rain

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

Surrounding Sounds

As the Great Marvel occurs, the sounds so change also. The Great Marvel is the onset of winter rains. As citizens of a Mediterranean climate, this should be as monumental as it is for the other living beings around us. Simultaneously, the sounds of winter set in. Are you listening?

Humans are very visual, but we have other senses that would be good to emphasize. Let’s call this next week “Sound Awareness Week.” This will have particular meaning for those who can’t hear at all or hear well: for those of you, perhaps your gift this next week is to help more people describe what they are hearing, a two-for-one kind of experience. For those of you who are already acutely aware of sound…there is always more to explore!

Background, Seasonless Sounds: Rural and Urban

Everywhere you go, there are always a few noises no matter what season. Airplanes: more so on weekends with recreational aircraft. Roaring motorcycles: replete with accentuating noise apparatus, illegal, but unenforced! Barking domestic dogs, a seemingly Universal human mishap: some dog owners can’t seem to hear their own hounds (or don’t care)!

Seasonless Urban Noises

As many readers are situated in urban or near-urban areas, let’s first sift through the background sounds that a realtor once told me (mistakenly) that I would ‘get used to’ so that one day I ‘won’t even notice.’ Traffic: the hum or revving of engines, the squealing of tires. Car stereos played so loudly as to accelerate deafness. Sirens. Fighting domestic cats. Crows, hundreds of crows cawing. Pigeons cooing. The mechanical noises of Boardwalk rides and the accompanying screaming.

Uniquely Rural Noises, All Year Round

A few birds and coyotes sing the same all year round. Dark eyed junco, spotted towhee, Stellars and California scrub jay, great horned owl…all birds that seem to go on and on with similar calls all year round. Many other birds clearly vary their songs more seasonally. Coyotes yap and chortle-howl most any time during the year.

Winter Noises

Think about those prior non-seasonal noises, review them and visit them in your mental soundscape…then think about what you are hearing these days that’s different than say a month ago.

The three big noises that mean winter most to me: rainfall, wind, and waves.

Rain

The many sounds of rain make me smile whenever I stop long enough to enjoy them. The sound of urban rain – on pavement, bouncing off cars, pouring off of roofs, rushing down storm drains. In the City, its like you are part of a giant cement fountain where all of the water is guided this way and that, popping out here and there by design.

In the country, you can enjoy the very varied sound of rain hitting different plant communities. Grassland rain is very quiet as millions of grass blades expertly catch and lower raindrops, springing back for the next one, dancing on and on, up and down. Conifer forest rain is quiet at first, too: needles delicately capture the oncoming rains. After a bit, the sound changes as the needles let loose big droplets that clamor as they pass down through the canopy and onto the ground. Waxy leaved plant communities, oak and madrone forests and chaparral have particularly rattly-noisy rain sounds. Raindrops pop when they hit those leaves, spattering and spraying with more noise still. Rain on the ocean, in lagoons and estuaries, and on ponds has the most soothing sound, where you can really get a sense of the minute changes in rainfall intensity and duration.

Wind

City and country wind sounds are different, too; either way, the wind noise is significantly heightened with the onset of winter storms. Tuning into wind noises in either place, you can visualize zephyrs and gust fronts as they pass by, come towards you, or after they retreat.

In the City, wind makes varied and unique high whistling noises as it passes through wires; there are wires everywhere in the City. If you live near a tree that catches the wind, you come to know its song. Palm trees rattle and bark. Conifers roar with different pitches. Bare branches of the many street trees also sing songs.

In the Country, the ridge top forests are often talking through the winter. Depending on the wind direction, each ridge and forest type has its own distant hum-roar-swoosh. If you are in the forest when its windy, you get to hear the groan and sometimes pop of trees swaying. Leafy evergreen live oaks make a noise in the wind that makes you wonder if its raining.

Waves

Big wave events are common around the Bay through the winter, and those waves make big noises. Besides bird song, listening for the waves is what most frequently brings me back to the moment. When I catch the wave noise and pause, I try to pick out individual waves even from far away. I try to follow that wave as its crashing progresses directionally. Then, I listen for the crescendo or the lulls of the varying sets. I pay attention to my breath to compare the tempo. Sometimes, I think I can feel the waves through the ground, perhaps the big noise reverberating into the ridges and terraces. After a particularly long lull, I pick up the spray off of the first big wave before the subsequent waves drown out that higher note. I’m thinking of late that long sets of big waves make tones like singing: listen for the notes, am I right?

