Molino Creek Farm

Winter Wrestles with Summer, Fall Progresses

Two nights ago, the lower portions of our farm dipped into the chilly 40s. Today, it was in the 80’s, tomorrow even warmer with two ‘warm’ nights not lower than 65F. Such warm nights bring a cacophony of crickets along with late summer katydids. Our ears seem to ring, and seeking the source of any one of the insect songs creates a confusing, 360° immersive dizziness. A visitor remarked, “what IS that noise?” Such sounds are not found in the City. Such sounds are not even everywhere on the farm, only in places on the farm. There are pockets of nightsong. Seek them where you can, it is a worthy experiential destination.

Sundown on the Pacific, just a short ways from the Farm

Country-style Night Show

Even where they sometimes fill the air from all directions, the insect songs fade in and out, sometimes louder and sometimes softer. Some species go quiet leaving the chorus to others and those then fade to the next song, a repeating pattern that never grows old. Some insects sing trill….trill….trill and others have a more constant chitter. Some play lower stridulations, others high, shrill ear-piercing whines. For biologists, I note black field crickets persist in lower numbers than in the early summer; now there are more brown ones. Also, the invasive green tree crickets sing with oscillating medium-toned trills from which you can calculate the temperature. The late summer, and this year in particular, features the massive laterally compressed long-legged bug-eyed katydids, a source of high-pitched, especially ear aching whining: you particularly notice when they take a break. On warm nights like tonight, there is no real silence of insects, only lulls, and always with the green tree crickets’ consistent “wee….wee….wee….wee….wee….wee….wee….wee…” Under the insect chorus, enter a baritone montage: wave sets crashing, their pulsing drone carried by the gentle onshore cool breeze. The light show for the orchestra: fields of stars and the stripe of the Spectacular Milky Way that us country dwellers get to enjoy far from the polluting night lighting which ostensibly provides increased safety and orientation in the cityscapes.

Dawn Revealing

In the East, the first glimmers of dawn cast doubt on night, but darkness at first prevails, some stars still brightly shining. The wakening mind returns to semi-slumber, the day’s return a dream (?). Another thought, eyes wider, the sky a new brighter gray and another glance brings certainty…a new day, a return to the waking life and the tasks at hand. Awakening brings smiles and gladness for the peace of country life and ease of transition into farm routines.

Watering and Harvest

Many fields are dry-farmed, and those are curiously bedecked with fading green foliage and the brightening fruit harvest. Other areas are irrigated and so still vibrant green, though the last planting of sunflowers is fading.

Those irrigated areas need regular attention during this, the driest part of the Mediterranean summer. The waves of heat alternating with cool and even drizzle make for irregular water demand. In anticipation of heat waves, we saturate the soil more. With spells of cool and drizzle, we slack off a bit and catch up. Shovels explore the soil to record the moisture condition, sometimes surprisingly dry… trees full of ripening apples are especially thirsty. We are trained to keep the soil moisture above 50%, but predicting where it will be any one day is a learning opportunity, always.

Midday Warmth

The hot days tax farmworkers and birds, alike. Tomato and pepper harvest comes midday with backs bent, sun baked and sweating; picking commences no matter the weather. Above the farmers, migrating hawks ride warm thermals higher, soaring up and then south. A very rare occurrence: there were six red-tailed hawks and another large raptor even higher over the farm today. The great migrations called “hawktober” often co-occur with the recurring shimmering heat waves so common this month. Other birds avoid the open sun, chipping lazily from the shade of shrubs. Late in the afternoon, down by the ocean, a mixed flock of various blackbirds alighted on the roadside. Their beaks were open, panting, even as the day cooled at 5pm.

Evening

If we can, we wait to harvest apples outside of the hottest part of the day, and we can stand while doing it…easier on the body. Heavy picking bags leave the shoulders achy, and we switch sides to even the ache. The hurried apple harvest races the setting sun. What started as bright sun fades to soft golden light so briefly before all sunlight retreats to muted dusk, quickly darkening. Boxes and buckets of apples go into the barn with the last available light. Overnight, boxed apples cool naturally before the market delivery the following day.

On warm evenings like today, a great emergence of moths alights. Big moths and small zip and float everywhere, and it is impossible not to get hit in the face as they flit about. The bats are getting fatter. Poor-wills clumsily flap and dart, pouncing on their insect prey.

Also at dusk, the deer arise from their folded legs to traipse about looking for forage. Lately, they’ve been munching on the leaves of freshly felled walnut tree trimmings. Someone improved our farm road tree tunnel and left piles of fallen black walnut tree branches: this is a seasonally favorite food of the deer. Momma and her adolescent offspring deer (still unnamed) are at that salad bar. A young male caught her scent and wandered onto the farm this evening, a rare sight. The wayward bucks are very flighty and he was no exception. Upon being noticed, he bounded away, alert and head held high.

The last light of dusk barely illuminates the fading sunflowers at Molino Creek Farm

Night

Great horned owls, coyotes, foxes, and more. Two great horned owls have been having regular evening hooting contests. They sit in trees not too far apart and hoot loudly, taking turns, back and forth. There’s a silent bit, then one of them starts on some odd, non-hooty noises but then returns to the hoots soon thereafter. Is this a long conversation, or do they revel in the joy of creating or exchanging subtle variations in pitch and enunciation? They do not tire. They must be day sleepers.

