Steev's stuff

[steev]

Another crappy weekend OTF of cold, blustery wind and sparse rain; not good to work in, and not good for water. The Coastal peaks are snowed, but not so much as would be encouraging. Rain has been so lame, I doubt I'll get much asparagus this year. Favas are growing, but they clearly want more water, Windsor fava is really sucking; ful and "small" are coming along.

Cut some patience dock to roll for dolmades; grapes are budding; didn't get Sukie loaded for the "vet"; bummer, but I'm so forgetful; besides, I'm not so sure she has the poop to get up the ramp into the p'up; next weekend, maybe I'll have help OTF to get her loaded. Got to take the tiller off to reduce her burden.

[steev]

Lovely weekend OTF, though I wish it would rain a toad-choker; looks like another drought year. I'm really not chuffed on planting much. Damn, I've got so much seed that's just getting old; I really need this drought shit to go away.

Got a good handfull of asparagus, some patience dock, and a bunch of wild mustard, mostly blooming shoots, primo.

Grapes are leafing out; they seem to be two weeks later than in the Central Valley; the altitude, I suppose.

I don't know who's ruling much of Cali's farmland, these days, but I'd not be surprised if it's China or the UAE; in either case, they'd not be concerned about the effect of pumping out the aquifer, causing land subsidence, buckling roads, and house's foundations cracking, but I'm prolly too concerned about the locals than global trade. 'Spect I should see the larger picture. Don't 'spose I will. I've just got a bad attitude; had it for years; feels comfortable.

[flowerbug]

i had to try to figure out what OTF means (Off the Forum) i would hope that is close.

i was hoping the recent rains in the radar were getting to where you were at. perhaps a few more rounds will be able to come by before the rainy season is over. i sure hope so. in the mountains it looks like it certainly helped the snow pack by a nice bump up (10% or more in some areas).

i was also hoping some of that moisture would make it over to the upper Colorado snow pack and also down further south where the Santa Fe gets their water from. i have relatives over that ways along with southern CA.

i am an admitted water nerd and love the engineering projects of large scale civil societies and so watched with facination the destruction and rebuild of the Oroville spillways. what CA is doing with their groundwater laws should have been done 50yrs ago. it will eventually pay off for the future but there will be some pain until people adjust to more sustainable methods and reengineer their systems to recycle more water and capture more storm water for groundwater recharge. this is what most arid and semi-arid places should be doing anyways. AZ and NM should be right behind and also the Oglalla aquifer overpumpers too... just a matter of time before they will be forced to do it.

in the meantime be well and be safe.

[steev]

Close, but no cigar; On The Farm, although That's simultaneously Off The Forum, until I move to the farm.

[steev]

Cut some patience dock for the mechanic who'd carried my ticket for replacing my p'up's engine until I could pay it off; he's Yemeny stock; Cali is wonderfully diverse, very land-race. I'll keep his family in produce when I can.

Asparagus is coming in; got weeds off and sawdust mulch on the favas (the Windsors didn't sprout worth a damn, must have been kiln-dried too hot); put in three more stone pines, mulching them and others with bunny-bedding; my Flame Tokay are at least a week leafed out beyond my Cabernet Sauvignon and Black Monukkah grapes.

Four tree-cages by the common road were missing, eight T-posts and fencing wire; I think my loony neighbor stole them, the gate not being chained the same as I'd left it; I may need to get a lawyer to explain trespassing and petty theft to that twit. I doubt his wife will be pleased to hear about this two-bit shit.

[steev]

Driving home from the farm, I took the back road which is far more beautiful, although it takes a bit longer, wildflowers and new foliage; my helper napped much of it; what a dumb-shit. He's so incurious, so non-introspective, so non-observant; I can't really grasp his failure to engage with the real world.

[flowerbug]

that is normal these days it seems. kids raised inside and with games on the screen. somehow it takes something to get them to see the world around them as having much meaning. i try to get some into gardening and that can help, but most don't want to work/sweat/etc.

[steev]

Gonna introduce my Yemeni mechanic to cardoon.

I've decided that if I ever get a pet raven, crow, or jay, I'll name it "Covid", they being Corvids.