Other Winter Noises

There are a few other winter noises that are unique to the city or countryside.

In the City, the sound of traffic changes as rolling tires are louder, making wet and splashing noises. The Boardwalk makes less noise.

In the Country, the ephemeral streams start their chorus. Post-storm waterfalls sing. Under the redwoods in the mountains, you can hear the flute-like call of the varied thrush, a winter denizen. In orchards and in riparian forests, you might hear the distinct whiney ‘weeent’ of the red-bellied sapsucker, another species only around in the rainy season.

Now Listen!

Its over to you…check it out…report back on the onset of uniquely winter sounds. Tell me, tell your family, tell your friends what’s all that noise about? Compare notes.

-this originally posted by Bruce Bratton in his outstanding weekly blog BrattonOnline.com – check it out, donate…and read it!

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.

Falling leaves and moist winter chill

Fallen leaves blown across the forest path, under foot while walking, go “swoosh, swoosh, swoosh.” The sound of moist leaves (not crisply crunchy), an early rain and cool nights softened the landscape, removed the dust, made things gentle again. We are relaxing, slowly shedding the stress of the Fall’s potential for wildfire made more real these past many weeks by wind-carried smoke from prescribed fires across the entire state, even nearby at Wilder Ranch.

Breezes carry in the clouds and then clear the clouds, waves after waves of clouds and then sun alternate as the dry summer plays with the wet winter, back and forth. This week, winter won with a bit of rain, shy of an inch and not yet wetting the soil more than superficially. After the rain, some sunny warmth and then the wind, fog, and another front , and it got chilly. Tuesday evening fog piled up on the other side of the prominent ridge across Molino Creek and poured over it, falling like a ghostly waterfall backlit by the evening sun. Beautiful!

Neither the rain nor the subsequent drippy fog has been enough to release the cedar-scented petrichor, much anticipated.

we do grow olives…for locals only olive oil!

Big swell, seasonal scents

Last night’s goose bump chill sent us to close the windows, put on sweaters, and some even built their first wood stove fires. And today’s cool air reminded me of how I’ve been taking the sun’s warmth for granted and how I’ll miss that deeply warm sense for a long time soon. The cool air, moisture, and gusty breezes accentuate the piney, resinous smells of redwood, Douglas fir, and coyote brush. Winds across the ocean pushed up an epic swell recently. Roaring and thumping waves reverberated across the landscape, but now there’s just a low more consistent hum. The patterns of breezes with long lulls awaken the senses, especially when it is peaceful on the farm but the trees on the ridge start talking, telling us a big gust is coming.

Feathered visitors

Geese, Canada and white fronted, are honking their melodies overhead near sundown. They are making their way to their winter grounds.

The newest birds are blackbirds, strutting around the fields in flocks, their heads moving curiously straight back and then straight forward with every stride. This evening, the light was catching the glean off the backs of a flock of Brewer’s blackbirds, reflecting the iridescent deep purple-blue of their gorgeous plumage. They let me get close but eventually alighted to show me the bicolor blackbirds in their midst. There are around 50 of this mixed flock and more may still arrive. They love to eat the grass seeds in the cover crop. They might even be anticipating it.

Other wildlife

Otherwise, the wildlife report is all about the Very Big Buck, coyotes, and chirping bright blue bluebirds. Perhaps there’s more than one Very Big Buck, but people are talking about an extraordinarily large, very impressive male deer from here to Davenport and north to Swanton. This creature stands very smart and tall with a giant set of antlers nearly 3’ across. He stood in the roadway looking intently north where he couldn’t traverse without going around the deer fence. He hesitated, looked north again, and then sauntered uphill following the fence line, somehow seemingly begrudgingly.