Coyote barks seldom. Cassandra reports seeing a particularly large one. They leave big poops full of tomatoes and apples. Sylvie reports fox feasting on her Asian pears- a tree worth. There are poops from fox, too, all across the farm. Weasels excavate gopher runs in the apple orchard, freshly dug soil mounds ending at large gopher holes each morning. There may be a weasel den under a prune tree.

Night strolls to manage irrigation reveal black widow spiders more commonly than any other spider. One striking large female complained about my opening the gate she was building a web trap at the base of.

Mice scurrying (but never seen) is another commonality.

These balmy nights bring pulses of warm air settling onto the farm from higher up the mountain. Warm blobs of air get pushed around by cooler onshore breezes, or nudged here and there by sinking chillier streams of Molino Creek canyon air. The half mile walk across the Farm sends me through boundaries of three or four contrasting temperature air masses, and the new temperature also brings new scents and different humidities.

Seasons Passing

We have already passed through several waves of harvests and are set to see the last run of this year. Last February saw baskets of citrus and then Spring brought us peas and cherries. The first tomato, not until August, was a real delight, now we are in peak production. The prune plums are nearly gone as are the early comice pears. We are entering a marathon of 6 weeks of apple harvest, and that will be the end of the harvest season with the transition back around to citrus and all that follows next year. We compare years of apple harvest and the resulting cider. We mark our annual cycles as ‘before the Fire, or since the fire.’ Rains return and we burn huge piles of cut brush then the brush piles build again to be reduced the next year. On and on. Earth whirls around the Sun and we bound through space and time.

The Arrival of Fall

Last Friday, Night equaled Day; it was the Equinox, and our world stood in balance. From here, things tilt rapidly towards the dominance of Night, and we share the Sun increasingly with the South for a while. There, Spring is emerging. The cooling temperature change switch is not thrown quickly; there is a lag of the Sun’s heating, and we often are assaulted by wilting, week-long heat waves in October. The return of the rainy season will likely be a way off. Meanwhile, the Harvest is in full swing at Molino Creek Farm with all of its various enterprises. Welcome to Fall.

Organic Gala apple fruit are laden on one of many trees in our older trees

The Orchard

Apple trees hang heavily with giant loads of ripening fruit. The branches bend more each day as fruits get bigger, juicier, and more colorful. Gala apples are finally gaining their peachy blush, underlaying the sun-side bright red streaking, overlaying the shade-side yellows. Our much smaller crop of Mutsu apples are getting Really Big and kissed with a patch of purply red where they see the most sunshine. The Braeburn and Jonagold crops, a total failure due to apple scab, a combined result of the long, moist, cool spring and our own lack of applying sulfur to kill it. There are so many other varieties…one tree each…to taste, to give to friends to taste…to revel in the diversity of apple flavors and textures. Oh, and then there’s the patch of Wickson Crabs, which are laden with the tart poppy nuggets that will tint so many batches of hard cider, real soon.

The gold-red-purple French prune-plums are past but the yummier deep purple Italian prune plums are getting ripe now: tarts a’hoy!

Nearby, young avocado trees are stretching with late summer growth shoots, so well-tended and vigorous. And, an array of citrus also puts on pale new growth while slowly swelling their fruits toward a February harvest.

A Big Moon rises over Molino Creek Farm and its patches of dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes

The Tomatoes

Rows and rows of tomato vines are laden with fruit of all colors. The harvest will continue for a while. There are plenty of pale green orbs from tiny younglings to larger plumpers. Pale orange fruits are transitioning to the bright reds, nestled within distinctly green foliage. Between the rows, tossed rejects of tomatoes melt into the soil and flocks of birds flit around chowing on their remains, hungry especially for the protein-rich seeds.

Harvesting

The ripening tomatoes go into buckets only so full. The apples go into shoulder-mounted bags. Both fruit get sorted for sale. Tomatoes of varying quality go for varying prices. Only the perfect apples go to sale, the rest to home use, charity, or juice (cider!). Starting tomorrow, apple harvesters will gather a few times a week and we will be handling 6,000 pounds between now and Thanksgiving. Wow.

Seasonal Wildlife

On the drive down to the highway last Monday, I saw the Largest Buck…a real beauty with big antlers, a broad chest, and massive muscles. That large of a male is a rare sight, one I’ve experienced only three times since 1986. Back on the farm, we have a much smaller mother deer and only one of her twins from last season. Their still summer coats are shiny and light-roast coffee brown, and they appear well fed and relaxed. They have enough food to not be walking around on two legs reaching up for the Fall walnut leaves, but I smile remembering that ridiculous-looking behavior.

Like clockwork, the golden-crowned sparrows returned last Friday night. They always return on the night of the Equinox. The sound of their songs are now coloring the days; they have transformed the soundscape to mark the seasonal transition. This is somehow deeply comforting.

Scent Landscape

With the sweet sparrow song also arrives the scent of Fall. So many things contribute to the scentscape. Mostly, it is the piney-bitter smell of coyotebush, but add to it wafting sweetness of flowering domestic garden plants- angel’s trumpet, San Pedro cactus, four-o’clock and ornamental ginger. Also, the breezes bring other scent ingredients like agricultural sulfur, pungent tomato foliage, cidery apple culls, and so much more. The dry, cool air accentuates and mixes these scents and creates the Molino Creek fall perfume. Emerging from the night warmth of shelter, we breathe deeply the outdoor air to experience all that’s on the air.

