Night Ants

Night walks for irrigation management remind me of nature patterns not seen for a year, like night ants. Tiny empty trails through the grass, faint by the light of day, are explained by flashlight in the dark of night. Shiny black ants of various sizes, most in a several-ant wide line, most small but some much larger, the biggest ones on the fringes way out there in the taller grass. On the cooler nights, the ant crowd moves slowly, back and forth from an irregularly edged quarter-sized hole. They aren’t carrying anything obvious. I don’t know what they do, but there’s an ant expert I need to ask. I am fond of these mysterious night ants: they are my friends.

Asperitas clouds, photo compliments of Sylvie Childress

Day ants

A new ant revealed itself this year along the same trail that the night ants use. This was a daytime ant, also traveling in lines many ants wide. These daytime ants are tiny, butterscotchy orange-brown and were moving fluidly-fast and in great numbers. They must live mostly underground – I only saw them that one time, and they were gone from that place the next day. I’ve never seen them before despite years of observation.

How many ant species call Molino Creek Farm home? I once despaired that we would lose all of our native ants to the Great Plague of invasive and aggressive Argentine ants. But, I cannot find those ‘Argies’ anymore and instead have only these rare encounters of native ants in surprising times, unexpected places. I wish we had harvester ants in our grasslands – maybe they’ll show up one day.

Creepy False Widow spider photo by S Childress

Spiders

Summer at Molino Creek Farm also reveals spiders of various hideousnesses. Sylvie found a particularly scary one this past week, a large and onerous species that was living in the housing of one of the backup generators for our well pumps. We’re unsure which species it is, but it is probably a central coast endemic called Steatoda atascadera, or Atascadero false widow. If that’s what this is, she documented it near its northern range limit. I haven’t seen the year’s first black widow, a species which is normally abundant in abandoned gopher holes in the middle of our dirt roads. Duck into the orchard and under the trees and you’ll end up festooned with all manner of spiders. None of this is for the faint of heart, but we are thankful for the spiders and all of their work eating bugs.

Enough about bugs, already!

Fruit and Vegetable

Sylvie’s corn is a’tassling. Two Dog Farm’s squash is setting its first fruit but is mostly arrayed with huge yellow-orange blossoms and tendrilled runners. Beans reach up the trellis Judy put up for Molino Creek Farm. In Sylvie’s dry-farmed experimental plot, beans bush out and remain healthy and vigorous way into the dry summer – looking good!

Bacon avocados are getting mopped up as they get more and more ripe, the Community Orchardists are quite elated. There will be more of those! And, in our after-work pacing of the avocado stand, we discovered that the lamb haas are starting to get ripe, too, though they’re a ways out…at least they’ll be the next ones in line after we run out of the bacon type.

The Big News in the fruit orchard is the potential for lemonade: when life gives you ____! One of the big lemon trees is loaded with ripe lemons! Eureka!!!!

Song

Twittering goldfinches, ranting woodpeckers, chirping bluebirds, scolding jays, screaming hawks – the Farm is the stage for avian soliloquy.

Nighttime brings the owl speeches and fox caterwauling. We’ve been hearing the eerie yowls of gray fox…often…at night. The prints were evidence enough, and then there was poo. But recently the fox have been quite vocal. Raaargh!

The red tailed hawk is a real screamer, not sure why. This big bird sails back and forth over the farm screaming way more than normal, leaving us wondering if this one is very young: it certainly is whiter than we’re used to!

Ground squirrel song is at its peak. Those loud chippers are chipping up the whole place often and persistently. There’s no going stealthily around anymore – your presence is announced immediately by the loud chirp of squirrel. The cuties climb to the top of the closest lookout and await the appropriate moment to sound the alarm. Meanwhile, they are sunbathing and sometimes seeming to nap. The littlest of squirrels emerged from the burrows about 2 weeks ago, and they are still quite small: these don’t seem adult enough to have been given permission to chip. We have at least a hundred ground squirrels this year. More to come, I’m sure.

Weird Clouds

This past week, the region around the Farm including into Bonny Doon experienced the oddest of clouds, riding in front of the remnants of a tropical storm (!). Asperitas clouds were first documented in 2006 and only officially named in 2017 – a recent and very rare cloud type! Let’s call them “climate change clouds.” Very odd.

Shifts

Maw and Caw, our resident ravens, panting at the top of a ridgeline tree, trying to catch a cool breeze

Night has become a respite not only from work but also from heat. Daytime – the blazing sun presses on the skin, and clothing blocks the rays but concentrates the heat like tin foil surrounding meat in a broiling oven. Birds pause their flight, perching on understory shady branches, bills wide open, panting. Slowly, the setting sun passes out of sight, the shimmering horizon long holds a golden glow. Stars appear and the world starts to cool. Last night it dipped only into the 60s after a day in the mid 90s. The air is dry – 20% humidity. One would normally welcome a breeze, but on these kinds of days it would be better stilled. The wind reminds us of the possibility of flames carried far, fast. People have become fire-jumpy. Suddenly, summer is upon us after weeks of cold, drizzly fog. We’re sorry we ever complained about that. The weather forecasters are warning about the remnants of a tropical storm peeling northward with chances of lightning this coming week.

Warmth = Growth

The newfound heat and sun make plant growth boom. Thick rows of tomato bushes suddenly get bushier. Winter squash bursts into bloom. Avocado fruit quickly ripen. Apple fruits balloon larger. Passionfruit vines turn shiny green, brightening with new vigor, twining. All the orchard trees press new whorls of leaves skyward, increasing understory shade, shielding tender fruit.