Nearly nightly, the coyotes sing. They aren’t doing the long musical numbers with multiple animals yipping and howling, but rather it’s a series of solos of the one coyote couple. One evening, they were calling from way up the Molino Creek canyon. Another evening, they sang right outside the window. Each night they try making some song from a different place, perhaps checking out the acoustics: the echoes are always fun.

The throaty, watery chirps of western bluebirds grace our midst. The brilliant blue flashes from the males’ zig-zaggy flights are breathtaking. There were seven birds, up a couple from last count. With that plumage, one wonders if they are considering breeding early…

The fading row crops will soon be tilled in and cover crop will grow, instead

Fall farming

We’re not quite ready to cover crop. There are still 10 days of tomatoes to harvest and the apple harvest is in full swing. The floral crisp sweet Gala apples are almost all gone; we will pick no more for market. Last weekend, we picked all the remaining Mutsu apples which had been devastated by the apple scab disease that enjoyed our late wet warm spring. Next up are the Fuji apples, and there are plenty of those! Plus, there are Golden Delicious, an underappreciated long storing apple of extraordinary flavor. In the Barn there are hundreds of pounds of culled apples that we’ll soon be juicing for cider. And so, we pick, pick, pick…sending on the perfect apples to market. Between picking spells, we spread compost and mow to prepare for harrowing in the bell bean seeds.

those rusty brown tentacles….avocado roots poking up into the loose, month-old compost!

Tentacles in the compost

The Community Orchardists have been spending the last many weeks spreading compost under many trees. Around a month ago, we spread compost under the avocados on Citrus Hill. After that little bit of rain, I noticed those avocadoes looked particularly perky and vibrantly green. So, today I pushed around the compost to see if the avocado roots had invaded it: they had! It is so curious to me that avocado trees push pointy tenacles of roots straight up, out of the soil into mulch. How do those thick pokey roots feed off the mulch? Such a mystery.

The Longest Winter

Through late last week and into this one, waves of unseasonal rain kept sweeping across the sky: shower after shower, sheets of drizzle, or a splattering of only a few big raindrops. It was mostly cold rain, and any remaining heating firewood is gone – the longest, coldest, rainiest winter in memory. Wearing sweaters and hats inside, we wonder when the transition to summer will come. Perfectly reasonable people are now complaining about rain, even arguing with an emphatic, ‘enough!’ when reminded about the contrasting potential for heat, dryness, and fire. Some of us will never complain about rain again, but perhaps that’s just the indelible memory of dangerously close-at-hand wildfire.

The Scents and Sound of Weighty Fog

Is that fog now? The sky is still capped but ragged bright blue holes appear in the clouds by midday. The sounds of gusty winds mix with the echoing roar of big waves. The air smells sweet from vegetal spring mixed with salty ocean spray and dusty pollen.

At the end of the rainy period, before the winds, there was a still morning and both the canyons and ridges were draped in clouds. Dampness coated every surface, leaves glistening with droplets. I could hear the nearby waterfall song and a bit of the creek below. It was so peaceful. Then, <<CRACK, CRASH!!>> another big tree fell down somewhere near our boundary in the Molino Creek canyon.

Colors Splashing

Besides the spectacularly blossoming apple orchard, there are dots and pools of color popping out from the mostly grass-green landscape. There are striking large powdery blue patches of wild California lilac, both large shrubs that escaped the 2020 fire and a sea of smaller ones that emerged after that fire. Whorls of sky lupine flowers brighten shallow soiled nobs and ridges, aided by our firewise mowing. On the rare occasion that sunrays warmed their petals, California poppies open with their flame-orange shiny glow. It takes a curious eye and intrepid soggy walking to spot some flower colors: buried in the thick grass are hiding patches of blue-eyed grass, a miniature deep-blue-blossomed iris relative.

Hello Yarrow!

Standing up high among the tall grass, bright white patches of yarrow just started flowering. Like so much of the farm’s color, this one is a result of intention. In 2008, there was no native yarrow on the farm. But, there were a few patches of yarrow poking through the roadside shrubs nearby. In the dusty summer heat, we paced those roadsides, shaking yarrow seedheads into paper bags. Then, as winter rains approached, we shook the seed from those bags in the areas we were mowing for fire safety. Now, there is yarrow proliferating and butterflies alighting on their flat-topped pollen-rich platforms of white flowers.