When the clouds and fog clear – the minority of nights as of late – the star-filled sky is bright with the Milky Way. Tonight, a Big Moon hails and lights the farm in its blue glow, illuminating the soon-to-be walk to juggle irrigation valves once again.

Somewhere, somehow…it is all Right Now

Right, now

Posted simultaneously at the website for Molino Creek Farm.

Changes Slowly Emerging

The calendar says it is almost fall, just a couple of weeks away. But, the temperatures and dryness suggest it is more like midsummer. The days wake up mostly sleepy, fog having rolled in during the night. Everything glistens with dew in morning’s first light. Sunrises are muted with tones of gray and silver across the shadowless and chill landscape. There is no dawn chorus, only a few peeps when the birds warm, late. The morning crawls on as the fog slowly breaks. It brightens more, bit by bit, until there is mostly blue sky by about noon. Then, barn swallows take noisily to the sky. The afternoons slowly warm until the sun gradually fades, a shadow line edging across the fields as the sun disappears behind the ridge to the west. This past Friday, the fog was so heavy and long lasting that it drizzled enough moisture to wet and settle the road dust.

Pattern Recognition

Last year, we would have been about to get our first inch of rain. That September storm produced what we call the germinating rain, and the early timing was extremely unusual. After that, there was another Big Storm in October – more expected timing. A bit later, all heck broke loose in December through January when we got atmospheric river after atmospheric river. None of that was predicted. In fact, as late as October, our national weather service climate scientists were saying it was going to be a dry winter, a La Niña situation! Right now, those same experts are saying there are strong El Niño conditions and that there is a 95% chance of those continuing through February of 2024. Compared to the last 12 years of data, this year looks comparable only to 2015, a year that brought some hefty rains to our part of California. With last winter’s deluges fresh in memory, it is easier to prepare though the really rainy times should be months away. So, we are able to chip away at the chores: an armload of firewood here, a bit of road drainage improvement there.

Nature’s Patient Changes

The nature around us also patiently transitions. The monkeyflower bushes leaves fade from top to bottom from their sticky dark glossy green to a crisp and withered black. This year, even those drying bushes still sport flowers feeding hummingbirds and bumblebees as they make their daily rounds. Madrone leaves and shreds of bark fall bit by bit, day by day, refreshing a layer to keep the footpaths only a bit crunchy. The grass, once shiny golden as it started to dry, is now almost gray with age, falling over and covered with dust. It will bend still until it is all in broad arcs and pillows in the unmown areas. The mounds of dry grass resist herbivory in that elevated state. In areas we mowed and the chopped grass touches the ground, herbivores feast on hay: insects, mice, and gophers are fast eliminating this year’s productive crop. Crickets in particular are having a good year.

Cricket Families

The night walks reveal new generations of crickets alongside the older, bigger adults. There are many sizes of crickets from the tiniest of young to sub-adult adolescents to honking adults. The adults are surprisingly large, especially the black field crickets which are the bravest, barely moving from the examining beam of my flashlight. One large adult sings from every 3 square yards, and I haven’t seen two of those large adults more in proximity, so from whence the young? Ah, something more to learn…

One of our many odd comice varietie- all ripening differently though contiguous

Abundant Life

Life’s young are growing in other species. Coyote parents follow their adolescents’ lead for the yelping chorus. Judging from their plentiful and frequent scat, they are enjoying scavenging lots of farm fruit. Momma deer has two growing young in tow; they might not realize that she is pregnant again and so will share the space with a new sibling or two before very long. It has been a few weeks since I saw the latest puffball young quail, and there are currently huge groups with lots of curious nearly grown young learning the techniques to avoid being the meal of so many predators. Those quail groups are so large as to seem to flow like liquid from bush to bush as they shuffle and scuttle through their days. Tiny fence/blue bellied lizards have recently emerged, inch long babies that are much more energetic and jumpy than their older counterparts. They leap impossible distances and dart down holes at the slightest movement. There are no intermediate sizes, so a simultaneous hatching seems logical. Medium sized snakes, now that’s a thing! Foot or so long gopher snakes share paths with similarly sized yellow bellied racers. I wouldn’t want to be a mouse right now given the snake abundance.

Organic Gala Apples Hanging Heavy, Soon to Pick

Fruit Developing

The fruit are also growing up. This past week, we reached the saturation point for pears: there are 60 pounds of pears sitting under one comice pear tree waiting to be scavenged; more pears are on their way with boughs bending under the weight of so many fruit. The Gala apple crop hangs heavy, too, and has just started gaining its peachy blush that indicates ripeness. Fuji apples are farther behind, still green with the slightest of red blush just appearing where the sun hits the fruit.

Organic Fuji Apples, a ways off… until ripe!

Noticing

Fog, then sun, then night…fog ebbs and flows. The recent super blue moon fades gradually, night by night. The Milky Way gains prominence. The roar of waves crashing creates the baritone and bass notes of the cricket-filled soundscape of Molino Creek Farm. Long still nights beckon sleep. The first subtle light of dawn is the call to chores abounding. Each day flows into the next, an unending cycle of light and dark, coolness and warmth, and the chance to curiously glance up to see who else is watching the play of light as the sun travels the sky’s glorious arc.

I hope you are.

For Fruit’s Sake!

