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
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Lots of onions...
We're here! This week's WWOOF is at Forever Yong Farm in Amado, AZ, owned by John and Yong Rueb. Brent and I will be here until March 7th.
So far, we've planted lots and lots of onions, and weeded an entire greenhouse. Today was our day off, so we drove a short loop around the area, and were back in time to seriously not do anything at all.
Some people have teased us about being migrant laborers, but honestly, planting onions is hard. Brent and I hurt in places that haven't hurt since the hike. Each little onion has to be planted individually, and we've done 10 rows, about 350 feet apiece. I don't even know how many onions that is. Lots. Unreasonable lots. Brent has a funny sunburn on his newly shaven head; you can see the strap of his ball cap on the back of his noggin, so now we're both trying to remember to put on sunscreen. During the day we share our digs with John's aged weimaraner, Gretchen, and at night with the only partially socialized cat, Salem. They have a stocked pond, 2 greenhouses, 3 hens, and a guinea hen. We don't have any good pictures so far, but we'll be sure to post again when we do!
kim
So far, we've planted lots and lots of onions, and weeded an entire greenhouse. Today was our day off, so we drove a short loop around the area, and were back in time to seriously not do anything at all.
Some people have teased us about being migrant laborers, but honestly, planting onions is hard. Brent and I hurt in places that haven't hurt since the hike. Each little onion has to be planted individually, and we've done 10 rows, about 350 feet apiece. I don't even know how many onions that is. Lots. Unreasonable lots. Brent has a funny sunburn on his newly shaven head; you can see the strap of his ball cap on the back of his noggin, so now we're both trying to remember to put on sunscreen. During the day we share our digs with John's aged weimaraner, Gretchen, and at night with the only partially socialized cat, Salem. They have a stocked pond, 2 greenhouses, 3 hens, and a guinea hen. We don't have any good pictures so far, but we'll be sure to post again when we do!
kim
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Tucson
I can see why people want to spend winters here. It's February, the sun is shining, there's a high of 88 degrees, the birds are chirping, and Brent already saw a hummingbird this morning. We're at the Sheraton out here, taking a leisurely morning before going off to our last scheduled WWOOF in Amado, AZ. We've got both doors open, we've had a fire drill, and Brent shaved his head.The past week we spent with my parents in Fort Collins. We've been trying to plan a cruise as a reunion for my Dad's half of the family, and that has finally coalesced into actions. Everyone now has rooms on the right boat, so we can stop agonizing over which cruise, what line, what rooms, etc. It's very freeing. Mom made us an amazing celebratory dinner with Min Tong (a Chinese dumpling-y type soup) and Chon (Korean meaty pancakes). We're so pan-Asian.
It was an uneventful drive from Ft. Collins. We stayed the night in Albuquerque with Brent's Mom and brother (thanks Margaret and Nathan!), who fed us great enchiladas with awesome red chile, and then sent us on our way with half of a giant loaf of home baked potato rosemary bread. Oh, so delicious! We should stop there more often! Brent's been feeling sort of icky, so we chose to crash indoors for the night, rather than shacking up in the car in a state park somewhere, and here we are, relaxing at the Sheraton. It should only take us a couple of hours to get the WWOOF, so we'll probably drive around Tucson a little (Brent wants to see the airplane graveyard) before heading south.
Kim
Monday, February 16, 2009
An eventful weekend in Portland
We drove into Portland from Long Beach Thursday afternoon. That evening was Shilpa's mahendi party, so I headed over the Sushmita's (where the party was being held). If you're not familiar with the tradition, mahendi is the henna "tattooing" you sometimes see on Indian women's hands or feet. The henna is applied as a blackish brown paste,
looking something like really, really dark chocolate. It's piped onto the skin just like decorating a cake, in whorls, flowers, vines, paisleys, and other neat designs. It takes a while for the henna to actually stain the skin, so you leave it on for an hour or so, and then, once it's dried, you scrape it off. The henna stain is dark brown or reddish
, depending on your skin tone and how well the henna set (I don't have a good picture of the finished henna, 'cause I'm a dork, but Korin has some pictures here). Sushmita and Lavina did a great job with everything. The food was incredible, and the henna was gorgeous. Shilpa's took pretty much all evening to do, because it was so intricate (she had both hands, palms, and feet done). But everyone had a great time, and eventually even the guys present (Sumit, Mandar, and Dan) got into the henna fun!
