Yesterday Brent and I left the comfort and familiarity of San Francisco for another completely new, alien WWOOF! Singing Goat farm is in Weitchpec, CA, about 5.5 hours north of SF. We took the 101 most of the way, through buckets of rain and a little tiny bit of snow. When we could see, the drive was beautiful, and we got to our destination at around 6pm. Irene (our hostess) gave us the tour, fed us dinner, and settled us into our cabin.
Irene has more beasties than I've ever seen in one place. Here's as comprehensive a list as I can manage: milk goat (and baby), sheep (and lambs - 9 at last count, about 5 more expected soon), more chickens than I could possibly count (bantams, silkies, frizzles, speckles, and all sorts of mixes), ducks, geese, turkeys, rabbits, and angora goats. Of course, this doesn't count the dogs, cats, and people. Irene has so many chickens that she doesn't even try to pen them all in. There are little gangs of bantam chickens that just go wandering round the property, running away from you and clucking. It's really funny. The best thing about this place is the noise. There is an almost constant cacaphony of animal sounds. The sheep all have their individual voices, and mothers and babies have this cute call/response that you can hear all night. The chickens are noisy all the time, occasionally punctuated by that goofy turkey noise that we all know and love. The geese sound like they're blowing their noses all the time, and the ram likes to bang his head against the metal fencing of his pen. It's really, really loud, but in a very joyful and spring-like way.
Today, our first day on the job, was spent weeding, helping Irene replace fencing and tarp shelters, moving a woodpile, and playing with cute lambs. We had scrambled duck eggs for breakfast, which were a lot like chicken eggs, but with more yolk and less white. I also found all sorts of beasties while we were moving the woodpile, toads, a little newt, and all sorts of ginormous earthworms. It has been a really fun day. Irene is an elementary school music teacher, and she invited Brent to play for an evening in their community orchestra. That's where I am right now, listening to the orchestra play in the next room, and mooching a little of the school's power to charge my machine.
Another funny thing is that we've discovered that we're not too far from the PCT here. Irene's property runs very close to the Klamath river, which I remember camping near (there were bats in the outhouse) on the PCT. We're about 50-60 miles from Etna, which I remember being a great townstop for us (beer, ice cream, good food, and good company). Maybe we can swing up and finally try a Marble Mountain Marvel at the Etna Pharmacy!
Monday, March 23, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Pictures from Forever Yong
I never posted any pictures, and now I'm late. So here are some pictures from the farm!
Yes, I am obsessed with chickens now. I don't know what it is about them, but they fascinate me. John also has another fowl, a guinea hen. She's dumb like a rock, and very shy, so we couldn't get a good picture of her. Here's what she looks like though.
It's funny, John said that he got 3 of them, and they're really useful as pest and weed control, but, unlike chickens, they're still pretty good fliers, so they can just fly over his 8 foot deer fence. There was only one left of the 3 he purchased, and the rest had all just escaped and been eaten by coyotes. And that was fine with him. He was still planning on getting more this year.
Arizona gets awesome sunsets every night. Here's one from shortly before we left.
And these are the rows of onions we planted. Just so you can get an idea of the scale here, Brent is actually in this picture. he's just so far away you can't really see him. The onions are in the foreground, and there's grass planted between the rows to keep the topsoil from blowing away, the white stuff is row cover to protect the veggies John has planted underneath, and past that is the garlic we weeded. That's how many onions we planted and garlic we weeded. LOTS.
Okay. So that's Forever Yong, another great WWOOF. Right now we're in Scottsdale, which is a suburb of Phoenix. Tomorrow we're going to see Watchmen in IMAX. Yesterday we planned our entire lives, and today we learned about personality types, and I learned that Brent is weird. Not much new there. We'll be driving to San Francisco after this, probably getting there next Monday. We have 2 WWOOFs planned after that, one at a winery north of San Francisco, and one at a homestead/farm a bit further north than that (they have sheepies and baby goats!). After that it's back to Fort Collins for a month, and then even more adventures! Woohoo!
kim
Yes, I am obsessed with chickens now. I don't know what it is about them, but they fascinate me. John also has another fowl, a guinea hen. She's dumb like a rock, and very shy, so we couldn't get a good picture of her. Here's what she looks like though.
It's funny, John said that he got 3 of them, and they're really useful as pest and weed control, but, unlike chickens, they're still pretty good fliers, so they can just fly over his 8 foot deer fence. There was only one left of the 3 he purchased, and the rest had all just escaped and been eaten by coyotes. And that was fine with him. He was still planning on getting more this year.Arizona gets awesome sunsets every night. Here's one from shortly before we left.