The unfathomable magic of dry farming is in full play. How does the wilting winter squash continue to grow and set fruit? How are the baking tomato plants doubling in size, ablaze with yellow starlike flowers with such dense, perky foliage?

Molino Creek Farm’s dry farmed tomatoes – getting bigger!

Fading Wildflowers, Ripening Wild Fruit

The few remaining wildflowers are quickly fading with the heat. The last annual lupines are winking out. Poppy petals have dropped, leaves fading, plant skeletons sporting long dry pods which split noisily in the midday sun, shattering, sending seeds arcing through the air, sewing next year’s color.

Vast hillside patches of yellow and orange subshrubs are fading: lizard tail, monkeyflower, and deerbrush flowers are browning, setting seed. Leaves curl, turning crunchy. Patches of poison oak are blushing crimson on the dryer parts of steeper slopes.

Coffeeberry, blackberry, acorn and pinecone – all grow, fatten, and ripen but not quick enough for birds.

Elderberry trees have begun to flower. In the cool morning, those huge flat-topped clusters of creamy-green flowers smell sweet and grassy, the scent carrying far, deliciously.

Domestic Flowers

The harbinger of summer: cheerful sunflowers! Sylvie’s garden and Judy’s patch of Molino Creek Farm sunflowers have begun to brighten the farm. Mysteriously, wild sunflowers have also begun flowering for the first time along Warrenella Road, down by the coast – that kind of thing used to only happen way inland, in the hottest part of the state.

Salvias and roses are also blossoming in the gardens and hedgerows.

Birds and Squirrels Feasting on Fruit

Though a Big Year, the apple orchard suffers mightily from many, many jays. Cassandra confirms – it is the biggest year we’ve seen for Steller’s jays. Scrub jays are also quite numerous as are the acorn woodpeckers. Hundreds of husks of apples hang on the trees and more everyday are getting pecked away to nothing.

At the edge of the avocado orchards, ground squirrels are slow-ripening avocado fruit they have torn from the branches. Avocados are strewn here and there, gnaw marks revealing bright green inner flesh that is still waxy-hard. Pointy rodent teeth continue testing until the fruit ripens or softens and then it disappears. Long scraping teeth marks also mar winter squash flesh and few thus far have survived without such damage.

The Work

Farm workers are beginning to stretch as productivity increases. Mowing and weeding are paramount to give the edge to the desirable plants and to reduce fire danger. Tractors rarely rest, weedeaters whine and growl. In car or by foot, now comes the pacing routine of irrigation travels to turn on and off valves, or to adjust and monitor pumps and storage tanks. More Farm Partners are involved this year than ever, and the sharing of the burden of keeping the watering, and the watering system, running is a real joy. It is not easy operating a community water system that integrates many acres of irrigated crops. Soon, we will be harvesting apace. Each day, daylight hours shorten and we recall last year’s dark evenings packing boxes of freshly harvested apples for the next day’s markets.

Dawn Watering

It has become imperative to start the days early, like every year during this season. Fattening fruit demands water. Micro-sprinklers hiss and twirl fine sprays that blow away or evaporate during the windy, sunny part of the day. Early mornings (before dawn, even) is the best watering time, when it is still and foggy. The first inkling of light wakes me into a routine of donning warm clothes and a jacket. The dimly lit, peaceful saunter downhill to the orchard unfolds new wonders every day. Turkeys awkwardly hasten away, great strides, giant bodies rocking back and forth. Ravens glance up from their ground-gazing meditations. An alert doe leads her two spotted fawns a little farther away, slowly. A bout of tiny droplet drizzle cools my face. When the chain latching the orchard gate clinks, the sound seems to carry far, silencing the already quiet chatter of birds. I wrest the big valve open and water gushes down the shaking pipe to the smaller laterals. Sprinklers begin bubbling, then spin. I must take a look at each of the sprinklers – 180 each round – to assure each is working, tracing the flexible tubes feeding them to spot any leaks, ears alert to irregular noises that indicate punctures from rodents or errant hoes. All checked and fixed, hands muddied and pants soaked, the morning grows lighter and I climb the hill back home with a satisfied smile knowing that the thirsty trees are happy, too.

White roses grace the hedgerow near the Apple Orchard

The Fog

Each day starts with fog, either obscuring the ridgelines or right down to the ground, soaking. There have been stretches of days with no sun at all but recently the fog has retreated oceanward midday, replaced by sun and episodic breezes. 52F at sunrise and the warmest part of the day gets to 71F; the sun feels warm but the wind makes chill. Really, when the sun comes out the temperature is pure heaven.

The Last Mow

Celebrations and hard work with the drying of grass. Over many years and with lots of effort, we have converted nearly 20 acres to grassland from scrubland or old farm fields. Grassland is better for fire safety and restores wildlife that depend on it. Western bluebirds, harvest mice, voles, grassland butterflies (buckeyes!), and so much more are abundant now as the red-tailed hawk regularly wheels overhead seeking grassland prey. So much grassland demands hours of mowing Right Now. Five foot thick dry grass gets ground into three inches of mulch, reducing flame lengths and the heat of wildfire. Swallows delightfully swarm behind and around the mowing tractor. Brewers blackbirds pounce and dance on insects uncovered in the new cut straw, beaks full of white moth wings. Afterwards, the shortened sward attracts regular attention from bluebirds swooping to catch insect snacks: these birds really require short grass to find their food. Somehow, the native grass rebounds even after this late mow and in a month the tawny, dust churned mulch will start to green. Poppies will emerge to blossom in mid-September through the decomposing thatch.

