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