[steev]

A peony I planted ~10 years ago, the only survivor of three, which always surprises me by returning, has come back with a vengeance; it's going to bloom for the first time and very profusely; yay!

Got a lot of planting lanes mowed so they can be tilled when Sukie comes back from the vet/mechanic; mulched garlic, carrots, and favas with coffee chaff.

It was a banner weekend for snakes: a large garter, two brown racers, and a small king snake; with the gopher snake of a few weeks ago, that's four-fifths of the species I've seen OTF; once I saw a ring-necked boa, but they're woefully uncommon these days, chubby little critters with the habit of rolling up like a ball python when caught; garter snakes aren't nearly as charming; their habit being to blow their tank on you. Pyew!

Looks like the meager rainy season has ended >a month early; bleak, for sure. Also, there doesn't look to be much fruit coming this year: can't explain it; certainly wasn't rain damping the bees.

Harvested asparagus for my sweetheart, patience dock to introduce to the neighbor that I just put in a sod lawn for (I'm getting too old for that shit), and cardoon to introduce to my Yemenie mechanic (don't s'pose he uses bacon grease, so he'll have to make do with olive oil, poor guy; I'm so glad I don't have religious strictures on my diet, or my life, for that matter); gotta spread the wealth and awareness of alternative chow.

My helper of several years past, whose youngest brother (green as grass and dead from the neck up) works for me now, came to the farm this weekend, very helpful; his 5-year-old son (whom I've not yet met) wanted to come; he'll bring him for the day next Sunday and I gave him permission to plant themselves some stuff in the veggie corral. I was infected with the gardening bug by my Grandad at five and I've never regretted it. It's a source of centering, and therefore comforting, work, in an increasingly disquieting world.

This morning, there was a tree-frog on the foam-insulation under my mattress-bunk, I caught it and threw it out; after dressing, when I opened the door, the little bugger was waiting and immediately leaped back in; 'kay, didn't try to chase it down; couple hours later I went back in and it was back in the same place; I know when I'm beat. So long as when things get so hot that I'm sleeping with no covers and it doesn't jump on me, we're fine. Don't much like something cool and damp landing on me when I'm sleeping.

Something keeps chowing on the coyote carcass I scored (pretty much just fur and jerky, now); long as I get the skull, I'm good with that; the squishy parts were never of any interest to me. Actually. I'd like to know who's working it, just to know what's around; might be a badger; that'd be good.

The unidentified grain that showed up ~four years ago continues to proliferate, new patches appearing, old patches expanding; I found a second volunteer grain, clearly different, that is growing. I can only suppose that some birds have come through without enough grit in their gizzards to grind their food; there's certainly nobody growing any grain in the valley of the farm; cool; their loss is my gain. Again, if this new grain is too hard to thresh, it will serve for critter food. Since they both grow with no care whatsoever, they can do their thing outside the veggie corral. I'm thinking these grains, cardoon, artichokes, and patience dock are all things that can flourish in un-fenced, un-irrigated, areas, since the critters don't seem to like them.

[synergy]

I have yet to invest much in anything that does not produce food at my 'new' property , but I miss the tree peonies I had at my old farm that I had planted 25 years previous . It seems to memory that they never took more than 2 years to start with blooms .
I had planted horseradish in my garden and now started to dig it out after two years when a friend mentioned that it took over her mothers garden . Then I saw in the plant catalogue that the plants they sell for $17 each and wondering if I could do some sort of monetized crop . I seem to be slow and not all that productive but I have a plethora of Heritage raspberry starts, everbearing strawberries , horse radish and chocolate peppermint to start a friend who has room to naturalize some spots away from his garden and he has the mindset of a forager so it may cheer him up having some free plants .

How big is your farm Steev ?

[steev]

Rodents cleaned out what I'd saved for ID, but both of these are heading up now, so it won't be that long before harvest.