A herd of buck-deer, some with large antlers, near the Farm on a 2020 burned slope

Big, Fat Rodent Mounds

The mowing was differently dusty this year. What used to be the more or less consistent roar of the flail mower was interrupted by a bogged down engine and the churn of dirt: ground squirrel burrows! Huge swirls of dust erupted behind the mower, sometimes sent aloft by a breeze. Once, rising heat and a breeze created a dirt vortex that spun in place, a brown twisting spellbound ghost.

Those squirrels had been hiding. Now, they are out in the open, flattening themselves as they grub and graze. Their loud whistle-chirps are more common, as waves of the rodents scatter back to their burrows in alarm. Hawk! Human! Run!! Four to six half-size, big-eyed, skinny young squirrels flock not far from their family’s burrow entrances. Some burrows are quickly being excavated, three foot wide, one foot deep fans of bare, dry soil…and rocks! Mower blades will dull faster next summer and the air will get more dusty.

Farming

Crop plants have become adults. Our community celebrated its first red tomato last weekend and the vines are getting fuller with green fruit. Apples have surpassed the silver dollar stage and are coloring up. Pears aren’t far from being ripe. Meyer and real lemons are coming on as are the bacon avocados. It looks likely that we’ll get a summer crop of limes in six weeks. Our first substantial passion fruit crop won’t be ripe until September.

Judy’s first sunflowers are open and she’s been distributing the coveted silky smooth dark green zucchini. Two Dog Farm’s grapes are neatly trellised with bunches of promising fruit. Two Dog (really, truly!) dry farmed winter squash has just fully blanketed the field, giant green leaves, some patches with beautiful silver veins, all dotted with big yellow-orange flowers. The crews have done their major weeding, now we wait for the ripening of fruit and the promised burgeoning harvest.

Planning

Though the season of long days and hard work are made more enjoyable by the beatific clime, we’re taking the unusual turn of long term planning during the height of the work year. Everywhere you look at ‘outdoor work,’ there is an inter-generational transfer crisis. The hard-working trades of forestry, livestock, land management, wildland firefighting, and farming are struggling to attract young talent. We wonder how to continue the tomatoes and row crops of Molino Creek Farm. Who will manage Santa Cruz County’s North Coast agricultural fields in a decade or so? Will we ever again experience the amazingly diverse, delicious organic crops of Route One Farms from the 1990’s? It takes real skill and hard work to keep each crop growing enough to support the workers. And so, we meet in the large, lonely upstairs room in our Barn and ponder…

June Gloom

Frederick, a variety of passionfruit that does well here – exploding into glory for Interdependence Day

Happy Interdependence Day!

The sky has been a uniform textureless gray. Every day, throughout the day, high, dense relentless fog caps over the Farm. We awake to a dimly lit 55 Fahrenheit, 85 percent humidity and the day peaks in the mid 60s – no blue sky, little breeze…a still, sullen, quiet day that only turns a bit brighter midway through, slowly trailing into darkness in the evening as fog grows even thicker. Nighttime, no stars, but the huge moon brightly illuminates a big patch of sky a little more than the rest.

The odd cold cricket tentatively chirps. A single owl hoots in the distance. Sneaky coyote and sly fox silently roam, leaving tracks and little other sign to know that they were there.

Dawn comes with a middling bird chorus – too cold to be motivated, but still doing their duty.

Turkey Fight!

Recently, Sylvie chronicled a turkey brawl, awakening to ‘very distressed’ turkey noises. They were in a ‘serious fight,’ ‘using their mouths to grab each other’s mouths or necks and careening around.’ Her photo taking frightened them and they broke it off with one chasing the other up the hill. Check it out- there are numerous web movies of this kind of thing. One more type of turkey noise explained, but they have a huge vocabulary. The 3 hens and 2 chick group is still hanging out together, and I noticed that one of the adults is a particularly dark morph. Not sure why, but a turkey clan left a pile of feathers next to the orchard gate- wondering if it got away from coyote or what happened? Did you know that there are albino turkeys (not here!)? Woah. Every day, new turkey drama.

Speaking of birds, the quail babies are all flying now. Tiny, but flying!

Solar Power

The bigger array, the more power. That’s the lesson of these foggy days. Increasingly, we rely on solar power to pump our irrigation water. Our crops need water even when the sun doesn’t shine, but the solar power for the well pumps tapers off. This makes us even gladder for the larger solar array that the Resource Conservation District of Santa Cruz County hooked us up with this past year: it pumps even when there’s the weakest sun hiding behind the thickest of fog! So, we keep up with filling our water tanks, just barely.

Tons of Golden Delicious apples, like most trees…loaded and growing fast.

Jillions of Apples

The notion of apples bearing fruit in alternate years seems a bit abstract until one sees a Big Year (and last year was puny). This year is really, really big. The birds know it- count the 15 jays and 10 acorn woodpeckers hacking away at the apples every minute of every day. And still there will be many, many fruit. Every branch of every tree is weighted with silver dollar sized fruit that is quickly growing. This is part of the watering issue- fruit-filled trees are very thirsty, making it difficult to keep up. Apple roots are soaking up the water and sending it to fruit production just about as fast as we can irrigate them. Water all day and still the soil doesn’t get very wet. SLURP! I had estimated 11,000 pounds of apples to harvest and I’m starting to think that’s low. It is propping time- branches will break soon!

