turkey

And The Skies Opened Up

“Here comes The Rain!” they said, and it poured. Scuttling long tomato harvest hours, for many days, rescuing the fruit. Waves of warmth before the chilly precipitation. Then, the wind. Ravenous deer. Big colorful sunsets.

Another magnificent sunset at Molino Creek Farm

Deluge

Stepping out of the shower, there was this massive rumbling noise from outside. Breathing deep to combat a visceral fear growing: “What IS that sound?” Brain grabs an idea: Is that a low flying big aircraft? “No, that’s not it.” I recall the adage that tornadoes sound like freight trains. It has been years since my teenage Georgia experiences with twisters close at hand. I forget the noise. A quick round of glancing out of every window, every direction: no sickly gray-green sky, no breaking tree branches…probably not a tornado. But, it is raining so hard the roof is rumbling. Blustery but not extreme, the windows rattle and bow. The air could hold no more water. The surface of every bit of flat-ish soil was everywhere a deep liquid sheen where a rough moist surface had been moments before. Rivulets feed deep moving pools carrying rafts of debris. Luckily, it lasted only a few minutes; otherwise, it would have been a major disaster. Scary. 

In a few hours, the world transformed. Gone is the dust of the long, dry summer. The Fear of Fire evaporates: we are given reprieve. 

Coyote Bush Female Plant About to Burst with Seed (to the wind!)

Germination

This was the Germinating Rain, an unusual phenomenon of Mediterranean California. Billions of seeds scattered at the onset of the drying tawny summer and buried by crisp dead thatch are now sprouting, turning the brown landscape to green. The verdancy blushes at first, so subtle as to make you doubt your eyes: you must look closely. It will be February before the prairies are so green as to make your eyes hurt. It takes time for the new growth to overtop the skeletons of last year’s plants.

The farmers never gave up weeding. They were at it as recently as last week. Now, they will be overwhelmed by the flush of seedlings stimulated by the rain. But the harvest is nearly over and the moist ground is better prepared for planting the Winter cover crop. There will be more purposeful germination in the dark brown, fluffy richly scented soil for the next couple of months.

A raft of radish weed seedlings has germinated in this tomato field

Fall is Here

The subtle signs of Fall are arriving. Black walnut leaves rapidly yellow. Willows, too, turn paler hues. But the most profound change is in the bracken: vast patches of hillside fronds have withered to their signature brown. The rain moistens those leaves and scents their vicinity with sweet straw bitterness.

Bracken fern fall

Turkey Tales

As Thanksgiving approaches, one would assume that the wise wild turkey would know something untoward is approaching. The scent of their roasting flesh will waft across the landscape right on schedule and they can’t have missed that for generations. Is that why they’ve become so scarce? 

Then again there was the horrid sound, the screaming alarms and furtive loud complaints from the woodland two weeks ago. I took a walk in the newly moist world today down toward the forest via the Camp Road, towards the creek – yonder the way of the terrible turkey noise. No sign of problems. Not a turkey feather askew. On return, as if to bolster the ‘something’s not right’ sense: a single (male?) turkey takes a thunderous flight from one branch to another in the high-up redwood canopy. Where did the other 5 of that one’s friends go?! We wait and watch to see how this story unfolds and miss the flock which had so regularly meandered across our farm.

Two Dog Really Truly Dry Farmed Winter Squash

Sunsets and Fruit Picking

The stormy weather has produced the most remarkable sunsets, lighting the evening as the harvest winds down. As the predicted First Storm approached, every person possible took to the vines buckets in hand to pick as many tomatoes as possible. Rains can easily ruin the crop. Water starved plants, dry farmed tomato vines in particular, faced with sudden abundant moisture soak up so much that the fruit bursts. Stems and leaves suddenly moist are excellent surfaces for a rain of bacteria and fungi eager to devour cells. Melt down is commencing. As Judy says, we are lucky if the crop can last until Thanksgiving. It is a rare year when that happens. The trade off with beneficial end of Fire Season is the unfortunate commencement of the end of the tomatoes. 

Meanwhile, in the orchard there is another kind of harvest underway, a harvest unaffected (we hope!) by the onset of rains: apples! It always takes such patience to await the ripening of apples, but the small harvest of the early ones (Gala) emphasizes the wait for those to come. Plus, there are no mutsu apples this year, so the next in line are Braeburn…still a ways off, but the taste of the first ones…with overtones of citrus and tropical fruit…make us excited. And the size of the Fuji crop is oh-such-a-bonanza.