The Storms Passed

Hurricane Hillary made national news. Many people have little idea of the geographic scope of California, so they assume all Californians are in trouble. The last Big Fire here, part of a state-wide tangle of epic lightning-sparked fires in 2020, was from half of a hurricane that peeled off our direction from landfall in Baja Mexico. A Pacific Ocean guardian low pressure gyre nudged Hurricane Hillary eastward. So, Molino Creek farm was cloudy with the tiniest of sprinkles and some brief gusts of wind, but that was that. Oh yeah, and it was muggy: weird! And the smell of rain, so delicious after months of nothing, just dust. Still, the anticipation of another hurricane was awful.

Solanaceous Aftermath

Post post-Hurricane Hillary, the farm is warm, awaiting the restarting of the upwelling and onshore breezes due in a few days. The warmth is perfect for tomatoes and the lack of much rainfall helps a lot too: they hate wet leaves! The sprawling tomato vines are loaded with big, pale green fruit. Soon, there will be so many tomatoes that it will be difficult to keep them harvested fast enough. For now, we eye each ripening fruit with glee: there aren’t that many! It is also the time when Maw and Caw, our big black farm ravens, are frequently seen carrying red, cast off tomatoes happily to some perch where they feast with gusto.

Molino Creek Farm’s dry farmed tomatoes…for the first time Not On Trellis!

Night Walks

This part of the year takes me on night walks to turn off the orchard irrigation. It is too hot during the day to run micro-sprinklers, an invention that gently eeks out water at a rate so that it soaks well into the soil without waste. The micro-sprinkled amounts would mostly evaporate in the heat of the day, so we wait until the cooler evenings and nights. That takes me abroad just before bed time on a stroll that is always full of discovery. Each year, on the warmer summer nights, I am delighted to experience the return of the Night Ants. These are big, glossy, dark brown ants which hang out in families, venturing just a few square yards from their hole. They have several morphs- some are large and powerful looking, some are more dainty, and some in between. I’ve seen them carrying their dead, so they’ve got at least one social ceremony. I don’t know what they do for a living. I’m seeking the black widow spiders I spied last summer at the mouth of some colonies of roadside gopher burrows. A few nights ago, I started a harvest mouse who decided to crouch in the grass until I passed, allowing me a good look at that tiniest of rodents. The prettiest of things on night walks: the spectacularly silver-sparkly eyes of wolf spiders, which dazzle and spark from just about everywhere. They are so very numerous. I like to check out the biggest more closely in hopes of finding a female with a hundred of her young on her back: extra creepy! The headlamp isn’t so much fun these evenings because of some flies and moths that want to crash into my glasses constantly, attracted to the light. So, the headlamp goes down to waist level, but the spider eyes don’t reflect quite so nicely from there. Owls hoot, coyotes yip, and the beautiful crescent moon barely lights the fields and ridges. Yes, it’s a chore to turn those late-night valves, but I’m happy for the motivation to get out of doors.

OH PEARS!

They won’t take care of your children for more than a few moments, but they sure are tasty. It’s pear time! Pears precede apples in our harvest cycle and the comice pears are dropping and juicy and irresistible. You can’t stand under the old pear tree or you are going to get bonked in the head by a falling pear: dangerous! I still don’t quite know when to harvest pears from the tree, but I do know that the fallen ones ripen quickly, like within a day or so. Soon, there will be 300 pounds for the orchard volunteers and Molineros to gather. The dehydrators start humming and the pots of pear butter will soon be bubbling. Yum!

What’s that Smell?

The farm is full of scent. With the storm’s weird warm winds from odd directions (east!), came the resinous, sweet smell of ceanothus…but only briefly. The orchard smells of damp earth with hints of fungus. Passing the vineyard, the smell of the devil: sulfur! Then, there are occasional sweet smells…surprising sweet smells. The latest nose candy is emanating from the Surprise Lillies aka ‘naked ladies.’ Some prior farm denizens took a liking to these Amaryllis and planted them hither and yon. They are impossible to get rid of and they smell of pink candy. But, they make striking cut flowers if you don’t mind the sweet, sweet smell.

Naked Ladies are named such because of the lack of leaves when they bloom

-this post also simultaneously posted at Molino Creek Farm’s equally amazing website.

Regular Summer

There’s a certain relaxation that sets in when everything is going as ‘normal.’ Late at night, the fog rolls up the valley and we awaken to the silver tongue of fog lapping at the edge of the lowest points of the farm. Down there, redwoods drip and it smells piney and dank. The fog pulses in further and then back out in a morning battle against the heat, but always the fog lowers just below our elevation; but, we can feel the coolness even as the sun’s warmth prickles our skin and begs for long sleeves. At ten o’clock, a slight breeze picks up onshore with the cool ocean air. The days are sunny and in the 70s. It is dry and dust wells up when we walk, work, or drive, big or small clouds blowing predictably towards the southeast. Everything has become dusty. For many weeks, it has been a regular summer.

It has been a regular summer except very recently when high clouds streamed in from the (!) East. Other places in California have been experiencing Zeus’ playfulness, but we haven’t heard a single thunder clap, though a few large raindrops at one point, briefly. Those clouds make for spectacular sunsets.

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

The Ripening

Apples, tomatoes, winter squash, peppers, zucchini, pears, prune plums, hazelnuts…they are all ripening. As with the cherries recently, we must pace ourselves with the pear intake.