Molino Creek Farm’s dry farmed tomatoes are getting BIG!

Early Mowing

We started mowing when we should have, 2 months ago and those early-mowed areas are filled with colorful poppies and bright green grass. Mowing early conserves soil moisture, especially in a late rainfall year like this one. The method of slowing plant transpiration of soil moisture is a central factor in successful dry farming (tomatoes, squash) and is evident even in the fallow or hay fields. Those early-mowed fields are lush and the early mowed material is breaking down leaving bunchgrasses and poppy plants brightly burgeoning.

The Olive Collective is watching the fruit grow as the olive press greenhouse gets built

The Last Mow

Except for those early mowed areas, we are in a marathon to complete the Last Mow of the season. The head-high grasses of the unmowed fields and margins are turning tawny, throwing oodles of seed, hiding legions of snakes and mice. We edge into the dry grasses a little at a time to give the critters fleeing space. The cut grass mulch is a dense six inches thick with little chance of decomposing now that the dry summer is upon us. It will be et by grasshoppers, mice, and such. And, it will provide the best seed germination medium and erosion control mat for the next rainy season. The mower growls and dust flies as the farm prepares for fire season.

Two Dog Farm’s beautiful dry farmed winter squash is looking good…

Meanwhile, Vegetables

The mild spring makes for giant cropping systems. The carpet of Two Dog Farm dry farmed winter squash is extravagant. The rows of peppers, luxuriant. Row upon row of dry farmed Early Girl tomatoes is awesome. The unfurling of 2 Dog chardonnay grape vines is magnificent. Everywhere we look, lush, healthy crops. Astounding start to the summer. What’s next?

Amazing array of food being grown right now at Molino Creek Farming Collective

Junuary’s Humdrum Ho Ho Ho

Wild azalea – the last flower of the season. Photo from a nearby forested seep

Dry farming in a wet spring followed by June Gloom brings weeds and big growth. Dressed like a hoer? Gloves, a sun hat, long sleeves and long pants – all necessary parts of the kit. Hoers are a most common sight nowadays in these expansive rich soiled crop fields. One might even sing “On the 4^th day of Solstice, my true love brought to me four hoers hoing…etc”: every farmer’s dream! Late season rains make for extra germination of seeds that might have (in a ‘normal’ year) been left ‘high and dry’ in the dry farmed tomato and squash patches. The unusually late precipitation makes for crops growing big and fast, as do the weeds, which must have their roots separated from the soil lest they compete and use up the moisture. The most common weed in Molino Creek Farm patches: daikon radish, left over from cover crop let go to seed. Two Dog Farm has its own suite of pestiferous plants, a weedy amaranth being chief among them. Despite Santa’s continual bowl full of jelly Ho Ho’ing, these weeds are no joke.

We dub this drizzly, cold, and sometimes breezy month: Junuary!

Drippy Roadsides, Scooting Quail, Turkeys (redux)

When dew and mist hang heavy from every grassblade and shrub leaf, there is no place for quail to go. They must stay on the road to avoid hypothermia. So, we drive or walk slowly watching the ground birds weave and scuttle trying to find a dry path off the gravel road. The first baby quail emerged in the past week or so; the oldest hatchlings are able to fly already. Nervous quail parents try to herd their frenetic fluffball chicks one way or the other but they sometimes scatter anyhow. It takes quail parents a long while to gather their covey once it flushes. High delicate peep peeps whine from under bushes, hoping for the deep cluck cluck of parents calling them back to their nomadic homes. The adult quail would love it if the babies could take to the air especially for the night roost up in thick trees farther from marauding predators.

We look for turkey patterns, anything to make sense of what these large birds are up to. One group of turkeys has 2 adolescents, ¼ the size of the rest of the flock, which has 4 females tending to the emergent young: thanks, aunts!

Some small percentage of Ceanothus thyrsiflorus, blue blossom, survived after an epic seed flush due to the 2020 fire. Those that didn’t survive are now a world of kindling for the next wildfire.

Fuel, Fire

What does one do to prepare for a Super El Niño? The 2020 CZU fire was spurred by remnants of a hurricane which started fires across much of the State. Hurricane predictors have warned to expect many more hurricanes this coming season in the Pacific…so, chances of a piece of hurricane hitting California in the middle of our dry, dry summer are increased. I recently surveyed Molino Creek Farm’s and nearby Bonny Doon’s fireshed: it is ripe to burn. There are miles of dead and damaged trees dropping bone dry limbs onto the awaiting dead shrub understory. The Ceanothus that came up after the fire is 12’ tall but only one in 30 of the shrubs survive, leaving stacked dead shrubs with lots of air between them: a legion of kindling to light the shed limbs and dead trees. Terrifying. It could happen this summer. That next wildfire will not be like anything anyone alive has experienced in the Santa Cruz Mountains. When it lights up and the fire runs from north to south and if there’s any wind behind it, the fire storm will have enough momentum to head into the San Lorenzo Valley and possibly into UCSC and Santa Cruz. Beware Felton!

The late gloom and drizzle helps…but, the heat waves aren’t normally until August with the two last fires leaping in the middle of that month.

Are we acting like we’ve got 6 weeks left before things are crispy and ready to ignite?

Scents

Freshly mowed grass and apples tickle our noses. The mowing has to happen, despite the grass still being green. It is green grass that gives off the freshly mown lawn smell: spicy/sweet and somewhat moldy. That delightful scent is everywhere as we drive tractors up and down every farm roadside.