Braeburn apples are slowly ripening

Onward we go…soon to the mowing and onto the harrowing-in of cover crop seeds.

Seems also that cider pressing approaches.

The Slowness of Extreme Heat

Happy Interdependence Day! I’m happy not to live under the tyranny of a monarchy AND I’m glad to be part of a community that recognizes the centrality of interdependence. The Molino Creek Farm Community relies on one another, exercising our various strengths to foster healthy farm life at its center. We include teachers, woodcrafters, a midwife, farmers, orchard tenders, bookkeepers and administrators, activists, road technicians, and natural lands managers. Many others join, from near and far. Together, we make this land sing: it depends on us, we depend on it, and everyone depends on each other. Nearly 4 years after the last wildfire, we feel that interconnectedness more than ever.

Name that shrub: one of our many hedgerow plants

Evening Scents

Each evening and early in the morning, the air is filled with the “seminal” smell of the male flowers of tanoak. It hits you strongly, suddenly: the pollen must release all at once after the evening arrives. As the sun was beginning to set, before the emanation of the heavy tanoak smell, there was a more subtle, pleasant, sweet aroma: thousands of white flowers unfurled from the field bindweed, a ground-hugging invasive morning glory- like vine of the tilled fields. There’s no detectable smell from a single bindweed flower, but en masse they sure smell pretty.

Summer Fruit

There is a pinkish blush on the first dry farmed tomatoes, but other fruits are riper. The 2 trees are young yet, but the first aprium crop is coming on: it looks like we might get 20 pounds to share among our community orchardists. They are delicious and almost make up for the lack of real apricots, which we can’t seem to produce in our cool coastal clime. The star of the show is cherries, but again too few to get to market: we anticipate 300 pounds of fat, dark red sweet cherries from the 18 trees that the fire spared. The 25 other recovering cherry trees in that block, grafted onto resprouting rootstock, will make their first sizeable harvest next year…starting in 2026, we’ll be back to ‘normal’ with 3,000 pounds plus of annual production if the stars align.

Next up this season…plums and prunes! The apples are silver dollar sized, at least, and growing. And, the avocado fruit have just set – if we can keep them moist enough, we’ll have a crop starting next January.

Sweat Investment

Even the mornings are hot as we greet the dawn ready for chores. First up: fuels reduction! Clipping, raking, and hauling the dry vegetation away from the buildings, water tanks, solar arrays, and pipes. Piles grow in the fields far away from danger…5 months from now and we’ll set them ablaze in the mist and drizzle. Today’s fuel will be tomorrow’s shrub-eradicating fire, each pile moved on top of a plant we want to eradicate.

The roar of mowers, whine of weedeaters, and buzz of saws soon obliterate the extended dawn bird chorus. When our own machinery isn’t running, we can still hear the neighbors working downhill towards us, maintaining the regional shaded fuel break along Warrennella Road. This past week we thank Brion Burrell for his artistic machinery management to reduce acres of French broom and other fire dangers to nothing, making the land around us healthier and more resilient.

Neighbors and Farm partnered in clearing French Broom and fuels away from water tanks
San Vicente Redwoods cleared an ancient meadow of post-fire French broom pulse high above the Farm

Early morning still: trucks trundle and people amble towards the irrigation controls. We reach down to turn valves, starting water flowing. Then we pace the water lines, inspecting for leaks. Earlier, ravens or mice have made holes in the plastic irrigation tubes, and out pours too much water, hissing loudly, spitting into the air, creating mud and disaster. Repair kits, a thorough soaking, and a bit of work later things return to normal and the cycle of wetting has begun on one more patch, once again. We are applying 45,000 gallons of solar pumped irrigation water from our well each week to grow orchard trees and row crops. That water makes tens of thousands of dollars of income and thousands and thousands of pounds of delicious food. And it takes lots of attention, coordination, and work to manage.

Wild Life

Those dawn treks for irrigation reveal fresh snake tracks, coyote scat, and weasel footprints. Gone are the days when you could easily see snakes, but they are still active around the farm. This past week must have been the right moon phase for reptiles to shed their skin. Fence lizards are still flakey. Shed snake skins have appeared, always trailing into gopher holes.

