Molino Creek Farm

Suddenly Crickets

The long days have become warm. Some people were even growly about the chill, the fog, and the drizzle that have become our most frequent visitors as this long Spring crescendo slowly approaches Summer. The complaining people were particularly happy about today, and tomorrow will even be warmer. But this cool, moist spring has spread a vibrancy rarely seen across California’s central coast. The biggest grasshopper I’ve ever seen around here plopped onto the ground in front of me today and tonight the crickets have at last begun the summer’s starlight orchestra. The warmth of the day quickly fades as the night grows dark, and cricketsong wanes, replaced by a rare silent night, peculiar to the particularly cool spring. There is no wind, no echoing waves, no trilling crickets, and only a few sporadic hoots exchanged by scattered great horned owls.

Late Morning, Fog Dispersing

Sunny, bright sunrises are rare. Mostly there is the muteness of first light, glowing through dense fog. Wet grass. Puffed up quail sitting in pairs, barely moving. Slow motion rabbits tentatively beginning their daytime nibbling. The sun brightens, the fog grows thinner, and gradually bird songs escalate, becoming more diverse, varied, louder. The first bright rays carry sudden warmth, sending birds into the sky: hawks soaring, ravens patrolling, swallows chattering, swerve. The purple martins carry such huge wads of grass to line their nest cavities that they can barely fly.

As the sun takes full charge, it evaporates the dew, and a young coyote yaps and howls first from the forest edge, out of sight. She seems dissatisfied with her vantage point and trots out into the middle of a field to yowl and bark some more, glancing furtively about after each vocal session. This sets the neighborhood dogs to barking, and our coyote friend glances over her shoulder, seemingly annoyed at her domestic cousins’ primitive and unmusical repetition. Eventually, she moves on, and the morning noises go back to being dominated by bird song. Noon approaches.

Contrast of mowed, green and unmowed, brown

Drying

At every glance, there are contrasts between drying and still wet, gold versus green. Where we passed once with a mower through a grassy field, the cut area evaporated less water and is still wetly green whereas the surrounding tall grass absorbed the soil moisture and is already drying. Five foot tall tawny grass stands or falls over, crisscrossing, heavy with seed. A million things are hidden in that meadowy mess: snakes, rodents, bugs, spiders, and bird nests present a gallery of surprises as I collect native grass seed for restoring areas of the farm. The seed must dry in paper bags to be stored until first rains, to be tossed into the footprint of prescribed fire or along the tracks of mowers.

Flowers Still

Despite the drying, it remains a very floral spring. Different types of vetch have only just entered their peak bloom. Poppies are in full display, big orange patches, rabbits eating their flowers. Monkeyflower is also in peak color, whole hillsides glowing peach-orange. Nearby, the post fire chaparral giant yellow bush poppies are blossoming, creating a peculiarly sweet, cucumber scent. That chaparral air is thick with resinous blueblossom odor accentuated sometimes by the bitter-sweet yerba santa, which is displaying clusters of lilac flowers. The forest understory is bejeweled with rosey globe lilies, bobbing and lush. The last native iris flowers are fading.

Ah, the promise of Lapins cherries for late June (nets up soon!)

Fruity Promises

The orchards are producing ripe citrus while thousands of other fruit grow marble- to golf ball-sized. We compare different types of navel oranges, contrasting them with Valencia, complimented by sweet Honey mandarins. The last of the limes are coveted. In the apple orchard, the fruit has set and is rapidly growing; it is fruit thinning time! Some of our apricot relatives are thickly laden with young fruit. The bigger patch of Lapins cherry trees will soon need netting. We peer into the canopies of avocado trees, hoping to glimpse at least some fruit set; last year was grimly non fruitful…these trees are notoriously unpredictable.

Watering

To keep the fruit fattening, we have started rounds of irrigation. That routine keeps us on our toes, especially the first cycles of water flow as the need for repairs are numerous. Inadvertent mower damage, winter rodent gnawing, or just plain mysterious breaks makes for geysers, gushers, and pouring leaks that must be detected before large tanks are drained. We seek leaks by noise more than sight. This was the first week that water flowed to most orchards as well as the 2 Dog vineyard. The irrigation will run through November, tens of thousands of gallons each week…mostly pumped silently by solar power. Irrigation efficiency has us using around half of what would be considered normal, let alone that a sizeable portion of our produce is dry farmed with no irrigation at all!

We are looking forward to the summer…and hoping not to get Too Much Heat (or fire!).

Dry, tall grass – a tangle that includes Calfifornia brome grass for restoration seed

Swarm in the Air

The air is alive with bugs and the swallows are happy. I don’t notice the tiny areal insects until dusk, by the sun’s slanting rays, but the barn swallows see them all day long. I’m sure that the swallows have learned, or always knew, which form of insect is the tastiest: maybe they dive for the biggest ones, perhaps they dart into a dense swarm of bugs with the right silvery flash, or maybe a lone moth flies in the right pattern to catch their eye from far away. Sometimes when I have the patience to watch the swallows for long enough, I see that several are crisscrossing the same patch of sky, or diving above the same patch of grass. It is hard to notice the common feeding ground because they never make tight turns, only large gradual arcs, to return to the same spot. They avoid crashing into one another by leaving a lot of margin, making it less evident that they are visiting the same feeding spot. How much of their flying antics are for feeding or just for fun makes it even more difficult to understand swallow-bug interactions.