In the orchard, the surprising first scent of apples…at the bottom of the orchard, in the new Gravenstein apple grove. That type of apple has a distinct sour-floral smell and those trees bear early, which is why we planted a grove. It is the first year we’ll get many from those trees, and I’m looking forward to that harvest. Their flesh turns punky quickly, so timely harvest is key. Their waxy-semi-oily skin seems to be where the distinct almost skunky scent arises. What apple diversity we have!

In the forested springs and on creeksides through the mountains…the last of the wild azaleas are blossoming. A little more complex than jasmine but just as sweet, a bit dusty with a hint of orange-citrus. The scent caries a long way. The flowers are beautiful. If you haven’t caught them this year, you’ll have to wait for next: they might already be gone.

The next warmish night…should we ever have one…will make us smell tanoak pollen. Ugh.

Sounds

Marty’s recent stay in the Barn reminds us of the noise of chorus frogs from the cement pond. Those noisy amphibians call through the night and us locals apparently have put that sound out of mind. Ear plugs are necessary for guests to allow them to sleep past the nature noises.

As the fog lifts, when it lifts, there are zephyrs and slight gusts. Muted long drippy mornings are interrupted by a sudden rustling of leaves. A dust devil appears with a whoosh next to you on the road.

The quiet nights carry wave roar, echoing loud sets interspersed with patterns of fewer, smaller waves.

The lowing of cows on the prairies far below the farm.

Hoots of great horned owls.

Molino Creek Farm lies down below these chaparral covered ridges and beyond it, fog and the Monterey Bay.

Happy Summer Solstice 2026!

Apples

It’s a common question: what do you do with all of the apples? We ask ourselves that, too. We’ve got this issue with oscillation: alternate bearing years having most recently been spurred by the Fire of 2020. Post fire 2021-few; 2022-lots; 2023- few; 2024 – lots; 2025 – few; and guess what…2026 looks like another ‘lots’ year. Other things contribute to changing harvest numbers, such as burnt up trees, age of trees, pests, heat wave apple roasts, lack of chill hours, etc. Nevertheless, in this macro harvest year we will (probably!) have to ask and answer the Big Question again, and we already know the answer: more juice, and more hard cider!

A farewell to spring flower in our grasslands replete with 2 native sleeping bees, droplets of drizzle.

My calculation for this year’s harvest is a record 11,000 pounds, nearly 6 tons. We’ll probably sell 2500 pounds to put up some capital for compost, irrigation supplies, and things we need to keep the orchard running. And, we’ll probably give 2500 pounds to the Pacific School and other charities. That leaves 6,000 pounds of ‘seconds’ apples going to either juice or into the deer-feeding (eg., pest destroying) compost piles. If we can manage the pressing power, that means we could make a record 250 gallons of hard cider! Last I checked, we have 5 cider makers in our midst and we’ll need everyone to pitch in, pick, haul, wash, sort, grind and press this year to make it work. Watch out for October!

Avocados

The other fruit to celebrate is the oily green avocado. The repercussions of the fire also play out here, and this is the first year since 2020 that we have much to harvest. Our Community Orchard is bringing home the Bacon, with thin-skinned avocado fruit on the less oil content side of things but still delicious. About a third of our 100 trees are Bacon and only 4 of the oldest trees are bearing this year. The warm, dry March and a plethora of pollinators made a big crop that will be ready next year. Meanwhile, we watch and wait. The other types we expect larger crops from next year are Reed and Lamb Haas, but we also have a few Gwen, Pinkerton, and Carmen Haas sprinkled in the groves. Bacon avocadoes are the fastest- ‘only’ 16 months to ripen; others take almost 2 years. The ground squirrels and gray fox are already sharing the harvest. One day soon we’ll learn how to cook with the leaves and in a few years maybe we’ll figure out how to extract the oil.

Does it count that we add other plant diversity with this invasive poison hemlock?

Organic AND Regenerative

Another frequent question we are asked is ‘Are You Regenerative?’ That’s a loaded question because there’s not really any way of measuring or verifying such things…not like our organic certification with CCOF. Sure, you can fill out a self-assessment checklist, and proudly attest to your professed stellar farm care, but what thinking third party goes for such balderdash? Anyway, we resonate with some of the apparent principles of the regenerative agriculture movement such as building soil organic matter, creating conditions for increasing (especially native) plant diversity within the orchard understory, and integrating animals into the orchards.

That latter one is a bit of a chuckler. ‘Chickens? Sheep?’ you might ask. Nay, much better: voles and turkeys, fox and squirrel, woodpecker and robin! Some may squint, “Are you serious?!” Yes- and we have evidence that anyone can see. Most recently, we’re seeing one large, fresh, glistening turkey turd every 5 square meters. We don’t need to care for those wild turkeys, they are self-sustaining! And, they are eating weed seeds, mopping up pests, cleaning up fallen fruit, and turning all of that biomass into fertilizer deposited right onto the fungal web that feeds the orchard trees. Plus, they are entertaining. And, if a coyote eats one of our understory flock, we don’t cry or call the wildlife department for a depredation permit nor do we raise apples to pay the bills for guardian dogs. If any of you readers know of any way we can help the turkeys feel more at home in our orchard, please let us know. And, if you are wondering about our other orchard understory animals…stay tuned for more fascinating Regenerative Agricultural Stories about integrating animals into cropping systems.