[flowerbug]

i'm not much into grains here, i did grow some winter-wheat and winter-rye one year as ground covers and even let some of it go as far as harvesting it, but then i had no way to get the grain from the heads and buried it all. it turned out the bags of grain i bought to use as planting had bugs in them so i had an infestation in my closet to deal with for some time after. four times a day vacuming the bugs up until i got them all, but it did give me a good reason to clean those closets out. achoo!

i have seen mentions, some pictures and was interested in learning about perennial wheats but i've never sourced them for growing here. for those with suitable climates and plenty of room it wouldn't be a bad idea to have some around for those just in case times. when you don't harvest it then the animals might use it or it would spread.

tree frogs and snakes are good signs to me.  here we have some tree frogs too and i like hearing them in the spring.  i find them on the windows sometimes during the rainy spells:

www.anthive.com/project/frogs/

[steev]

The neighboring stock-pond is 700 yards away from the pump-house, but the frogs and the song-dogs in the barranca are loud and so much better than the freeway traffic noise in Oakland, which is incessant where I live there, like living by a river; yuck. I'm tired of what the Bay Area has become; too damned many people. So glad I scored land out where overpopulation can't occur (due to water unavailability, although I have plenty available luckily, once I get my wells up). Oops; smug attack. I really only want to take care of myself, my family, and my local community; I'm not much interested in commercial success. Farming really doesn't happen in Indian Valley; the locals are largely all ranchers (with day jobs, to get by), so I think I have a potentially valuable role in the community, not about money, but community involvement.

[steev]

The lone survivor of 3 puny peonies I planted ~10 years ago has finally bloomed; ~24 stems! Making up for lost time, it seems.

The Flame Tokays are putting on a decent crop; I really need to get my grapes set out amenable to netting to keep the birds off.

Roses are blooming profusely; they love the farm (no aphids, powdery mildew, rust, or smut); all (one exception, a scrungy red rose of exquisite fragrance) I have are simple, flat roses, which grow with no care, irrigation, or fertilizer (my kind of plants); eventually, I hope to have them surrounding all twenty acres and along the transverse fence. Eventually, I hope the valley's bee-keeper, whose business is selling queens world-wide (there's some disease that isn't in the valley), will put hives OTF, in return for which I'll get great pollination and the local honey; I don't use much honey, but my sweetheart puts it in her tea; it makes great gifts; maybe I'll get into mead and baklava. Once, in Guatemala, I went to the end of the road over the Cuchumatane mountains to visit a Peace Corps couple, where they were trying to encourage the Maya to diversify their crops and market their handicrafts: weaving and such; they always had a pot of coarse-ground corn, wheat, and rice porridge hot for any who dropped by (mostly the local Maya); a bowl of that with a couple spoons of honey stirred in was fine chow, very like bread; I've never been a brekkie person; buttered toast and coffee being about all I want to burden my stomach with before lunch and not much then; I like a big dinner that I can digest at leisure, not while I'm working, I want my blood supply in my muscles, not my gut (none of the apex carnivores chow down and go to work, they eat and rest). I can see having that porridge in cold weather on my wood-burning stove for a bit of brekkie or snack.

Set out another load of bunny-bedding for mulch around my outlying trees; looks like critters are high-grading any alfalfa out of it; I think it's too late for this mulch to really conserve moisture around the un-irrigated trees (I gave the un-established ones a couple gallons each, but it'll be there next rainy season; what they leave is mostly bunny-beans and sawdust pellets that absorbed bunny-whiz; we've had a low-rainfall winter/spring and are looking at a possibly eight-month dry season ("normally" six) with no guarantee that next rain season will be adequate; there was little snow on the Coast Range this year, which is what mostly feeds my wells.

Out in the Central Valley, the rice paddies are greening up, largely flooded with water pumped from the aquifer; will we see plenty more land-subsidence, broken roads, cracked foundations, and collapsed subterranean water-storing strata? Does a bear shit in the woods?

With the loosening of the covid quarantine, traffic is picking up; too bad.
Wish I'd invested in plexiglas; everything is looking like a bank, only not cool like when they used horse-hoof glass.

[steev]

Think I'm gonna encourage seeds from my asparagus to establish; can't have too much asparagus IMHO.

The feral wheat? that showed up some four years ago is making a good crop, which is maturing, as is the new one that appeared this year; it's interesting that these have just popped up, it's not like anybody's growing grain in the valley.

The Flame Tokays on my arbor seem not to be putting out many puny bunches. so cool.

Looks like this will be another year of hardly any other fruit.

Oh well, when it seeds, I'll spread the patience dock, since it takes no care and I like it; makes great dolmades.