Looking down the long rows of lush, half-grown tomato ‘vines,’ we see the first ripening tomatoes blowing orange-red among the green boughs. One day soon, there will be so many ripe tomatoes that it will be difficult to keep up with the harvest. For now, we bide our time for the first batch of vine ripened, dry farmed tomatoes, a point where the farmers are as happy as the consumers. “Oh Boy!” people exclaim when they first see our tomatoes at the market. Sometimes, we have to limit the pounds purchased so that more of our loyal customers are pleased. It won’t be long now.

Gravenstein then Gala

We have only one large and one small Gravenstein apple tree, the first apples to get ripe each year. Sylvie reports ‘not quite ripe’ this morning, so we will wait another week to try again.

Next up, Gala apples. They aren’t half the size that they should be, but are the quickest growing apples on the block. They are catching up and will be ready to harvest the second half of September. We’ve had another round of thinning the fruit on those trees, thinning from the highest points of ladders. Propping, too!

Maw or Caw, who can tell? (Still Life with a Bird and Tree)

Wild Things

When the days are warm enough and the nights not too cool, we can listen for the night noises. There’s the rough repeated bark-yowl of a fox. There’s the odd sweet whistling call of a great horned owl along with the more normal hoots. There are also the calls of thousands of crickets. The black cricket rough sawing has been going for a while and was recently joined by the less raspy song of brown crickets; both are easy to spot at night along the farm’s many roads at night. The high twirring of the green tree cricket has joined the chorus only this past week; that’s the one you can tell the temperature from if you count the chirps right.

A walking around the farm reveals other wild visitors. Big piles of coyote poo is the most frequent scat. They rarely sing, but they sometimes do. Turkey tracks and feathers are another common sight, though the birds themselves aren’t frequently evident. Reports of a herd of deer seen frequently – no bucks but a few does and young.

And then there are the quail! Bumper crop of quail with many more being born. Clouds of quail, a profusion of quail, lots and lots of quail. I was wondering where the Cooper’s hawk was when it appeared for the first time in months this morning. Then again, the red-tailed hawks have moved on with their young one, a great relief to the wealth of bunnies also being born.

The large gopher snakes are a frequent sight. Mark Jones reports a 5 foot long fatty near the Hayfield gate. There’s one that lost the tip of its tail near the Yard water tanks. There are eerily large tracks in the dusty roadbeds. The temperature has been such that large snakes have to sun themselves to keep warm enough to hunt in the shade. I picked one up to move it off the road, and it was shivering.

Small family groups of band-tailed pigeons are feasting on elderberries, which have been ripening while still in blossom. Those large pigeons are clumsy out at the branch tips where the elderberries reside…clumsy and nervous. Those are generally pretty nervous birds, which makes sense since they narrowly escaped extinction due to overhunting not that many generations ago.

Maw and Caw are around, but not so sure about their kids, who may have flown the coop. These parents may have the literal empty nest syndrome. We don’t hear the screaming adolescents. Mostly, Maw and Caw are in proximity, poking at the ground and occasionally finding something- what? They might be eating mice…maybe Jerusalem crickets?

Our native elderberries in a hedgerow. Imagine big pigeons trying to balance and eat them

Fire Preparations

As we hear news of fires starting up around the state, we redouble our efforts for fuel management. CAL FIRE has been sending up an engine from Swanton to inspect how we are doing, encouraging us and guiding us in little ways to do a better job. Many thanks to their Captains for inspiring us to do better! They say we’re doing good jobs with the mowing, and mowing we continue to do. There never seems to be enough time for mowing….or weedeating…or hauling cut brush (or burning that cut stuff in the winter). This week, Mark Bartle jumped on his tractor and mowed some of our fallow fields, so suddenly we’re minus more acres of bad fuel: yay!

Perfect Days, Slowing Down

We keep busy, to be sure, but the hecticness of earlier is slowly slipping by. ‘When the crops close in so much that you can’t get a tractor by them to do weeding…’ things slow down. When the grass dries and dies in the field margins, slopes, and areas around our infrastructure…and we do the last mowing of the year….things slow down. When the apples fruits are thinned and the canopy is so shady that the weeds don’t grow (much)…things slow down. Before the harvest…things slow down.

Dry, Flammable, and Gorgeous

For now, on windy hot days, we turn our heads to gaze north, fearing the sight of plumes of smoke. The quality of light has returned to a deep golden-tinged spectrum, which is beautiful AND dangerous. The late summer is fire weather. Nothing so far, and nothing too likely, but that could all change in any given 24 hours. The patient waiting for the fall rains, months away, is what our deep subconscious is doing – for a return to safety from wildfire.

Meanwhile, the skies are clear and blue, the breeze gentle, the days warm and the nights cool. Open the windows in the evening to cool the house down, and the next day is like air conditioning…until the early evening when it is hotter in than out. Repeat this exercise each evening or cook in your own house if you don’t pay attention.

Birds sing and feed their young, bunnies procreate – little ones and big ones scampering about, the fog parades down coast and downslope. There is a record number of bunnies along the road suddenly. Everything shimmers with life.

Satsuma plum – starting to ripen….loaded (needs propping!)

Early Fruit

The earliest of fruit is starting to happen. Two Dog farmers report a dozen ripe tomatoes in their field: the earliest of Early Girls. The birds are eating, or have already eaten, whole trees of plums. Soon, we may overwhelm the birds with plums and get a few ourselves…or maybe we should net them! The cherries are almost all gone, a few left for the orchard tenders if they haven’t had enough already.