We’re good at raising lots of poison oak

Noise

What’s the noise around the farm? Vegetation control. Up above the farm, on San Vicente Redwoods land, the masticators are roaring and the saws are revving: they are doing more post fire forestry to make the redwood stands more resilient, to better protect Bonny Doon from the next inferno. On the Farm itself, the noise is mowers. Our discerning gaze turns to the color of grass: is it tawny, is it dead? There are complex calculations involving percent dead grass, relative humidity, nesting birds, proximity to infrastructure, and time left to mow before July 1 spurring us out the door, onto (or behind!) the tractors, and pointed in the right direction. Back and forth, strip by strip of cutting.

More Wild Birds

The size of a couple of bird flocks deserve mention. The goldfinches! Will somebody teach me the difference between the species? Whatever type of goldfinches they are, there are commonly flocks of 30 noisily descending on patches of the non-native dandelion seed heads. Rough cats ear seeds are apparently scrumptious to these seedeaters.

Equally noisy, equally numerous flocks of wrentits are visiting the oaks around the farm. The trees seem to squeak with a bit of an energetic russle then a confetti of tiny birds erupts, fluttering to the next oak. They sure seem to be having fun.

Farewell, Spring!

Here we are, on the advent of Summer and just at the right time this year we can say ‘farewell to spring’ with the namesake flower, which is in full glory right now in patches around our well stewarded grassland. Deep pink-red, large four-petaled flowers open with the sun and close with the night, creating safe sleeping spaces for the cutest of native bees, their pollinators. In other places, the summer bloom is on- tarplants with their resinous, odiferous leaves and yellow sunflowers brighten and scent the midday prairie. As we progress into summer, there will be more miraculous flowers dotting the landscape despite the lack of rain and the bone-dry soil. Week by week, the flowerscape changes. We hope for a mild summer without smoke or fire.

Happy Solstice!

A Wild Weather Ride

Sticky monkey flower is adding a riot of color to the hillsides around Molino Creek Farm

Each month, every month, there is a new shrub in bloom around our farm. This month the featured flowering shrubs are sticky monkeyflower and bush lupine. The sticky monkeyflower of California’s central coast is a striking and unique orange-yellow whereas Big Sur has a paler and larger flowered version and Down South it is downright red. Ours is special: friends don’t let friends infect the local genepool with monkeyflowers from thither.

Our bush lupine is also unique – a lavender jobby contrasting with the common bright yeller form down along the coast.

Bush lupine – our type is this color, but most of California has a yellow form with bigger leaves

Fruit Eating Birds

The native blackberries are ripening, juiced up from the late rains. Band tailed pigeon discovered them and are feasting along our extensive deer-deterring (somewhat) fencelines which prop up linear mounds of prickly canes. The large pigeons balance warily on the top wire and then dive onto a patch of berries, pecking and sucking up fruit. Their bills don’t even get purple-messy!

Impatient scrub jays and acorn woodpeckers are also eating fruit, but unripe fruit, in the apple orchard. Many rock-hard 2” apples are scored with bill marks and sometimes pecked holes. The unabashed woodpeckers sit on the top of orchard trees and fence posts, seemingly saying ‘look at me, I’m beautiful and innocent!’ They are Not. Innocent. But, they ARE beautiful with their stark black-and-white patterning and brilliant red-capped heads. And, they ARE fruit destroyers, but we grow enough for everyone.

Vermin

This, the 6^th year after the wildfire, marks the return of the blood-sucking vermin: ticks! Every foray around the Farm nets at least one feisty little creature, hard to dislodge from crawling on pants or skin. Young brush bunnies are straying farther from home, shaking their itchy, floppy ears, which are festooned with puffed up parasites. Imagine not being able to take those things off of you! Ugg.

Bigger ears are also wagging, but do we really refer to deer as vermin? Some do. Deer ears spoon out like radio dishes aimed right at me when I scritch by on the crunchy gravel road. ‘Hi deer!’ I say ‘It’s okay, I’m not gonna chase you!’ Some of the herd is becoming calmer near me, I think, with such urging. Or, is it more menacing? There are a couple of very large bucks that stand a little too close and eye me a little too intensely, and I hope I never have to toreador around their thrusting antlers. I hear they get more aggressive as their antler felt sheds – still a ways off. Now, their antlers are still growing, completely dark brown felted, the points dull and rounded. Tree bark is not freshly tattered from their rubbing. That’s a ways off.

Lion Sign

Mountain lion sign is becoming more common for the first time in 6 years. Scat on the main road. Scent scrapes on the trail down to the creek. I am searching for paw prints. And there is nary a coyote calling on the farm. They fear the lions: you know…that old cats versus dogs thing and isn’t it funny that its always the dogs that are more frightened?

The lions don’t venture out into the open grasslands down by the highway. It is there, at the gate, that one can hear multiple packs of coyotes singing at each other across the wide open spaces. Quite the cacophony. Quite often.

Gala apples are taking on color, but they won’t be harvested until September

Three Calls

Three calls are catching my ear when walking about: bluebirds, turkey hens, and song sparrows. The lazuli buntings have stopped their incessant singing- they were the last fascinating regular calls. Bluebirds have fledged their young and are travelling in small flocks, constantly foraging around the farm fields. Their moist-sounding low-slurred descending single notes are unmistakable and carry far. Contrast those watery notes with the drier sounding clucking of female turkeys and now you are on your way to the symphony. The hen-clucking is also nearly always evident as they keep in constant touch with their chicks. The early batches of chicks seem to have gotten et, but a new batch is sauntering around in loose pursuit of their family – two hens and a tom. A percussive ‘clucK, cluck, cluck!’ calls them to stay close. The much more melodious song sparrows sing their high and complex lyrics, showing up these other two. Song sparrows are quite common around here and their songs emanate from every patch of weeds.