Gopher snake skin- as typical, entering gopher burrow

The regularly yipping coyotes are feasting on a big crop of juicy blackberries, as seen in their purple, seed-filled scat. Weasels are feasting on mice, and we hope they soon eat the surprising, sudden appearance of ground squirrels.

Very late but they finally appeared: dozens of California quail fluffies. The quail babies peep like easter chicks as they tumble and run along dusty trail and road, proud parents standing guard. The first younglings can fly, but most are still too young. A mother turkey is also shepherding a second round of just 3 much larger, still flightless and fluffy babies. High on the ridge, the purple martin chicks are in the air, noisy moist-sounding deep chirp-whistles give them away. They’ve done well this year. Maw and Caw greeted a third raven…a child from the past?…this morning – sometimes that one sticks around a few weeks, we’ll see.

Noise From Below

With the heat and extreme dry, we hope that no one sets the world on fire with fireworks at the beach tonight. The week leading up to this evening has been sporadic with preparatory explosions. The King Tides have made the beaches narrower, and the signs and Sheriff shoo people away, but still we wait with trepidation. May all we hear is the continued crash of the large ocean waves, lulling us to sleep with all of the windows open on these warm summer nights.

A view to the sea overlooking habitats at Cotoni Coast Dairies

Dripless Fog and Peace

Gazing out to the ocean from 900’ above it at Molino Creek Farm, I notice layers of fog. The high one is at farm height – just peeling back from the land, wisps still hanging in the sheltered canyon, shrouding tall redwood trees. It is white-silvery and seems light and airy. The lower fog layer is darker and heavier, streaked with patches of varying shades of gray. The layers seem still but are moving slowly. The lower, denser deck as normal marches southward. These foggy mornings are quiet and still, except for the occasional muffled purr of waves playing with the shore. The sets of quiet waves accentuate the peaceful silence between.

Foggy Shrouds Surround the Farm Frequently this July

The fog has kept the air cool despite the mostly cloudless skies above the farm’s fields. Even when the fog moves across the entire farm, it has been too light to precipitate. It seems odd that the fog can play so thickly around the tall trees and not make for under-tree precipitation. This might be the least wet foggy spell I’ve seen. If it would only drip…it would feel even better.

The view from our drive off the farm…Santa Cruz County’s Beautiful North Coast

Along the Coast

Out the main road and downhill to the ocean, the sun breaks through the shrouding fog and lights the ocean in bright patches. Flocks of turkeys roam the edges of the grasslands and kestrels harass the voles. The meadows have turned summer brown. The damp air smells sulphury and salty from the ocean’s seaweedy soup. An alert coyote lopes rapidly away through the close cow-cropped dry grass, glancing back at me, tail low, wary. I passed a mother and a cub fox similarly rushing for hiding; others report gray foxes on the road frequently.

Fruity Orchards

Wandering into the orchards, we encounter delicious orange-red cara cara navel oranges and unripe, but just getting tasty gala and gravenstein apples. We pick a few ripe limes and lemons as a new dark green, shiny-bumpy crop grows bigger. Downhill, the Swanton Pacific Ranch orchard is turning out a few ripe Lodi apples, a light gold-green and sweet-tart. Flocks of starlings, acorn woodpeckers, stellar and scrub jays are exacting their tithe from the fruit, but perhaps it saves us some thinning.

The apples are hanging so thickly that we can’t keep up with the propping. We lost a half tree last week when the branches pulled it apart. The big old pear also peeled off a major limb; same with an old apple tree. The birds stripped an entire tree of comice pears, saving any additional thinning; same with a couple of the Italian prune trees. Argh! The acorns are getting ripe, so maybe the woodpeckers and jays will be off for more nutritious long term food storage soon.

In the Surrounding Forest

Seeds hang thick on the native grasses along the forest paths. Woodland brome hangs pendulously with dense furry seeds. Blue wild rye’s dense upright spikes are often woven with spider webs, keeping the seeds on the stalks. I’m drawn to the striking orange stems of fine-leaved fescue with its delicate tiny seeds. The forest understory is still lush and green in the growing shade from fire-recovering redwoods.

Evening Sky

The sunset was gorgeously playing with fish scale high clouds, ushered in from a ‘passing monsoonal system’ (schwew! No summer lightning, please!). The sunsets are also being colored by very high smoke billowing forth from the big fire near Yosemite. No smoke smell – its not dipping that low around here (thankfully).

-from my weekly blog for Molino Creek Farm’s webpage and Facebook sites.