Random Acupuncture

Everyone who is anyone is controlling thistles. On hikes and impromptu field meeting strolls, we pause to pound our heels into the ground, trying to uproot invasive thistles. When we stroll through anywhere that hasn’t been mowed within a week, we get poked by needle-sharp thistle spines. Italian thistle is the main culprit, but there are also pokey giant lush leaves of milk thistle with which to contend (in the moister spots). If we wanted to wait a bit to mow, there can be no more waiting – there is an urgency about the timing. Seeds will soon be forming then taking flight on thistle-down gossamer parachutes, creating next year’s problems.

Younglings

Baby turkeys, baby bunnies. The thick tall grass nearly hides the adults and completely veils their newborn young. Turkey young, too small to fly, struggle through dense forests of oat grass. They don’t have to venture far with tasty grass seeds presenting so thickly. They have already learned mother’s beak precision to pick individual seeds from grass inflorescences. At the boundary of shrubs and grass, tiny newborn rabbits are also gazing at their parents for lessons, from when to scurry from danger to what to eat and where. It is fattening time for coyote, fox, and bobcat.

Farming

The unexpected late soak changed the farming routine. We stopped our panicking irrigation setup, grabbed hoes and went to work on the easily removed weeds. The big field hoe pries giant radish roots from the wet soil. Glove protected hands yank clusters of grasses that grow too close to tree trunks for the hoe. Either way, hoe or glove, the spring has presented the opportunity for building forearm muscles and body core strengthening.

A new generator arrived and will provide backup power for our normally solar-powered well. The well has been mostly idle for months because of the rain, but soon will be running every daylight hour to keep up with irrigation needs. Should smoke shroud the sun with the onset of wildfire, we’ll need the generator to keep our fire fighting water replenished.

The sounds of powerful diesel engine tractor tilling, weedeater droning, and the lower growl of mowers fill the air most days. The early mornings and the longer evenings provide respites from farm noise. Then, the air is filled with spring bird song.

Spring Heat then Rain Returning

The warm spring sun began feeling prickly to my skin, and so it was sunscreen and sunhats to go outside. It had been a long time: a long cold, rainy winter. Suddenly, spring pollen dusted everything, everyone sneezing across the farm and into town, sneezes in parking lots, bike paths and in lines at the store. ACHOO!

Spring warmth triggered grass to bolting, really toweringly bolting grass flower heads arching and poking up high, waving pollen from dancing wands ladening the ever present breeze.

A Sudden Dryness

It seemed like the rain was over, as it normally would have been, but we were in for a surprise. Us orchardists hustled to get the irrigation set up, discovering mouse-chew leaks to repair, stuck valves, broken sprinklers – the perennial time-consuming setup always seems to come too late. The ground was DRY…very dry! Cover crop was wilting, bent over in the springtime heat. Digging weeds out from under orchard trees became a hassle, shovels and hoes striking hard ground, ringing metal sounds. It was dry not only on the surface but a foot down into the soil. Last Saturday, I asked my fellow weeder, “anyone discovering any soil moisture?” The answer was a disbelieving ‘No!’ Someone said, ‘It calls for rain.’ Yeah, right. It seemed somehow impossible.

Wind to Rain

The wind picked up strongly that evening and the next day it was blowing trees and branches down, hard gusts joining a steady stiff wind from the northwest. A little drizzle followed. Then there was a shower with quite big drops. A few hours later, another shower, that one longer, also with big raindrops. And then it poured on and off for many hours late through the night. Afterwards, still the soil is only wet about six inches down, but its moist down a foot. That much water will get used up in a few days when the sun shines again. And, it is enough to spur the grass growth (and pollen). What a surprise! At least it will be easier to weed for a few days.

The Resulting Flowers

The flowers are out. Poppies and lupines in peak flower. Cassandra reports binocular-spying a strikingly bright patch of solid lush orange California poppies high on the steep slope across Molino Creek canyon. The coast live oaks, tassels fading, are dense with shiny new leaves, a rich array of greens, each tree its own unique shade. On oak twigs, the tiniest of acorn babies have been born. Forest edge madrone trees display giant pom-poms of white flowers, a celebration of the moist winter. Big yellow blankets of post-fire germinated French broom sweeten the breeze but make my muscles tense with the stress of the seemingly hopeless weed invasion on our farm’s otherwise beautifully diverse hillsides. Redwood sorrel carpets the forest understory with strikingly pink blossoms. The wild iris has begun its colorful parade, trailside through the woodlands.