Wild Ride

All these farm critters and we along with them have been party to a wild weather ride this past week. There was intense, thick fog and cold. Days struggled to get much into the 60’s and one morning was 45F! Then there was WIND…branch breaking wind, gusts coming from all over, random, crazy. The wind brought some clouds and even a few splattery drops of rain. Then, today, there was HEAT. 91F was the high and it is still warm after dark. It was the first Hot Day of the spring. The untilled fields are starting to turn tawny and us grass allergy folks just want every grass to whither and stop poisoning the air.

Crickets and snakes love the heat. Every farm trail and road had a snake today: gopher snakes of all sizes and a few yellow-bellied racers. The snakes loved the heat. I accidently disturbed a nest of 8 freshly laid, leathery southern alligator lizard eggs. They were smartly placed at the base of a giant bull thistle – protection!

The night song cricket chorus isn’t that deep, but it is the first night with much cricket song. Summer’s coming soon…the warmth grows, dryness progresses. What will tomorrow bring?

Chill, Long Days

The days slowly emerge from fog. Many mornings we wake to misty fog close at hand. The silvery blue fog is backlit by the rising sun. It ever so slowly melts away, downhill, into Molino Creek canyon or towards the ocean as patches of pale blue sky emerge…around 10 or 11 in the morning. Grass is wet to shoe-soaking into the early afternoon. The days have never really warmed that much: it was 46F one recent morning at dawn.

The days get light early (5 a.m.) and stay light late (8:45 pm). Solstice is close. One is easily tempted to stay outside too late doing chores, then dinner is late and it is hard to get a full night’s sleep.

Molino Creek Farm – really, truly dry farmed!

Adolescent Plants

Two Dog Farm winter squash plants haven’t started sprawling, but they are starting to cover the ground. Molino Creek Farm’s tomatoes are getting weeded, but will we keep up with the weeds? Parts of the tomato field are covered with huge rosettes of lush daikon radish, the cover crop that went to seed early this year. Those hunker roots will be difficult to arrest from the soil and meanwhile they drink up the soil moisture which had been destined for tomatoes. In other areas, rows of tiny onion and pepper plants decorate the still evident and rich soil.

The Two Dog Farm crew was assiduously weeding their “Roadside” field this past week. So much work is made more inevitable by the recent weed-germinating rain. Mark Bartle weeded large areas with the tractor, leaving only close to the plants to finesse weed-free.

Two Dog Farm’s beautiful dry farmed winter squash

Tweetings

The remarkable thing about this past week has been The Birds. Three days running, Saturday – Monday, the entire region’s bird songs erupted in glory. Bonny Dooners reported it and it was obvious at Molino Creek Farm. The birds were singing like it was dawn all day long. Was it the amazing temperature, the moon cycle, or Spring: who knows? Here’s a list of the birds we can see every day, easily, around the farm: 2 ravens, 1 kestrel, 1 red tailed, 8 bluebirds, ash throated flycatcher, olive sided flycatcher, robin, dark eyed junco, goldfinch, pine siskin, purple martin, violet green, barn, & tree swallows, great horned owl, scrub and stellar jay, band tailed pigeon, lazuli bunting, song sparrow, black headed grosbeak, pileated woodpecker, turkey, California quail, spotted towhee, California towhee, Bewick’s wren and finches….probably more! And, they are all singing, all day long for unknown reasons. Pure joy?

Along the Boundaries

In 2010, Molino Creek Farm established a 1600-foot hedgerow along our main road’s northern fenceline. The NRCS funded the project, enabling us to put in a water line and to purchase plants and root cages. All of the plants burned to the ground in 2020 but are standing tall once again this year. Valley oaks from Felton acorns, Oregon oak from Annadel State Park acorns, hazelnut bushes & flowering currant from nearby stock, and many elderberries from the Work Ranch in southern Monterey County…and many more species are growing (soon to be intertwined?) in the long, linear row. Birds love it.

We have also been planting even more floriferous bushes along the orchard fenceline, and that fence needs more flowering shrubs. Anyone want to donate some beauties to fill that out? There is another 100 feet to plant along that area. We love the 4 types of rose bushes there, each with its own unique color, scent, and seasonality of bloom. There’s also a patch of spreading, rhizomatous ‘swamp sage’ with beguiling sky-blue flowers – we may uproot some and spread it around. Add in a mallow, buttonbush, and butterfly bush and you have most of it.

Several floriferous species at the ochard hedgerow

In The Orchard

The Community Orchard is making fruit! This will be the first harvest of avocados since 2020 and the Big Fire. It looks like we have 100+ pounds of bacon avocado fruit rapidly getting ripe right now. We are also hauling in bags of Valencia oranges for juice. The Satsuma mandarin branches have collapsed with the weight of ripe fruit. Meyer lemons are keeping a pace with the harvest. A few limes linger, and the Eureka and Lisbon lemons are just starting to ripen. This will be the first in many years with no prunes, missing due to unknown reasons. Apple trees have enlarging fruit at the same time they are still flowering: odd!