Waves of Aphids, Troops of Predators

The slow flight of a tiny lone insect ends on the tip of a newly planted medlar. This mother aphid might soon have babies, the colony grubbing on lush new growth until it wilts. Close behind her another insect flashes red. A mother lady beetle somehow senses the right place to lay eggs where her offspring will have enough herds of aphids to feast on and grow fat. Close by, a yellow jacket wasp, aka meat bee, sips nectar at a flower; she might also be eating from aphid colonies soon – either lapping up aphid ‘honeydew’ or pinching apart their bodies or the bodies of the lady beetle larvae nearby. The acceleration of warm, long days and the lushness of plant growth is spinning up this circle of life.

The Hum of Tractor Engines

It is early morning and already a tractor is running, a farmer driving it from home base to the nearby field. The noise changes from jangling and a variable hum to a continuous deeper growl as the tiller commences row-by-row to prepare the soil for planting pepper plants, winter squash seeds and more tomato seedlings. Some tomato plants have been in the ground for weeks, and these need weeding and bed care. Bodhi recently cruised down those rows with the tiller, weeding the rows while also creating the soil mulch bed that is critical to maintaining soil moisture for dry farming. Where the tiller didn’t hit, right up against the tomato babies, a sea of the first paired leaves of weeds taunting the farmer, begging for hoe.

Jungle

Where not too long ago there were pretty patches of flowers, now it is disarray. The California poppies are buried in deep disorganized grass. Flower color has become muted, overcome by clouds of light green or even drying tawny. Where mower or cow has not touched, the meadows are 5’ tall. The overstory stems of the tallest of grasses, European oatgrass, hang thick with juicy seeds pendant and ripening. Where the soil is less productive, the grasses are already brown-dry and shorter with seeds ready to ruin your socks. Walking anywhere off trail is either a soaking experience (in the morning)(up to your knees) or a tangled, tripping, itchy experience (in the drier afternoon). Best to keep to trammeled areas, out of the jungle.

Thousands of Fruit

Apple petals have mostly fallen to be replaced by clusters of fuzzy, baby fruit. Instead of being a sea of white-pink blossoms, the orchard is fresh, light spring green with new leaves emerging from rapidly elongating shoots. Waist-high weeds have regrown where a month ago we had mowed to ground the cover crop. It is past time for another mowing. The baby plum fruit are already quarter-sized and shiny, too thick and needing immediate thinning; the apple fruit are close behind. Our regular trips to the orchard to fix and run irrigation have recently begun to include a pause to thin fruit. Soon, all attention will have to turn to thinning thousands and thousands of fruit to make room for the many fewer chosen ones.

Turkeys and the End of the Era of Fog

The last little while was so very foggy that one wondered if warmth would ever settle in. It has, but only a little. For instance today will be in the upper 60’s and the morning fog lifted by 9 a.m. The predominance of fog left its marks: taller grasses, lusher weeds, and too many patches of apple scab attacking the fruit and leaves. The fog also delayed the hatching of quail eggs, but the turkey babies couldn’t wait. Papa Turkey’s gobbling has paid off: Momma Turkey is herding a big family of babies up and down the trails and roads, out of the jungle of grass. Baby turkeys are fluffy and awkward, mother quite watchful. When she pauses and pecks, pickup off grass seed for lunch, her babies do the same.

Avocados and Oranges

Last spring was wet and rainy, and we see it with the current nonexistent avocado crop, but luckily there are oranges. If we ever get heat, the oranges will sweeten but for now they are ripe and juicy. We’ll have to wait for next year with the hope that this year’s avocado flowers get pollinated. Our 100(ish) avocado trees are growing rapidly right now. They are peculiar in that they make new leaves and shoots while shedding last year’s leaves…a kind of avocado fall. That transition leaves them vulnerable to sunburned stems; for this, we have been thankful for fog.

Fog, and Fog Lifting

Tall black burned tree trunks hazily emerge into view through the thick fog. Days upon days of fog prevalence make many scenes more mysterious. That eerie scene of black tree poles joins other fog-induced memories this past week: puffs of blowing dense fog hiding and then revealing drippy, dark groves of live oaks; awakening to a wall of silver cloud obscuring everything beyond the window ledge, and one evening’s approach of fog…suddenly pouring over the farm’s western ridge and down the hillsides towards the farm like a wave of terrifying suddenly-released floodwater. Each morning every spider web is illuminated by silver moisture, every leaf and blade adorned by shiny droplets.