Two Lupines: Lupinus nanus (sky lupine) and Lupinus bicolor (miniature lupine) side by side

And Bryophytes

The return of rain also reawakens mosses and lichens. The black walnuts and oaks host a wealth of moss, growing thicker on the older branches and on the shady side of trunks. Summer comes and their thick green piles shrink and fade. Just as quickly, with dense fog (or this rain), they brighten and grow plush once again.

A Diversity of Ephiphyes…Rain Soaked and Glorious. On one of the Farm’s black walnut trees

A Deer

An adolescent buck with the faintest of felty nubbins jutting from its forehead warily considered me during a recent walk. At first, its giant pointy ears tilted towards me like satellite dishes honing in on my approach. Each time I get close to deer, I talk to them, gently letting them know that I am no threat. Generally, this slows their retreat, but this one was suspicious. It took off, energetically bounding with all four feet high in the air between pounces. Reaching a good distance, its ears were once again on alert, pointed at me as I tried urge it, ‘don’t worry.’ I looked down and up again. He was gone. Why so concerned, deer? This one was new to the neighborhood, maybe just passing through. People still hunt deer in these hills, so wariness is warrented.

Lapins Cherry Fruit – seems to be setting thickly, but we have to wait to see..they often drop off later

Fruit Forming

Bright white citrus blossoms unfold sweetly while cherry petals drop to reveal shiny fruit. The apple orchard has entered peak bloom. The freshly clipped understory, not long ago was ugly stubble, but now it’s turning green, resprouting through the mown mess. The faint rose smell of apple blossoms is temporarily overpowered by a rain-fetched dank compost smell, hints of the bitterness of rotting chopped up weedy mustards and radishes. At the base of the apple flowers, furry hints of apples to be. Down the hill from the apples, fruit grows fast in our stonefruit grove- mostly various apriums and pluots, a hybrid swarm that also includes the parents, plums and apricots. Those fruits are mostly silver dollar sized, hard as rocks and green. The wild hazelnuts of our hedgerow have set fruit, bracts swelling. Elderberry flower clusters are a curious near-black, their buds forming.

Birds

Barn swallows have formed pairs, their mates arrived sometime in the last couple of weeks. They dive and swoop right past my face, closer than ever, as I mow the orchard. Maybe these are my porch swallows, and they are comfortable with me, and so the proximity. It seems I can feel their wingbeat wind on my cheeks they swoop so close.

The band tailed pigeon flock is back to its more normal farm size: 18 (ish). There were many more last week, but some moved on. As always, they scare easily from the walnut trees where they feast on catkins. Their clapping wings send them quickly skyward where they wheel about in a flock that eventually alights in a tall tree awaiting a safer moment to glide back down to their feast. How many times a day do they make this circuit? Sometimes, we hear them cooing deeply, at times answered by the higher, more sad sounding mourning doves that strut on the ground in pairs across the moist freshly tilled farm soil.

In the understory of the orchards, there are bunches of sharp-billed robins.

Somewhere nearby, there is the call and response sing-song of grosbeaks. In the woods, a flycatcher serenade joins the flute-like Swainson’s thrush song.

There are many other birds making lots of noise. Such is spring on our beautiful, diverse, wildlife friendly organic farm. We are so thankful.

-my weekly blog for Molino Creek Farm simultaneously published here.

Buds Break

this is a post I just published on Molino Creek Farm’s webpage

Let’s hope for a repeat of the last couple of years where March and even April have brought us additional important rain. The shallow soils are drying out on the grasslands nearby, but the creeks are still running.

Since last we posted this news blog, back in November, there have been deluges and droughts, cold and heat…Molino is a land of extremes! December was unbelievably wet with heavy storms intermingled with endless mists and drizzles. January came and someone turned off the tap, then no rain expected in February, normally our wettest month. It was 75F today and the sun felt very hot. But, in total this winter, we’ve had lots of cold nights…we’ve burned more firewood to keep warm than in recent memory.