In the Hedgerow, resprouted from the Fire, the many native elderberries…donated by George Work years ago…are both flowering and fruiting. Elderberry flowers are the most beautiful cream color, the dark blue berries blushed pectin white.

Tree Swallows

During the glorious bright, golden evening light and my walk-around the farm, I glanced at the big rounded canopy of the walnut tree next to our solar panel-driven well and saw something marvelous: a cloud of tree swallows foraging on something. Round and round they darted, encircling the entire edge of the walnut canopy. High squeaking, they chattered a conversational song of play or feasting or both. Some arched a little higher and then wheeled rapidly down, picking at the surface of the leaves, sucking up unseen insects. There were easily 50, perhaps many more. I stood for 15 minutes, but wasn’t there at the beginning- how long had it been going on? The flock soon moved off to some other place, but not before several individuals soared so close to me that I could see their tiny cheerful eyes glistening. They seemed to smile back at me. I suspect that they were after honeydew eating yellow jacket vespid wasps, which must have lost legions of their kin during that brief swallow feast.

The SMELL

This time of year, each year, the night air is heavy with scent. The winds calm and moisture, eased by the cooling night air, forms a shallow layer over the entire farm. Flashlight beams aimed upward reveal the 10’-20’ depth of scant haze. Throughout that dark and steamy air, a distinct scent wafts from the surrounding forests. Tanoak! Big, fat tassels of male flowers poke up from tanoak canopies giving the trees an almost silvery appearance. The tassels are grouped in many-fingered clusters at the branch ends. This is where the smell is coming from. Seminal smell. Almost too much! People feel obliged to ask, “How long will it last?” Who knows. Too long. But, it is a small price to pay for the acorns that will be produced: this promises a carpet of giant tasty nuts later this year. The smell is gone by morning, but you can get up early, close the windows, and seal the smell in your house if you really want to.

WE DON’T HAVE BUGS!

How often have I heard a Proud Coastal Californian exclaim, ‘We don’t have bugs!’ as they attempt to further glorify their admittedly lovely region. These folks must not go out much, or venture far from their urban abodes. There was a brief respite between the Spring Mosquitoes and what is currently headed to Flymaggedon. Face flies…legions of face flies…’eye, ear, nose and throat specialists’ are starting to appear. The first one explored my face this past week. Soon, they will be unbearable: no more sunbathing! Instead, the conversational wave will be the norm. You stand still, talking, and wave your hand back and forth in front of your face to be able to discuss anything while standing still outdoors.

Dangerous Animals

This past little while- two good reports. One: at the odd hour of 2 a.m., Bodhi got a good look at a small mountain lion by our downhill spring. Two: Sylvie just spotted an 8-buttoned rattler on the dirt road near the pavement – it was 2.5’ long…a fatty for our area! I tried looking for the black widow spiders at the mouths of gopher holes during one nighttime foray, but either I was too early in the night or too early in the summer for the population to have grown. Zero blackwidows! Schwew! There used to be hundreds, just last year, in every gopher hole along every road.

-also simultaneously published on the Molino Creek Farm website- check it out!

Balmy Days, Cool Ocean Breezes

The days have been perfectly warm with a light breeze off the ocean – we have not been smited by the heat so famously noted in inland California and 5. The cool upwelling ocean has been our nearby friend.

Some odd clouds have been streaming overhead, making for glorious sunsets. One sunset this past week was (briefly) completely Pure Lucious Purple.

Cherries Cherries and more Cherries.

In the past two weeks, we’ve harvested 75 pounds off of the 18 trees. There are another 60 pounds at least ripe right now; those we’ll pick for Two Dog Farm to take to the Alemany Farmer’s Market in San Francisco on this Saturday. The heat is making them get ripe in a hurry! Family, friends, and Community Orchardists are thick in cherry fruit, the very best anyone has experienced. Yum.

In the depths of the night, occasionally we get fog. Rarely now, we wake up to a brief patch of fog, but its not too drippy.

Yip Yip Horray!

Also in the deep dark night: coyote chorus. High squeaky notes of coyote song ring out across the farm. At least three animals are celebrating and almost every night, late-late at night.

Giant gopher snakes are out sunning themselves on the road, frequently.

The second, or third, batch of new bunnies has arrived. There are also big batches of new quail everywhere- not still fluffy, but young enough to be Very entertaining to watch in their barely coordinated flights, weaving willy-nilly much to their parents’ chagrin. After such a flush, it must take hours to regather the covey. Another successful reproductive situation: The Deer! A mother deer is trailing a single fawn around the property.

Here’s a confirmation that Maw and Caw have been quite successful again with two adolescent yelling and demanding offspring. They are good parents, watching carefully after the kids.

In a tall tree near the Brush Field, a pair of red tailed hawks have fledged a talkative young one. This is the first pair and the first offspring I’ve seen since my arrival in 2008. We could use more hawk action with the burgeoning bunnies, gophers, and mice.

Hay There

The grass has dried. All of the grass has dried. So, it is time to make the Last Mowing, dust and all. There are three ways to get rid of the hay this late in the season: 1) pile the hay in the field and let it moulder; hope to apply at the onset of rains before it becomes too heavy to move…2) compost it, layered with dirt and weeds, kept moist…3) put it on the dirt roads for dust control. After the CZU fire burned up the freshly applied understory hay, we won’t be fooled again. Wait for more mulch application! Otherwise, we grind up the hay and leave it be in the roadsides and fields where it won’t be harvested. The mice will like it there. I saw a bunny eating such ‘stored’ hay recently.