Us Moist Critters

The dawn bird chorus is delayed and the songs fewer because all animals are made chilled and sleepy, enveloped in low clouds. The brush rabbits shake the wetness from their pelts between bouts of meandering nibbles. Extended families of quail wander slowly along roads to avoid vegetation soaking their feathers. In the absence of bird song, there is a more peaceful constant patter of dripping. Sweaters, jackets, and long pants are in order for spending time outside. The richly humid air makes breathing feel refreshing and helps accentuate late spring farm scents.

Peak Perfume

The transition between spring and summer is the season of peak perfume. Eight foot tall bolting poison hemlock emits its telltale dusty, bitter odor, which carries far in the fog-moist air. When the clouds lift and the day warms, sweeter, resinous scents are released from the sage, coyote brush, and fir. Fresh-cut-hay smell is omnipresent across the fields and down the roads as mowers constantly challenge the burgeoning grass. Warmer days bring surprising clouds of sweetness, begging for a pause to ponder the origins of scent: madrone, French broom, lilac or lupine could be the source, but maybe there’s something new to discover. I squint to the distance, upwind for patches of flowers, then shift my gaze closer to see if there are bunches of hidden flowers. There it is! – clusters of tiny poison oak blossoms sparkling with nectar and wafting notes of clove and citrus.

Fog recently drapes the ridges surrounding Molino Creek Farm

Drying

The drippy fog does little to keep the inevitable drydown at bay. Deep soil cracks split and widen. Dust cakes vehicles and brush along the roads. This is the first week that the farm must irrigate everything or the plants will wilt and begin to die. The solar well pump runs continuously and the diesel generator will start shortly to push greater volumes of water to the grapes and storage tanks. The summer pattern of orchard watering commences: zig-zagging across acres of trees, digging 8” deep into the soil to test moisture, adjusting irrigation strategies, turning valves, recording data, monitoring storage tanks, and communicating between many farmers to assure smooth operations. For now, cool days keep this work less hectic, but one eyes the forecast and makes plans for hotter spells.

Molino Creek Farm’s amazing onions, freshly planted and regularly irrigated

Snakes, a Month Late

April is normally snake month, but the cool, wet start of this season delayed the emergence of our slithery friends. Sylvie and her brother Isaac reported a surprising night time rubber boa, crossing the road despite the drippy fog. Smooth, fresh snake tracks cross the dusty roads, always wisely perpendicular. An irate hissing baby gopher snake lunged at my leather gloves from a patch of freshly pulled weeds. We are constantly surprised by scaled creatures jetting away from disrupting orchard management: a swift yellow-bellied racer snake, head held high, escaping…giant alligator lizards making for safer ground away from hoeing. Wherever we look there are oodles of lizards and snakes, an homage to organic tilth, the diversity of plants, and the wealth of prey that result from good land management the collective respect for nature found at Molino Creek Farm.

Cherries, lushly growing with irrigation and nestled in fog drip

Night shifts to dawn

At first darkness yields only very slightly and the first bird to sing is quiet, murmuring a few quizzical, uncertain, almost apologetic notes. A few minutes later, that same bird sings the same few notes, sounding a little more certain. A second bird joins a little while later, more certain still. Dark turns slowly to gray and more birds start singing. Soon, dawn rushes on, the sky lightens, and many birds start singing, no gaps between songs, many species, many notes. The cheerful Spring dawn chorus fills the chill morning air as color begins to spread across the landscape in advance of the rising sun. By the time the first rays brightly illuminate the ridges, the bird orchestra is loud across the farm and as far as you can trace sound. Each taller shrub and at the top of many trees there are tilting, perky birds, beaks outstretched, singing away.

Spring Antics

As it warms, bluebirds and black phoebes flit about, catching bugs. Barn swallows warm on perches awaiting a brighter sun before taking to the air. Towhees strut through short grass, darting at one another, chasing for fun or territoriality. As the dew dries, one of the yard bunnies hops inquisitively towards another. The wide-eyed approached one suddenly flattens itself hugging the ground, snaking forward slowly and then faster on a pathway through the low grass, ears back, while the other hops again and again over its pancaked friend: what oddness! Spring morning antics.

Green

Bolting grasses dry from the tops and from the bottom. The tallest grasses turn tawny above still-green fields. The grassy understory is browning, too. A gust carries dust clouds away from the road and across the fields. Despite the drying, overall a lush green prevails. Big bushy oaks shimmer life above pulsing green fields. The morning warmth massages a sweet perfume from the grass, which changes with the drying day to the scent of dusty pollen. Middays have become quite warm, though sometimes breezy. Cheerful bird solos continue right through the day.

Birds in Air

The afternoon breeze carries soaring red-tailed hawks, loudly screaming, one following the other in broad circles, high across the sky. The ravens, too, enjoy soaring on the wind but more in long arcs from one side of the farm to the other, loudly beating their wings and furtively glancing about for something to scrounge. Something startles a flock of band tailed pigeons, and they take flight but not so high in the sky, making for one patch of trees, then suddenly veering to another. One pigeon isn’t paying attention, gets too far ahead of the others, which have turned for another destination; it panics and wheels about, making lots of strong and rapid wing beats to catch up to its family. The standard number of pigeons is 14, but the flock was 30 for a brief bit…some apparently were just passing through. The regular flock patrols the walnut trees hoping for ripening catkins which will shortly make them fat and happy. I’m not sure what keeps them fed in the meanwhile- there doesn’t seem to be much to eat for those big birds.

