Singing Goat Farm/Homestead

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!