And these are the rows of onions we planted. Just so you can get an idea of the scale here, Brent is actually in this picture. he's just so far away you can't really see him. The onions are in the foreground, and there's grass planted between the rows to keep the topsoil from blowing away, the white stuff is row cover to protect the veggies John has planted underneath, and past that is the garlic we weeded. That's how many onions we planted and garlic we weeded. LOTS.
Okay. So that's Forever Yong, another great WWOOF. Right now we're in Scottsdale, which is a suburb of Phoenix. Tomorrow we're going to see Watchmen in IMAX. Yesterday we planned our entire lives, and today we learned about personality types, and I learned that Brent is weird. Not much new there. We'll be driving to San Francisco after this, probably getting there next Monday. We have 2 WWOOFs planned after that, one at a winery north of San Francisco, and one at a homestead/farm a bit further north than that (they have sheepies and baby goats!). After that it's back to Fort Collins for a month, and then even more adventures! Woohoo!
kim
Friday, March 6, 2009
And now we're weeding!
So it's Friday, our second to last full day here. When we first got to the farm the temperatures climbed into the 90's for several days straight. We both got a little burned working out in the fields, Brent on the back of his head, and I have nice reverse raccoon eyes from my sunglasses. We look like dweebs. But for the past 2 days temperatures have been much lower, staying in the 70's, usually with a bit of wind to make it feel even chillier. We've planted many rows of onions, weeded a couple of rows of garlic (also migrant labor work), helped with some harvesting, weeded a lot in the greenhouses, planted some seeds and small transplants. Production-wise, this farm is on a much larger scale than anything we've stayed at yet. John supplies several Tucson area restaurants and health food stores, and runs a farmer's market stall in season. He also sells his garlic as seed to a nationally known supplier. So he's got a lot to take care of.
We've been having fresh salads every night with greens cut fresh from the greenhouse. Sam, I think of you whenever I bite into a bit of nice, peppery arugula, because John has a ton of it. If I thought it would survive the week until we get out to San Francisco, I'd bring you some. We also have a nice head of butter lettuce in the fridge, which is the one you see for exorbitant prices in the little plastic containers at the grocery store. The one with the little root ball still attached. I'd never had this kind before (exorbitant prices, you know) but it has a much stronger flavor than I thought it would, also delicious. John's collard greens are also harvestable now, so we've been eating those as well (sauteed with a little garlic, onion, and a squeeze of lemon juice at the very end, yummy!).
Tomorrow we're going on an early morning bird walk, get some coffee and stop at the post office, we'll finish our weeding, and go to a local film festival (link here). Sunday we should be on our way up to Scottsdale for our vacationy-retreat thingy.
We'll be in Scottsdale for 1 week, then we'll head out to San Francisco for spring break week with my family at Korin & Brian's. After that, we're not quite sure what we'll be up to. We'll probably stay in California until April 7, since Brent needs to be back in Fort Collins on the 9th. We've got a couple of possibilities for WWOOFs, but nothing solid yet.
I meant to post some pictures of the farm and its denizens today, but instead I cleverly left the camera down at the cabin, where there's no internet. So you'll have to wait a little longer for pictures. But John's website just came online in the last couple of days, so you can take a look at some pictures from previous seasons here. I'll get the camera and internet at the same time soon, I promise!
kim
We've been having fresh salads every night with greens cut fresh from the greenhouse. Sam, I think of you whenever I bite into a bit of nice, peppery arugula, because John has a ton of it. If I thought it would survive the week until we get out to San Francisco, I'd bring you some. We also have a nice head of butter lettuce in the fridge, which is the one you see for exorbitant prices in the little plastic containers at the grocery store. The one with the little root ball still attached. I'd never had this kind before (exorbitant prices, you know) but it has a much stronger flavor than I thought it would, also delicious. John's collard greens are also harvestable now, so we've been eating those as well (sauteed with a little garlic, onion, and a squeeze of lemon juice at the very end, yummy!).
Tomorrow we're going on an early morning bird walk, get some coffee and stop at the post office, we'll finish our weeding, and go to a local film festival (link here). Sunday we should be on our way up to Scottsdale for our vacationy-retreat thingy.
We'll be in Scottsdale for 1 week, then we'll head out to San Francisco for spring break week with my family at Korin & Brian's. After that, we're not quite sure what we'll be up to. We'll probably stay in California until April 7, since Brent needs to be back in Fort Collins on the 9th. We've got a couple of possibilities for WWOOFs, but nothing solid yet.
I meant to post some pictures of the farm and its denizens today, but instead I cleverly left the camera down at the cabin, where there's no internet. So you'll have to wait a little longer for pictures. But John's website just came online in the last couple of days, so you can take a look at some pictures from previous seasons here. I'll get the camera and internet at the same time soon, I promise!
kim
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