Friday was a "do everything else that needed to be done" day. Brent and I spent a good chunk of the day at Shilpa and Ben's house, finishing the favors, programs, and all the rest. We accidentally ate Mandar and Lena's (Shilpa's parents) dinner, before it was even finished, and they made fun of us. Oops! We thought it was pretty tasty! In the evening we met up with Erik and Laura, a couple we met on the PCT last summer. If you don't remember them, check out the very first postholer on-trail journal entry. We actually started on the same day as them, practically at the same moment! We met at the Rimsky Korsacoffe House (an outdated, but still accurate blog here), which was an awesome place. Great desserts, really good chai, and creepy bathrooms. The four of us chatted for hours, and had a really good time. Making for another late night.
Valentine's day was the big day, so I set off early for a day of Shilpa-herding. Korin, Brian, Sam, and Charli had driven up from SF the previous evening (read about their disastrous road trip here) and collapsed in their room before I could even see them. But they left Charli with Mom and Dad (who were also up for the wedding) so I was able to play with her a little before I left.
Shilpa-herding is actually not so bad. It is substantially better than herding cats or toddlers, but maybe that's because there were 2 of us (bridesmaids, Sandy and I) and one of Shilpa. We ran some errands for her in the morning, then shuttled her from hair, to make-up, to venue. We bought her lunch in the interim, and made sure she got some fried potato products. Once we got to the wedding venue, we tried to keep her from completely freaking out, and were mostly successful. It seemed like all the guests were there early, and the room that we were changing in was in a really high traffic area, and the door kept opening and closing and opening and closing.
We ended up posting Dan (the bridesdude) at the door as a bouncer so we could finally change in peace. When it was time for the ceremony to start, we all realized that we had no idea what the heck we were supposed to do, or how we were supposed to go into the room or anything. I guess that this is sort of what Indian weddings are like though. We just ended up walking in before Shilpa, sitting in some chairs that looked like they might be reserved for us, and then throwing flower petals at Shilpa and Ben when Mandar made "the signal" at us.
It was a wonderful wedding, though. The swami was silly, and everyone was radiantly happy. The idea was to have an Indian ceremony with American highlights, and an American reception with Indian highlights. So the ceremony had all sorts of neat stuff that I'd never seen at a wedding before. There was fire, and Shilpa stuck her toes in some rice, and then she got some red powder in dabbed in the part of her hair. It was really neat. Afterwards things got a little more familiar: tons of great food and booze, toasts, cake, garter and bouquet tosses, and dancing. It was really everything a wedding should be. The celebration of a union between 2 people who love each other, shared by people who love and admire them and wish them the very best. I'm so glad that I got to be a part of it. And I got to dance to that song at the end of Slumdog Millionaire, which is an awesome song, and I wish I owned it.
I don't have a lot of pictures of the wedding itself, as I was a little busy with other things, but I have a few that I pirated from Mom, so here they are.
Sunday morning we all met Tanya, Scott and Maddy Vicory for breakfast at the Original pancake house. Tanya is my cousin, and her daughter Maddy is just about Charli's age. Though really it was just a ploy to get as many people as possible to the Original Pancake house, because that place is the bomb! We had a big party, so it took about an age to get a table, but everyone agreed that it was all worth it. An apple pancake for the table, and a few omelets the size of people's heads were all it took!
Brent and I had to get to the airport almost immediately after getting back from breakfast, so we didn't get to do much more. We're currently in Fort Collins with Mom and Dad for about a week until we head out to Arizona for our 3rd WWOOF. All of our other ones have been so awesome, we're looking forward to it!!
kim
looking something like really, really dark chocolate. It's piped onto the skin just like decorating a cake, in whorls, flowers, vines, paisleys, and other neat designs. It takes a while for the henna to actually stain the skin, so you leave it on for an hour or so, and then, once it's dried, you scrape it off. The henna stain is dark brown or reddish
, depending on your skin tone and how well the henna set (I don't have a good picture of the finished henna, 'cause I'm a dork, but Korin has some pictures here). Sushmita and Lavina did a great job with everything. The food was incredible, and the henna was gorgeous. Shilpa's took pretty much all evening to do, because it was so intricate (she had both hands, palms, and feet done). But everyone had a great time, and eventually even the guys present (Sumit, Mandar, and Dan) got into the henna fun!Friday was a "do everything else that needed to be done" day. Brent and I spent a good chunk of the day at Shilpa and Ben's house, finishing the favors, programs, and all the rest. We accidentally ate Mandar and Lena's (Shilpa's parents) dinner, before it was even finished, and they made fun of us. Oops! We thought it was pretty tasty! In the evening we met up with Erik and Laura, a couple we met on the PCT last summer. If you don't remember them, check out the very first postholer on-trail journal entry. We actually started on the same day as them, practically at the same moment! We met at the Rimsky Korsacoffe House (an outdated, but still accurate blog here), which was an awesome place. Great desserts, really good chai, and creepy bathrooms. The four of us chatted for hours, and had a really good time. Making for another late night.