Molino Creek Farm’s Dryfarmed Tomatoes – Just planted this week

Planting

Bodhi and Judy have been planting the summer crops. Long rows of tomato seedlings are settling in nicely, in less than a week already overcoming transplant shock with perky new leaves facing skyward. Succulent leaves of freshly planted onions contrast greatly with the deep brown soil, poking up from row after freshly planted row. Green crop seedlings are hard to see in the broad swaths of brown, tilled soil, striped in rows of tractor tire tracks.

Lapins Cherry Trees – Thanks, Drake Bialecki for the grafting!

Peak Bloom

The orchards are in peak bloom. Though the cherries are just a bit past peak, on average the various varieties of other fruit trees make for the most floriferous moment in orchard bloom. With so many flowers, the trees have created a thick blanket of pink across the hillsides. The avocado spring is more subtle, but still their masses of tiny yellow-green flowers overshadow both the broad, old green leaves and the emerging spikes of purple-bronze leaflets. I was pleased to find honeybees on the avocado flower clusters today- the first time the hive has turned its attention to this essential service. Peak bloom, however it appears, is beautiful, the blossom parade a constant show of dancing pollinators one type arriving after the next. As the day progresses, the afternoon warmth waves clouds of ecstatic perfume into the aisles. Gradually, the day cools and the scent changes back to grass and mold and dew.

Evening

The light fails and great horned owls glide silently out of the tall trees on the canyon edge, across the farm fields. They perch on fence posts and trees closer to the rodent-filled grasses and weeds. When the sun disappears behind the ridge, the evening turns quickly colder. As the setting sun finishes raking the higher hillsides with its golden glow, we retreat home for sweaters and wool hats. Chores demand further outdoor time until the light completely fails, now at almost half past eight. Burr! It turns cold with the darkness and gets chillier all night. Recently, it got down to 44F by dawn. Some fruit trees long for hundreds of chill hours, leafing out only after arriving at their total: their clocks are still gathering those hours, and the (shortening) cold nights keep them snoozing and gathering strength for their (eventual) leafy season.

Sky lupine and purple needlegrass on one of the Farm’s ridges

Bicolor lupine and more on a knoll on the Farm

Wild Flowers

The wildlands are blooming spring. Two types of lupine, the big and the small, as well as poppy, tarplant, blue eyed grass, vetch, and purple sanicle have burst into flower and paint big patches with crazy color mixes and fascinating patterns. In the forest, white starburst panicles of fat false Solomon’s seal and the simpler four petals of purple-white milk maids brighten road cuts above Molino Creek Farm. More than anything, miles of the fire-following shrub California lilac throw rafts and sprays of pale blue blossoms, drowning out their shiny green leaves. The scent of this blueblossom is heady and sweet, but only faintly like the more-sweet perfume of the old-world traditional lilac which also has much more showy flowers.

An Unusual Dreariness of Spring

Drizzle and fog surprised us this past week as dew-covered wildflowers blossomed, buried in tall soggy grass. The weather forecasters had said it would be sunny, but something changed and suddenly the outlook went to partly, and then mostly, cloudy. Gusts blew tiny misty droplets against the windows. Trees caught the mist, making showers in rings, illustrating ‘driplines’ on the previously dusty roads.

Drying

But the mist and drizzle were not enough. The soil is drying. The 2 inches of late rain two weeks ago can no longer forestall the normal drying of our Mediterranean summer. A day of stiff, dry winds from the north wicked away the moister 2” down into the soil and the drying keeps reaching deeper. The long days keep the plant transpiration pumps pumping. The prairies won’t be green much longer. The orchard trees need water starting now.

Eye Hurtingly Beautiful

The flowers bursting forth in the apple orchard are stunning. Artists! Ganderers! It is time to bask in the dizziness that only a grove full of apple blossoms can impart. Sauntering around the farm, I take what I expect will be the normal short tangential turn into the apple orchard. Soon, I am stumbling around, not paying enough attention to footing, going from tree to tree, from one palette of pink and white and red blossoms to another, slightly more white or slightly more pink…some petals more lush, some clusters more diffuse…some flowers displayed in widely spaced massive shelf platforms…others arranged in small, tightly spaced clusters of polka-dot-like puffs for long distances along branches. Petals falling like snow on the breeze. Pale green points of new leaves poke forth from buds. Lush grass and flowers in understory tufts. Bees, hummingbirds, and flocks of tiny peeping juncos dart and dance with the beauty. An hour later, driven out by the dwindling daylight, I emerge from the orchard bedazzled and grinning from the ‘short tangent’ of my evening walk.