Calling Critters

The most noticeable wildlife is the mixed flock of blackbirds. If you were hard of hearing, you might think it was our ancient bulldozer squeaking and rattling across the hills. Better hearing can make out the seemingly multidimensional mélange of starlings, brewer’s blackbirds, and bicolored blackbirds singing together. Mostly the song is brewer’s blackbirds, but the others are in there, too. 80 birds exchanging, at their own tempo without any evident coordination, low-to-high crescendo-Ing whistles combining to near dizzying cacophony. If you walk by, the song shockingly and suddenly stops and up goes the flock in a vibrating dark cloud. The bicolor blackbirds land again in downward arks like windblown leaves. Then, a few brewer’s blackbirds make clicks, like drumsticks on the edge of a snare drum…but not keeping any pace or rhythm: Chek…chek……check…chek chek…chek….then one, then ten, then suddenly all 80 birds erupt in their whistling joy once again. The whole farm reverberates with this chorus, which is particularly loud this winter.

The other wildlife calls are much more subtle. In the last 2 months, I’ve heard a single fox yawl and a single female lion cry, but the coyotes are keeping quiet. Every night there is but one great horned owl hooting. The red shouldered hawk, a friend that still needs a name, hasn’t been scree-ing as much, but is still omnipresent as is a kestrel and recently a pair of red-tailed hawks. A single peregrine falcon comes by once or so a week to scream terrifyingly at the Molino prey.

Winter Crops

In this climate, we harvest all year round. Gleaning 2 Dog peppers was over in early January, but now we are starting to get a fair harvest of Persian limes with Meyer and ‘real’ lemons on their heels. Venturing out in the cover crop, there are pea shoots to forage. Kale has done well this winter in the home gardens.

Peas in the cover crop – a forager’s delight

Orchard Tending

Not much to do in the row crop fields, but the orchards have needed tending, especially recently. A few weeks back, Bob Brunie and I started up the backpack sprayer and sprayed most of the apple orchard with a mix of ground up kelp and fish along with living beneficial microbes to foster tree microbiomes for maximum health. Small groups and individuals have also been pruning, fertilizing, and assembling/burying water lines. The early winter planted cover crops germinated, but then have only been growing very slowly due to cold and lack of rain. The Robins have been enjoying late afternoon feasting on orchard cover crop vetch.

Cherry buds are swelling…like so many of the fruit trees in our orchards right now

The Storms

This story would not be complete without some notes about the storms of December. That month brought one rainy front after the next with a few days’ pause between storms, so that our solar arrays recharged batteries and the soggy grasses bent back upwards. Lake Molino resprouted and (glug glug) drowned the Bottomlands Field cover crop. For nearly three weeks we had that big pond, but no ducks showed up this time.

This massive rain and all of the fire damage must have sent some debris flow into action along Molino Creek. If you walk down there now, it’s a massively changed scene. Instead of lush Creekside vegetation, now there’s a twice-as-wide scoured rock bed with pummeled banks. Upstream, there is a series of small granite waterfalls into clear pools where once there was just mud, logs, and a few ferns.

The downpours, however, produced very little damage to the Farm. We had some rills on the road, which needed some maintenance anyways. The winds broke oaks apart along our fence lines, those damaged by the fire or some prior issue. In the hills around us on the more recent rainless windy days you can hear tree after tree cracking apart and falling with big bangs and low thuds. Zephyrs are taking down the burned trees and its not safe walking in the forest on blustery days.

The Coming Spring

The first orchard trees are about to bloom. Plums are breaking bud. Early peaches are unfurling leaves. Citrus blossoms are filling the air with sweet perfume. Avocado blossom clusters are unfurling. The fields and field margins are massing with weedy Calendula and oxalis color. And…it is just the beginning!

The biggest show will soon be poppies and then LUPINES. For whatever reason, this is a Huge Lupine Year. Bumble bees are going to be very, very happy and the returning swallows will be feasting on them before too long.

We hope you are enjoying these (too) wonderful days.