-this post also shared via Molino Creek Farm’s webpage, see this link.

Fattening Apples, Impending Heat

The tension of summer is upon us. We relish the beautiful days, like today, with an ocean breeze and high temperatures in the upper 70s to low 80s. The nights are cool enough to be our air conditioning. We awake to cool houses that slowly warm as the day progresses until the (welcome) onset of cooler evenings. The crickets are loud, the birds silent in the midday warmth, and cicadas fill the heat of the day with their one note, incessant, high metallic-whining song.

The magnificent pulse of pleasantly warm days and cool nights used to be normal, for decades it was normal. Recently, there is a prickle of worry that the HEAT will arrive: days of above 90s when the night never cool. We’ve had 4 of those in the last 3 years, 1 right before the 2020 fire and one just after. Those are tough. We might get one of those this weekend. The Weather Service can’t say. While they predict 110F inland, ”readings along the coast are a bit more tricky.” Sigh. All we can do is get the irrigated ground as wet as possible to buffer our poor crops against what might be wilting, damaging heat.

Molino Community Orchardists produce this beauty…a gala apple tree perfectly thinned

Pomelogically Speaking

Meanwhile, in the cool shade of apples trees…We gaze across a lush and happy orchard filled with quarter-sized fruit peaking out from beneath the protective cover of deep green leaves. The many hands of orchard collective workers have thinned almost the entire orchard to well-spaced fruit that is gaining girth expeditiously. By taking off most of the fruit and leaving a few, we relieve the mother trees of too much work. You can almost hear them sigh and relax.

The apple trees are growing so well that their bark is splitting, the first furrows appear on our aging tree trunks. So, this is how trees show their wrinkles. We are only a month away from the first apples ripening: The Gravensteins. We will have just two of those types of apple trees bearing this time around, but there are many more small ones getting bigger – 3 more years and the crop will begin to burgeon. After that, the Gala apples will be on hand in 2 months, and that’s the beginning of the big apple party. Apple trees do not like warm roots, but this spring saw the canopies grow so much that there is good shade across most of the orchard floor. The edge trees suffer more, but we’ll dispense thick mulch over their tender roots soon enough.

Plum Nothing!

Soon, there will be plums but none right now. The challenge with plums is netting them. We need to create an easy-to-deploy single tree netting system, so we can get plums this year. There is a promising fruit set.

Maw and Caw Update

Taking my morning stroll this morning, I heard a raven scream from down near the netted cherry grove. ‘Oh NO!’ I thought…’What’s wrong?!’ Perched on the cherry net structure were 4 ravens, not just our farm pair, Maw and Caw. Did they have twins this year? Was that single scream an obnoxious raven yell, so typical of their adolescent young? More study is needed.

Other Wildlife Observations

Foxes and coyotes calling, fledged barn swallows, frequent Lazuli song. It sounds like someone is strangling a cat, but its just a gray fox calling. It was very startling, though. It’s the first sign I’ve had in a long time that the foxes are still around. Uh-oh for the fruit, though.

Sylvie woke one night to the pitched song of coyotes.

One of the 4 fledged barn swallows from my porch hung upside down like a bat for an hour yesterday. What’s up with that. I worried that it was sick, but then saw it idly preening itself while hanging upside down. Odd bird! It seems to the smallest and is quite a rebel. The other three fly one way, it tilts its head at them going that way, chips, and flies a different way.

The laughing calls of lazuli bunting are very common on the farm. They well compliment the high giggling peeps of the many lesser goldfinches that are feasting on Madia seed happily.

Farming

Dusty clouds billow in the wake of mowing tractors, weed-tilling tractors. Bent forms slowly hoe their way down the rows in the morning heat. Shimmering waves of warmth bend the images of quickly growing crops, not yet covering the ground, but soon! This is the time of cash outlay, the gamble that the harvest will bring the returns to pay back all the labor going into the crops right now. Killing gophers, weeding, watering…repeating…over and over, the harvest weeks away.

Black walnut – we have a lot of them on the farm!

Walnuts

We have a lot of black walnuts growing on our farm, never harvested. Still, they are beautiful trees!

-this post also placed at the Molino Creek Farm web space.

Bluebird Chicks

Baby bird begging is almost as beguiling as human baby crying. Heads turn to see what the fuss is about. Perched near the nest, the mother holds her wings out just a bit, anxiously glancing around. I haven’t seen any fledglings, but the earliest squeakers must be close to getting out of their nests. At least two bluebird nest boxes have clutches going. There are other species of baby bird noises from nearby shrubs, from holes in cabin walls, from tree hole cavities, from anywhere there might be enough cover. The lush productive spring promises well-fed big baby birds. Next door, the jays have already been at their nasty deeds, tearing apart barn swallow nests to eat eggs for breakfast.

Orange crowned warblers! I’ve been using the Merlin bird call recognition software on my iPhone, and it has been teaching me better bird identification. I didn’t know warbler calls before using this tool, but now I can recognize orange crowned warblers, which are suddenly (for me) everywhere I hike through the forest. Some focused time recently netted several warblers, all nearby: Wilsons, orange-crowned, black throated gray, MacGilvery’s, and yellow. Most of these were close by, from the sound of them, but nearly invisible. They seemed to like darting around just under the canopy of the acres and acres of 4 foot tall, post fire California lilac. Imagine, a sea of glossy green-leaved shrubs with flashes of yellow birds and a constant sweet warbler song.