Soil Fields

In stark contrast to the orchard full of life are acres of brown, tilled ground. Life there is under the surface among clod and crumb where worms and millipedes and a million tinier things wriggle and crawl. It is cool and damp below the plowed surface where no plant now grows. We conserve a winter of rain by making the top foot of soil into mulch, and it takes a lot of turns of the tractor to make that happen. And so we set the stage where the drama of dry farming tomatoes is starting to take place.

First Tomato Day

The greenhouse grown tomato seedlings are tall and lanky and so take delicate hands to carefully place them in holes dug deep through the loose, tractor worked ground. The first seedlings went in the ground today, April 24, 2024! There are so many more plants to nestle into their homes. The big empty fields fill slowly, thousands of deep knee bends, hours of meditative labor, months before getting any income from this year’s crop. Such is the gamble and the hope.

Our First Ground Squirrel

Ground squirrels have been spreading across the landscape. They probably were here before and probably were effectively poisoned out when poisoning the landscape was in vogue. A single ground squirrel bounds across the road into various hiding places down by the big walnut tree many times a day, seen by many people. This squirrel is a keystone species for our prairies, making deep burrows that are critical for other creatures to make it through the hot, dry summer, and through fires, too. Burrowing owls need those holes for nests. Golden eagles’ and badgers’ favorite food is ground squirrels. Ground squirrel burrow complexes also may assist with groundwater recharge. The squirrels make habitat for wildflowers as they graze down invasive grasses. Bubonic plague is ubiquitous in ground squirrel populations, too! And, they undermine houses and roads with those burrows. Farmers and ranchers think of ground squirrels as pests for eating their crops. What are we to do with this first explorer of an astronaut squirrel?

The Individuality of Trees

Just as every apple tree has character, the live oaks too show individuality. We are fortunate to have several groves of live oaks on the farm that survived the 2020 wildfire. One grove thrived because we had mowed around it and then were vigilant with wetting them with fire hoses when the fire raged – it was too close to the barn and other buildings to allow it to burn. The various trees of this grove are displaying the range of traits typical of coast live oaks. New leaves are flushing: these ‘evergreen’ oaks nevertheless mostly replace last year’s leaves around now. The fresh leaves are emerging at different times and in different shades of green, depending on the individual tree. Some are already in bloom, long pollen bearing tassels waving in the wind. Other trees haven’t shown any blossoms yet at all. The lush new growth is forming densely green, bushy canopies, These deep-rooted trees will continue to be that kind of vibrantly alive for a few more months…long after the grass has dried brown.

Lupines!

Each year, as a result of our careful stewardship, we get more and more sky lupines. This year is the biggest year yet. Patches of sky lupines are mostly mixed with California poppies. There is something so very right about the mix of wide-petaled, fiery orange poppy flowers mixed with lines and waves of spikes of whorled blue-and-white lupine flowers. It hasn’t yet been warm and still long enough to get the grape bubble gum scent clouds emanating from the lupine patches. Between these fields of wildflowers and the orchards full of blossoming trees, the bees have lots of choices. We are glad they are getting enough food to grow big families on our farm, a haven for pollinators.

Misty Stillness

After work it is time to walk around the farm, legs swishing through soaking grass. Each one I touch lets loose a shower and, lightened, the stems straighten for a bit until more mist collects. Where I walk today and where I walked yesterday will remain evident for weeks: tall, lax vegetation flattened and so fat with moisture as to be unable to get back upright. Above the tall boots my pants still get wet; the grass is 3’ high. The mist muffles sound like snow, and it is very still. The moist chill has hushed the birds, the only sounds my feet and the dripping of a million drops.

Native brome grass and poppy, laden with moisture

Composting Fields

The brief drying and warmth allowed everyone a chance to mow and till, but there was still not enough time. Some fields got more thoroughly tilled than others. A sweetish funk of rotting cover crop hangs in the air near turned up earth. Topsy turvy pieces of cover crop stick out of the mud, the finer leaves and stems melting into mush. The tiny pieces of ground up punk will enrich the soil, hold moisture, feed microorganisms, and nutrify plants. “Green manure.”

Standing Crop

In the orchards, the cover crop gets cut but we don’t till. This year, in the poorer soiled areas between trees, I ran the flail or mulching mower, grinding up the cover crop to feed the soil right where it grew. Where the fava beans are towering taller, it’s the dance with the sickle bar mower, cutting the tall plants, which fall in rows to dry and then get raked as mulch under the trees.

I keep the orchard mower regularly running not just for exercise but to ‘keep up’ with re-growth. It is nice to get March rains after the cover crop is cut. The ongoing moisture allows the soil to digest the shed off nitrogen rich cover crop roots and make that food available to wakening trees. It is becoming critical to mow the last of the fava beans, but there is never enough time. The Avocado Bowl and Cherry Hill cover crops are going to be 4’ tall soon, thousands of flowers feeding hummingbirds and bumblebees. I hate to deprive those friends of their nectar.

