I's birthday.
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Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
First fire of the year
With a couple days of rain it's been getting a bit chilly (we haven't turned our thermostat on yet for the winter), so we fired up our house's wood stove and J&E and I ate having some cozy time sittin' by the fire.
The misty moisty view from our front door
The rainy season has started in earnest. Rain all night and through the morning! We will probably have to cancel the work party at Gene Lester's citrus orchard today. We were planning on doing a fertilizer application and staking of the apple trees. Next weekend! The red building here is the Love Apple Farm office. Whenever it's misty like this I am reminded of a folk song: One misty moisty morning
When cloudy was the weather
I came upon an old man
He was clothe-ed all in leather
With
And wool upon his skin
Saying, "How d'ya do," and,"how d'ya do," and "how d'ya do," again.
When cloudy was the weather
I came upon an old man
He was clothe-ed all in leather
With
And wool upon his skin
Saying, "How d'ya do," and,"how d'ya do," and "how d'ya do," again.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Horse-drawn plow at wilder ranch
These horses are so big! The entire little field was plowed in about 5 minutes.
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Dancing wooden puppets
The kids loved watching the wooden puppets dancing near the music stage.
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Interesting lily at Wilder ranch
The seedpods on this lily are kinda spiky and very cool looking.
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T&A at Wilder Ranch, Santa Cruz
We took one of the farm interns to Wilder Ranch today for an apple tasting event. Here are T&A, and in the background J is grinding some corn for the chickens.
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Friday, October 22, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Making apple leather
Last week we went to Gene Lester's to tour his apple and citrus orchards. He let us take home several bags of apples of many different varieties. Tonight, J&E and I turned about 20-30 of the smaller apples into leather (well, it will be leather in another 8 hours). Here's our method: Sort your apples into 2 piles: absolutely perfect apples in 1 pile, apples with blemishes, worm holes, punctures in another. If an apple is more than 50% rotten, or if it is moldy, toss it immediately into the compost. The perfect apples are bagged and put into the fridge or cold storage. These will be used for kids' lunches and eating out of hand (this pile is probably smaller). The other pile of apples is ready to be made into leather! Wash them. Cut the blemishes off, then cut in quarters, removing worm damage and cores. Rinse the segment before putting it in a pot. When you've cut about 15 apples (enough to fill a blender), add about 1/3 cup of water to the pot and simmer for 15 minutes or until they are soft but not mush. Do not mash. Put softened cooked apples in a blender with optional ingredients: cinnamon (dash), vanilla (splash) and honey (dollop). I am using our dark bitter farm honey, because it's what we have. I also make batches without any additives but it's not as pliable. Blend. I like the " smoothie" setting on our blender. Pour the applesauce onto dehydrator trays and dry for 8 hours. This will be a huge hit with kids, guests, or family!
Opening the hive
Checking out the brood box. This hive is on the terrace under our side deck.
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Rooster on guard duty at Prusch park
I attended the California rare fruit growers meeting yesterday at Prusch park. We learned about loquats and feijoas. One thing I love about Prusch are the chickens and roosters that just wander wild around the orchards, meeting buildings, and even in the parking lot. The rooster in this picture is guarding three hens that are under the Nanking cherry tree.
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Sunday, October 3, 2010
Knitting project: sweater for J
The time I've spent spinning yarn in the past few weeks has given me a greater appreciation for wool. I'm starting a sweater for J using store-bought chunky yarn by Lion Brand. The pattern is in "More Last-Minute Knitted Gifts" by Joelle Hoverson.
Looking at fish in a store
We walked into a fish store in San Jose to look at all the fun tanks full of fish.
Miniature mangoes? Or... A nut?
One of the trees at Prusch Park/farm in San Jose is laden with what look like miniature mangoes on Oct 3. Upon closer inspection (and reading the accompanying label) we discovered they are unripe pistachios! The signature hard shell is under a thin, pink, fleshy rind.
3 types of spun yarn
I've been spinning a batt of merino wool using different techniques. My first yarn was a 2-ply which I knitted into a neck cuff. For my second 2-ply I spun some old scratchy white wool I got in Albuquerque 11 years ago. The look is candy-stripe, but the white wool is too scratchy. My next yarn used the scratchy wool as a core, wrapped with the soft merino. It feels nice, but this type of spinning takes longer. The first photo shows a knitted sample of each yarn, the second shows a closeup of each yarn so you can see the differences in structure.
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Friday, October 1, 2010
More terraces
The farm is building more raised beds on the terraces. Looking good...
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