Valentine's day was the big day, so I set off early for a day of Shilpa-herding. Korin, Brian, Sam, and Charli had driven up from SF the previous evening (read about their disastrous road trip here) and collapsed in their room before I could even see them. But they left Charli with Mom and Dad (who were also up for the wedding) so I was able to play with her a little before I left.
Shilpa-herding is actually not so bad. It is substantially better than herding cats or toddlers, but maybe that's because there were 2 of us (bridesmaids, Sandy and I) and one of Shilpa. We ran some errands for her in the morning, then shuttled her from hair, to make-up, to venue. We bought her lunch in the interim, and made sure she got some fried potato products. Once we got to the wedding venue, we tried to keep her from completely freaking out, and were mostly successful. It seemed like all the guests were there early, and the room that we were changing in was in a really high traffic area, and the door kept opening and closing and opening and closing.
We ended up posting Dan (the bridesdude) at the door as a bouncer so we could finally change in peace. When it was time for the ceremony to start, we all realized that we had no idea what the heck we were supposed to do, or how we were supposed to go into the room or anything. I guess that this is sort of what Indian weddings are like though. We just ended up walking in before Shilpa, sitting in some chairs that looked like they might be reserved for us, and then throwing flower petals at Shilpa and Ben when Mandar made "the signal" at us.It was a wonderful wedding, though. The swami was silly, and everyone was radiantly happy. The idea was to have an Indian ceremony with American highlights, and an American reception with Indian highlights. So the ceremony had all sorts of neat stuff that I'd never seen at a wedding before. There was fire, and Shilpa stuck her toes in some rice, and then she got some red powder in dabbed in the part of her hair. It was really neat. Afterwards things got a little more familiar: tons of great food and booze, toasts, cake, garter and bouquet tosses, and dancing. It was really everything a wedding should be. The celebration of a union between 2 people who love each other, shared by people who love and admire them and wish them the very best. I'm so glad that I got to be a part of it. And I got to dance to that song at the end of Slumdog Millionaire, which is an awesome song, and I wish I owned it.
I don't have a lot of pictures of the wedding itself, as I was a little busy with other things, but I have a few that I pirated from Mom, so here they are.
Sunday morning we all met Tanya, Scott and Maddy Vicory for breakfast at the Original pancake house. Tanya is my cousin, and her daughter Maddy is just about Charli's age. Though really it was just a ploy to get as many people as possible to the Original Pancake house, because that place is the bomb! We had a big party, so it took about an age to get a table, but everyone agreed that it was all worth it. An apple pancake for the table, and a few omelets the size of people's heads were all it took!
Brent and I had to get to the airport almost immediately after getting back from breakfast, so we didn't get to do much more. We're currently in Fort Collins with Mom and Dad for about a week until we head out to Arizona for our 3rd WWOOF. All of our other ones have been so awesome, we're looking forward to it!!
kim
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Pictures
Here's a bird's eye view of Green Angel Gardens:
And our gracious host, Larkin:
Some other local residents and their byproducts:
Larkin is a musician - he's a flute player with 11 released albums - so he's got some pretty cool instruments laying around. He played for us last night on his flute and hammer dulcimer, and then let us play around. Here's Kim jamming away:
He also gave me an improvisation lesson on my violin for about 2 hours, which was very cool.
The weather today was beautiful. After tilling some more seed beds, playing with automatic seeders, and other morning chores, we took advantage of the beautiful weather and went for a hike at Fort Columbia State Park, just up the road.
And our gracious host, Larkin:
Some other local residents and their byproducts:
He also gave me an improvisation lesson on my violin for about 2 hours, which was very cool.The weather today was beautiful. After tilling some more seed beds, playing with automatic seeders, and other morning chores, we took advantage of the beautiful weather and went for a hike at Fort Columbia State Park, just up the road.
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