A sea of fava beans (and vetch!) surrounding the Avocado Bowl

Cherry Buds Swelling

The cherry trees are about to flower. Buds are showing color and the sleek red bark is taught from running sap. It is the last moment to observe the bare tree architecture and envision summer pruning. The old, fire-damaged trees are hanging in and the ones that died, root sprouts grafted, hold lots of promise to become more tree-like this year. The piles of grass mulch the Orchardistas hauled and stacked last June have almost entirely melted away but not too soon: there are few weeds where those mulch piles sat at the beginning of winter.

Old, fire damaged cherry trees (left) and the sprouted Colt rootstock grafted (right)

Native Wildflower Spring

The Community Orchardists not only steward trees but also the mulch fields, some of which are becoming amazing and beautiful native grasslands. Molino Creek Farm was a hay farm in the early 1900’s. It still makes fine hay and those hayfields are alive with many flowers and lots of wildlife action.

Our farm has a curious pattern of shallow-soiled knolls surrounded by pockets of deep soil. The rolling landscape provides for diversity in crops and native habitats. It seems that cutting hay (at the ‘right’ time) and hauling it to the trees as mulch has helped wildflowers proliferate. We are at the onset of poppy spring and two types of lupines are soon to glow. After that, rafts of tiny tarplants will flash yellow each morning. The brome grass has already started and will keep producing seeds at the end of waving graceful arched stems, towering over the wildflowers. Blackbirds march noisily across these fields in lines, scaring up the bugs that find feast in grassland diversity. A giant mound indicates gopher action, a few seedling poppies germinating on the fresh, moist soil. Networks of pathways and open burrow entrances means voles are active. Deeper, bigger holes with fresh claw marks – coyotes at work digging up furry late-night dinners in the hay fields. Where we don’t collect and manage for hay, those fallow fields are humpy with thatch and scattered with shrubs and poison hemlock: a different type of habitat…one which we hope we can muster new energy to manage. More orchards- and more need for mulch…the fate lies with the capacity of Community Orchardists.

Poppy, brome, bicolor lupine and madia- cutting hay creates knoll diversity!

Pulsing into the Dry Season

This is the hardest-work season for the farm. Everything needs doing, and it needs doing all at once: mowing, tilling, planting, pruning, burning, weeding. It’s a race. We’re racing to keep the fields mowed before the birds invest in nests amongst the tall, inviting cover crops. A tractor changes from a purr to a rattle or a high screaming whine: oops! It broke. Backup tractors and backup tools come out- there’s not time to fix things! We chase the weeds and cover crops, tractor-chopping them into little pieces before they set seed.

New Farmer!

Its Bodhi Grace’s first year actively farming at Molino Creek Farm as he takes the helm of the big fading orange, old Kubota tractor: back and forth, back and forth. We manage to have two generations as members of the Collective: what a celebration! Go Bodhi! His infectious smile cheers us all. Good posture on the tractor seat, he rocks out with music through headphones that somehow manage above the din of the tractor mowing. For the first time, the tractor has a big colorful umbrella for shade.

Mowing the Fava Bean Cover Crop in the Old Apple Orchard

Drying, Tilling

The fields are nearly mowed, but still things resprout until the soil gets turned. We poke at the ground to make sure its not too wet to till as we don’t want to compact the soil and we don’t want the drag behind disc to churn up big mud clumps. A couple of weeks of dry warmth and already the mower throws up a few puffs of pale brown dust from the shallow-soiled portion of a field.

Birdsong

Spring’s bird songs have flourish, notes elongated and fancier than wintertime conversational peeps. The first male barn swallows returned last Saturday night, greatly changing both the soundscape and the visual show. Now, fence posts and rooflines emit the swallows’ metallic squeaks and burbling. Crisscrossing the sky, jetting swallow silhouettes grab attention mostly because of the absence of many months. The swallow women were weeks behind the guys last spring; I’ll count this time.

Bluebird’s flashy blues and finch’s purple reds are especially vibrant with breeding plumage. Beaks agape, heads thrown back, song sparrows furiously belt out long and complex solos from atop the tallest white-flowering radishes. Are they proclaiming nesting territory, or are they just celebrating the longer days and the finally warm sun? It has been a long, wet, cool, blustery winter. The unusually poor weather undoubtedly claimed lives.

Late Winter Harvest

Even this time of year, there’s a harvest going on: citrus! Each day presents a few more ripe fruit from the 250 pound harvest of seedless, somewhat surprisingly sweet Persian limes. These limes are yellow-when-ripe, and that is surprising to many. We’ll first distribute to the Community Orchardists and then to Two Dog Farm, who take them to market or to their chef who jars delicious lime marmalade.

Oranges, too, are coming ripe. Navels, Velencias, day by day a little sweeter, a little more juicy.

Sun to Rain

The week’s dry heatwave will break the day after tomorrow and the world will transform for many days to clouds and drip. Mist will blow across the fresh-mowed fields and showers will soak the already thirsting ground. Puddles will fill for already longed-for bird baths, and the newts will march once more, moving towards creek or grassy tunnel system.