The Work

I already mentioned the weeding, but there is also the mowing. Alas, 2 of the 3 active mowers are down right now. The DR done drowned, having been left out in the freak rain storm and now probably flooded with water in places water should not be: it won’t keep running. The Kubota mysteriously developed a cripplingly bent steering rod. Sometimes, it seems like we need a full-time mechanic! And still… the BCS keeps running, and much more mowing is needed. Now to find the time to walk behind that machine, wrangling it around corners and on steep hillsides.

We are in the midst of fruit thinning for the apples, thousands of tiny fruit littering the ground and thousands more needing plucking. Some fruit rolls off with a twist, but the Fuji and some others are more stubborn, requiring clippers.

Wild LifeSlinking away from the house…a gray fox. Fox poop is everywhere, thank goodness. Coyote scat is also evident but they stopped singing a while back. Deer antlers are getting longer but still thick and velvety. No sign of mountain lion. Bobcat tracks are around but not that common. No skunks. No raccoons. No recent weasel sightings. There are (a few) bats

Wind and Cold

March…the warmest and driest in decades. Might May be the coolest? The heat’s gone to Europe and the East Coast where the poor folks roast and sweat. Will the cold, windy May place at more distance Summer’s wildfire? Nay, this topsy turvy human-driven climate change world gives us dizzying unpredictability. Just out of sight, out on the horizon, who knows what lurks? For now, this week, fog and drizzle rule.

Two layers of clouds roll downcoast: wispy white puffs rapidly curl and pout in the sky over the farm, and an unbroken wall of fog, dark gray and more oceanward is more ponderous and slow in its southward march. The wind’s sudden roar bends trees, flattens grasses. I glance towards the ridges far above our land where scantly needled (post fire) firs and redwoods move more subtly, boughs flexing, tree tops swaying. Birds dart low lest they be pitched downwind by the gusts. Tuesday this week was a day to be inside. Luckily, it lasted only one day. And still the chill remains. Ah- surprises! Rain! Tomorrow!! Maybe a half inch…

Feisty Animals

We sneeze loudly outside (the pollen is thick and swirling) and turkeys gobble back. These foggy days lengthen the bird chorus from dawn to midday. A pair of white throated swifts called their sharp tee-tee-tee-tee-tee-tee for a bit this morning – perhaps drinking at the pond and then playfully departing, wheeling through the swallow and martin flock. Antlers fat and velvety, the brood of deer is moving less furtively away. A two-foot-long Santa Cruz aquatic gartersnake spends mornings on the cement front porch, preparing to molt. One eye is blind: from shedding skin or from old age? This one is far from its aquatic home…old and big.

Sylvie caught a fox and bobcat standoff in the deep, dark night this past week. The sound recording is awesome and harsh. Those screaming and hissing critters were doing their level best to avoid each other’s’ teeth and claws through loud ‘diplomacy.’

Santa Cruz Aquatic Gartersnake basking on the front porch

Liquid Sunshine

We celebrate the fruit, which becomes more numerous and tastier each year. The pride of the orchard recently has been citrus. There are still some (very few) Persian limes. Lisbon lemons are ripening and a few Meyer “lemons” are ready every day or so. Two Valencia orange trees, one much larger than the other, bear juicy, thin skinned, sweet fruit: 3 of those will make an 8-ounce glass of liquid sunshine. Thanks goes to Chuck Overley for planting those and more thanks to the legions of Community Orchardists for nurturing them to bear such mighty crops.

The Wetting

We are officially on the irrigation routine, no turning back until the winter rains next October. Just in time, our second solar-powered well pump is on line for this dry season. The sun allows us to keep the irrigation going to meet the needs of hundreds of trees. 9 more irrigation lines need to be ‘renewed’ before the whole system is ready to roll. We have a total of just over 100 irrigation lines feeding the orchard and each one needs looking after (some- a lot) at the outset of the watering season. That’s a 20 hour job, and it sure is nice to be 90% of the way. But oh my gosh did portions of the orchard get dry before the water flowed! We hope the trees forgive us.

Jen and Ian donated a weed eating crew and look what happened: nice understory to Wickson Crabs!

Mow, Mow, Mow

The first mowing is almost done in the orchard and nowhere is the last mowing taking place. A donation from Jen and Ian brought forward a paid, Highly Skilled weedeating crew to make short work of nearly 25% of the orchard, a thick late Spring tangle on the steepest part of the North Orchard hill. That part hasn’t looked that nice for years! Uplifting!

The mowing machine had chopped and ground up head-high bell beans between the orchard tree rows, and then they resprouted and are flowering 2’ tall, again. Where they grew thickly, regrowth is deep green: the nitrogen those beans created is in evidence and we are thankful. Now to mow the resprouting things to keep the cycle going: second mowing, anyone? Some years it takes 4.

Aster chilensis – native perennial late spring aster!

Floral Report

Ah, where to start with the flowers? Our local version of the perennial bush lupine has its lavender flowered charm and is in peak blossom, especially evident roadside. Native summer aster has started flowering, spikes of many petaled stars. Poppies still color field and hillside, but it has become difficult to find a single annual sky lupine. The farewell to springs opened their magenta petals this past week, joining the late spring tarplants.

Most citrus blooms have past but apple flowers persist. Deep purple, pale blue and many shades in between – vetch, twining and matting, is having its flowering heyday.

Conservation Strategy for Coastal Prairie Conservation

Grey Hayes, PhD March 10, 2004 A white paper that was reviewed by many botanists and managers and presented during a workshop “Management and Restoration of California’s Coastal Prairie” at the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve.

Comments welcomed.

Hayes 2004 Coastal Prairie Conservation Strategy Download