Even on our country Farm, weekends are a noisy affair. Neighbors with ‘regular’ weekday jobs fire up their yard engines and the consistent droning of weedeaters, saws, etc., wrecks the peace…but that’s not all. Day job people fire up their World War Two era fighter planes, take off from the Watsonville Airport, head up the coast, and roar overhead doing loop-d’-loops. And then there are the crotch rocket motorcycles and revving sports-mobiles whining and growling through Bonny Doon above and along the Coast Highway below. Saturdays and Sundays are the best days to practice the meditation of detachment, trying not to be distracted by the hope of the peace of weekdays which nevertheless start with ceaseless dog barking just to keep us on our toes.

The setting sun quiets the human cacophony, but other disturbing sounds emerge. The foxes have decided to start their very own nightly chorus. And they are teaching their young. Regular fox yowls are hair-raising enough, but add in a mess of young fox kits attempting creative, attention-grabbing songs, and that will set anyone on edge. They must have recently imbibed whatever the fox equivalent of coffee might be, because this new ‘chorus’ has been going on for hours and hours, night after night. Entertaining? Sylvie says ‘nah.’ 

The energetic noises of Summer go on day and night!

The Best Weather

While much of the world floods, burns, and roasts, we must not take for granted the absolutely phenomenal weather of late. Apples enjoy large temperature flux between day and night. We have just that. Awakening to the very, very long and gradual dawn (high ridge hiding the fresh sun to the East), it is COOL…like 52F this morning (and many mornings). That’s mighty close to the 40s right here in midsummer. Then the rheostat cranks up, temperature climbing to the low 80s by early afternoon: 82 straight up today! No clouds – a crystalline blue, flawless sky. 50% humidity. A gentle, steady breeze picks up starting 10 a.m. and carries a bit of ocean scent through to sunset. Nearly hypnotically gorgeous weather!

Flocks

Contrasting against the startling deep blue sky, dozens of swallows whir and pitch, careening after insects or just plain having fun. Much of the Farm is fallow this year, and we let the cover crops go to seed. This must have created an invertebrate bounty as this an especially huge swallow display. (Much more impressive than the roaring stunt pilots). There are four species: cliff, tree, violet-green, and barn swallows in that flock. Sometimes, they are all wheeling up high, sometimes many come low, skimming the dry canes of cover crop. The bugs they are after seem concentrated in the fallow fields as the swallows crowd right there for hours in dazzlingly crowded, circling displays.

Where there are small patches of cover crop that someone mowed, another kind of flock alights. Massive, bomber band-tailed pigeons skim down onto the flattened thatch, voraciously pecking at a carpet of fat oat seeds. The uncannily ‘normal’ 14 farm birds have swelled to 40 birds with this bounty, and the local birds are not happy about sharing – they want to fly too close over the incursion of strangers: are they even slapping them with their wings? Possibly.

Forty birds seems like the magic number for Molino’s flocks of birds. There were forty of those swallows last I counted. Forty band-tailed pigeons when the interlopers arrive. And, there are forty goldfinches, also, batting around in a chittering flock.

Scent of a Varmint

Night walks help to catch the scent. Day walks reveal the sign. Skunk. Mustelid musk. Telling holes dug into the soil or through the thick mown thatch. Hundreds and hundreds of holes, already- more every night! Is there more than one of these industrious carnivores? Ground wasps don’t stand a chance this year. Voles – beware!

Random Other Things

Stunningly yellow butterflies suddenly abound – sulphurs? Those are the wooly bear caterpillars that feed on mustard family things, of which we have an abundance. 

Maw and caw didn’t have babies this year.

Banana slugs are sliming around in the redwood understory even in this dry, hot spell.

Ground squirrel babies are everywhere with cute white eyeliner.

Thrasher birds aren’t singing but they are skulking about in the underbrush. Similarly curiously quiet is an abundance of spotted towhees.

Family groups of California towhees are foraging together, scratching the duff with bluebirds watching them from nearby branches hoping they scare up something tasty to eat.

Large and medium-sized gopher snakes are patrolling. Fence lizards are molting and abundant. Mice scamper and boing when you move any cover.

Farm Work

Judy took her first trip to the Palo Alto Farmer’s Market last Saturday. She’s kindly delivering the neighbors the most delicious zucchini – also taking those to market! Two Dog picked their first really truly dry farmed tomatoes. The abundance is starting to abound.

Our Community Orchardists are working miracles among the trees. Though a bit un-tidy for lack of mowing, the trees are hugely adorned with fruit. Green citrus is fattening for the winter harvest – a few Meyer lemons and oranges are there for the orchardists, who also have all the Bacon avocados they can eat. And then there are the apples…

It appears that my estimate of 11,000 pounds of apple harvest is really, really happening even despite the flocks of jays and acorn woodpeckers eating all they can way before the apples are ripe. Next year, we’ll get our first harvest of Gravenstein apples, and there are a few tasty trial fruit for us this year – getting ripe now! Hugh is our star propper – he’s got the gift of heft, knowing just where and how to put a prop that will stick and hold the weighted branches. Negative buoyancy? Even with the massive fruit set, this is the first year we’ve properly thinned the fruit – no big clusters of tiny fruit making us feel abashed. The understory is well weeded. Sylvie scored a new filter and the well-pressurized micro-sprinklers are whirring water across the wetting soil. The trees are super happy!