An Unknown Bee Visits Flowering Currant, a hedgerow plant at Molino Creek Farm

Bees

Petals close and nectar slows with cooler, cloudy weather. Bumble bees will be hungry. Flowering patches and warm days create quite a buzz. I’m a newfound bee watcher and notice a new bee every few days; today, it was loudly buzzing, honeybee-sized, gray, furry bees… shy and furtive, and very fast. The first bees of spring are still around- giant bumblebees either gracefully bopping between flowers or klutzily fumbling in the grass, seeking burrows for raising brood.

We hope you enjoy the emerging spring.

-this post simultaneously made on Molino Creek Farm’s website

Rainsong from Creek and Cloud

It has been blowing and blustery with so much rain that the ground is oozing and bubbling, and newfound springs are pouring from gopher holes across the entire landscape. The creeks do more than murmur: they rush and shout. The ocean has been loudly roaring with unfathomably massive waves, more foam showing than water. People tire of no sun, but all are thankful for the rain, we will perhaps never again complain of rain…lucky us for the wetness, for hydration of the ground, moistening of the forest duff, the slicking of the rocks and mud, and the paddling of the 11 ring necked ducks across Lake Molino.

An enlarging moon rises above Molino Creek Farm and some of its cover-cropped fields

Moon Growth

Last night, the cloud cover slackened, and the moon was as bright as the sun has been for many days. Moonglow shining through drizzly fog. Owls hooting. Deciduous trees awaken even at night, the quickening of sap, the fattening of buds.

Dazzling Green

We all this sprinter. The trees are bare and the grass is turning Electric Green. The meadows around Molino will get 6’ tall this spring, if we let them. In the past week, in the aisles between the orchard trees and the margins of the farm fields the grass doubled to 2’ tall. It has become unbearably wet to trod off trail or road, shoes and pant legs quickly soaked, even when it hasn’t rained for hours (rare).

Sprinter- the trees are still bare, but the grass is turning electric green

Flowers Unfurling

The first orchard trees are in bloom – the first plums are a’flowerin’. The quince bushes aren’t far behind. The orchard understory is thick with 2’ tall (!) someplaces lush cover crop: fava beans, oats, and vetch. The wide, blue-green fava bean leaves are lush and heavy, nodding as the first white flowers emerge in whorls along the stems. Under the trees, the Iberian comfrey is in full bloom, tempting the bumble bees, preparing them for the Big Bloom when we really need them. Borage, native strawberries, and weedy radish are also offering nectar in the understory. Sprinter – a time for the vibrancy and lushness of the herbaceous world.

Pile It Up

There’s not much going on with the farming, but the Molino folks have been ‘at it’ with land management. We’re not quite done burning all the biomass we piled up this last and the prior year, but we’re close. Fourteen piles ate up lots of stuff into relatively nothing, doing work at the same time. We made the burn piles on top of brush that we didn’t want, so the stumps were thermically removed, saving future work. Often, these piles went through both weekend days with shifts of energetic people tending and adding to them. Each branch we torch is one less to add to the future wildfire, and we work apace to make the farm more fire safe with the understanding that next summer could challenge us once again with an uncontrolled inferno. Meanwhile, we get soaked in the rain while the bonfires steam our clothes dry and keep us warm.

The ridge has fewer trees: dozens fell in the 75mph winds a few weeks back

Chores

We can no longer rest. Although the short, dark, wet days still make us lazy, we must awake and enliven and get to work. After a 2-year hiatus, the meadow voles are back- good news for the riddance of gophers but bad news for the sweet bark of the young trees. Time to make bare the area around young tree trunks- the only way to keep the voles at bay. Also, many young trees pitched sideways must be propped. And…The Pruning! The Grafting! The Planting! Wow, is it ever time to catch up.

-this post simultaneously published at Molino Creek Farm’s website

Season’s End

Now newts arise from dry grassland tunnels wetted by fresh winter rain,

ecstatic, star-guided, stretching towards far away ponds.

Now dust washes from every needle and leaf.

Wind gusts. Torrents. Then blue sky.

Nights dominate – deep rest, many dreams.

Now owl hoots with raindrop percussion –

raindrops, millions, each with its own tone.

Sharp snares – bouncing splashes explode from waxy madrone leaves.

Muffled droplets sink silently through softened turf.

The Molino Community Orchard, so loved…now prepared for a resting winter

Crop fields tilled and rested.

Brown, crumbly, bared soil,

winter seeds, absorbing.

2 Dog Farm’s dryfarmed butternut squash, culls, got tilled in this week

Now the rumbling, crashing, hissing roar,

musical hum of waves.

Reverberating waves echoing notes like distant Tuvan throat singing.

Now the wind howls.

Centipedes, pill bugs, beetles,

burrow deeper into the wetting duff.

Leaves shake loose, settle, sheltering myriad ground critters.

White, yellow, brown…fine fungal roots spawn through the complex of soil and leaflitter salad,

buttons, parasols push and unfold.