Navel orange flowers produce an amazing scent on Molino Creek Farm’s fabulous Citrus Hill

Sweetness in Scent

Song can be sweet, but so can scent. Molino Creek Farm’s citrus orchard has never had so many blossoms. It is peak citrus blossom time, especially with oranges and their particularly alluring scent. It is dizzying many yards downwind. Closer up, the pure white of their simple flowers is beautiful to look at. This flowering is brief. Soon there will be tiny dark green fruit that will get larger by the week and then slowly turn colorful. The harvest is mostly 9 months away, but still we glean the last few limes, lemons, and tangerines. As the flowers fade and the fruit forms, a new flush of leaves will create thick, sheltering canopies of glossy dark green. We put yoghurt containers of feather meal into the drip lines of the citrus orchard more than a month ago, and it seems to be helping with the generous leafing.

Farm Work

Molino Creek Farm and Two Dog have been planting many plants, and now attention turns to hoes. The last rains spur more weed germination in the dry farmed fields. In the irrigated rows, a massive weed flush threatens to overwhelm the crops. The hoeing race is on!

Molino Creek Farm’s famous dry farmed tomatoes are starting a new season in freshly tilled soil

We are irrigating again: a routine that will last until November. Up early to check the water tank level, turn on irrigation valves, hike around the orchard to see if any irrigation is amiss, fix a leak or two and go home. Lunch time (or later!)- repeat in reverse: turn off the irrigation valves, log the water use, check the storage tanks, and head home again. Big cyclical walks around the farm keep creating material for this writing project.

Half the first round of hay raking is done. Mulch for the orchard gets clipped by a sickle bar mower, then sundried (hah!), then raked, then pitchforked onto the mulch cart, hauled to The Trees, and spread around the rootzone thicker than anyone wants to place it. Really? This thick?! This is the third spring since the fire burned up all the mulch. This will be the last year that weeds come up so thick around the trees. The mulch is thick enough now to subdue seedling weeds. There are also mulch benefits of water retention, slow-release fertilizer, root cooling insulation, and wildlife (vole, lizard, snake) habitat. Long live mulch! Mulch is the key to life!! Under the mulch, worms wiggle and scoot, creating a carpet of 2” deep “castings.”

On our carefully stewarded hillsides, a menagerie of native grasses and wildflowers: Elymus glaucus (blue wild rye), lupines and other things…

-this post also placed at Molino Creek Farm’s website.

Endless Foggy Days

Day after day the fog variously seeps up the canyons, pours across the ridges, or just hangs across everything, dripping and drizzling. Droplets cover every plant, glistening. It is cool and damp, but the soil is still drying. The dust is subdued but the plants grow thirsty.

Blossoming Hillsides

This weather has prolonged the spring bloom which is entering the moment of giant patches of colorful shrubs. Lavender bush lupines and yellow-orange monkey flowers are being joined by bright yellow lizard tail, each of these gentle shrubs has its own color place on the hillsides but intermingle in the interstices in a mélange of crazy color patterns. More subtle flower patches also claim their spaces – Phacelia, bee plant, and cudweeds are also in full bloom. It is a good time to go for a walk where the coastal scrub is near, especially the post-fire coastal scrub. The fire set us up for a very colorful spring.

Snakes and Such

The extended cool spring seems to have concentrated the snakes into piles to keep warm. Last Sunday, Pete Trenham visited the farm and helped catalog 19 snakes in one walk about, including four rubber boas under one piece of roofing tin: a grip of snakes! We found gopher snakes of all sizes, a few ring neck snakes, yellow bellied racers, and garter snakes along with southern and San Francisco alligator lizards and blue bellied lizards. Down in the creek, we found California newts guarding their egg masses as a California giant salamander swam about. Molino Creek was much rearranged after the dynamic winter- now there are pools and riffles along with many beds of fresh piled rock.

Pete Trenham holding a grip of snakes: northern rubber boa to be exact

Planting Time

Farmers are planting seedlings. Baby onions are especially numerous in long rows. Adolescent sunflowers are getting bigger. Tomato plants are settling in nicely. The cool overcast weather makes for transition ease as plants move from the protection in the greenhouse out into the open air.

Perennial Fruit

The orchards are lush and gorgeous. Apple trees have dark green leaves, a foot of new shoot growth, and oodles of tiny furry new fruit. Cherry trees are laden with clusters of fattening light green shiny fruit nested in curtains of deep dark green foliage. Avocado trees are perky explosions of new reddish leaves reaching for the sky with bolting new growth. Slower, the citrus trees are beginning to flush with shiny new baby leaves while buds break with stark white flowers and famously sweet scent. The grape vines have thousands of long clusters of buds nestled in bright delicate spring green leaves

More Scents and Sounds

The gentle breeze brings a faint smell of fire and a distant hum is the source: air curtain burners are disposing of hazard trees on the nearby land. That distant hum is joined by hours of closer noise: mowers! This spring in particular has called the mowers to work. Mow the 5’ grass to 2” and the next week it will be back quickly with 6” a week growth. The sweet smell of fresh cut grass permeates the air when the wind dies down. The Merlin bird app identifies the dominant dusk chorus: purple finch, song sparrow, and barn swallow fill the ears with song as the day grows dark and evening sets in.