Banana slugs slither trailing tracks, silver mucous crossing leaves, clearing algae off dank windows, slime traversing the furry, rough bark plates of redwoods.

Sun rises after storm.

Vast glittering sparkles shine and twinkle across the landscape.

Celebration of rain,

so begins a new season of growth.

So begins the long dark wet muddy winter.

The last of Molino Creek Farm’s dryfarmed tomatoes have been tilled in.

Rest Impending

The sun grows distant, already so far South, days so brief. Rain has moistened everywhere. Fall is sweeping the farm, triggering bright leaf colors, tree-by-tree, each evening stroll revealing new tones in new places.

The ground blushes newly green from the previous expanse of dark brown soil or gray aged thatch. Millions of seeds germinated on the much-anticipated first significant rainfall this past week. Pairs of many-patterned leaves unfurl from different types of flower seeds while single first grass leaves poke straight up.

More wetting storms are approaching, pushing southward from the distant northern horizon. Beautiful clouds appear, sometimes a skyfull of feathery patterns, other times ominous heavy gray huge pillows. Layers of clouds above oceanward fog are often accentuated by sparkling orange pulses in between them at sunset.

Muffled Song

As the winter approaches, birds become more quiet, their songs more concise. Bird-eating hawks swoop and wheel, frightening seed- and seedling-fattened flocks. Silent spells with no song signals hawk. The consistent whispered squeaks and chirps suggest hawk absence as groups of quail, sparrows, and juncos slowly emerge from cover, pecking up thousands of tasty sprouts; their favorites are abundant: clovers, filaree, medic, lupine, poppy, wild lettuce, and dock. Full bills, filling tummies, hunger satisfied peaceful birds prepare for long stormy wet nights. Each evening at sundown, flocks huddle together in dense clusters surrounded by protective thick tree or shrub canopies. They have already negotiated safe roost locations and even their individual places in the rows along branches. There are a few squabbles at dusk in the roost locations as some on the edges realize disadvantages of their relegated positions. By dark, they have become politely quiet and still.

Tree nest woven over compost-strewn soil makes for cozy beds for the coming winter

Tucking in the Trees

As orchard leaves begin to fall, we prepare tree beds for the long slumber. Last weekend, Community Orchardists hauled and spread the final compost and then the last windrows of dried hay. Energetic tree keepers filled and then hauled bucket after bucket scattering compost/worm castings in the understory of each tree. Following them, skilled pitchfork wielding orchardists pitched, piled, and sculpted neat circular hay nests surrounding young trees. Winter snacks and cozy blankets for our tree friends.

Nodding Off, Colorfully

As the trees approach their sleep, leaves brighten then drop. Cherry tree leaves are turning orange-to-red, starting on the sunnier sides of each tree and day by day progressing onto the northern side of the canopy. Apricot, aprium, plums and pluots echo those cherry leaf reds but tend more orange to yellow. Apple tree fall color extends well into winter, slowly unfolding many shades of yellow through February in an extended fall. Most leaf colors change fast and fall quickly, splashing rings of color bright in circles on the ground beneath brief spells of brightness dancing across the orchard among the high held branches.

The Rustling

We were unable to mow every corner of the farm and in some places the dried grass and wildflowers formed thick dry swards. Deer paths wend into these stands. Following these wildlife trails, we find hidden clusters of mashed down straw – cozy deer beds. The breezes sing high schwews on the ridges with more of a full, wooing noise in the nearer conifers, but these tall dry grassy areas make scratchy, rustling noises in the winds at the onset of each storm. The deer thank us for leaving them some dense cover to shield them from the chilly gales through the dark nights.

Fuji apples held ripe while leaves change color

The Last of the Fruit

Tomato vines whither after rain; winter squash vines long spent, fruit curing; later season apples grow sweeter and crispier with the cool nights. We feel lucky again to find a ripe tomato among the melting vines. Weeds will soon occlude the deliquescent reddish fruit and then all will be tilled and cover cropped.

Molino Creek Farm’s wilting dry farmed tomatoes, slain by rain

Two Dog Farm is boxing and curing the bountiful dry farmed winter squash crop, and colorful squash still brighten the fields.

2 Dog Farm’s last dry farmed winter squash, waiting to be gathered.

Fuji apples are the last bigger harvest in the orchard. We will gather the last of the apples over the next week and press the last of the culls into the final cider of the season. Much of the orchard has had a final mowing, the harrow scratching in bell beans is close at hand.

Emerging New Tree Characteristics: a dance between species

Sunsets and Quickening Evenings

The sun speeds quickly towards the west and evenings pass suddenly to night. One moment, the beautiful array at sunset tinges the hills and the next moment colors wash and fade to gray, stars winking into sight until the night sky reveals vast constellations. There is a moment in this transition to night when my attention is drawn to the silhouettes of trees, revealing new characteristics of long familiar friends. Brushy oaks dance on the edge of regal, posturing clusters of redwoods. Then they disappear, overcome by the majesty of night.

simultaneously published at Molino Creek Farm’s website