Recipes * Critters * Garden * Stories *

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

It's Elementary

We were talking to a farmer, or maybe the well guy, or the arborist, or maybe it was the contractor, anyway! There were water pressure problems, as in the toilet kind of gurgled and didn't make much of an effort to flush, and we wanted an expert opinion from one of the locals.

Whoever it was that we trapped into an opinion thought it was probably the water table getting low on account of the late summer harvests and everyone watering crops the way they were.

I was lost in thought. What did watering crops have to do with us, again? We have our own well. I was thinking and wondering away along these lines, silently I thought, until his expression and tone changed and he explained, as if speaking slowly to a dim-witted child, in this case me, that the water is everyone's and our well just taps into it.

How did that unfiltered thought escape? I blushed in embarrassment. And then I admired his fortitude for not busting a gut laughing at the clueless city girl. It seemed almost chivalrous to hold back from finishing me off with, Just Like an Underground River, Dear.

Ya, well, I still brine a mean olive.





Sunday, November 25, 2012

Kind of a Blur


This pretty much sums it up for Thanksgiving 2012.

Lively.
Lots of family.
Lots of good food and people stayed late.

We harvested some more olives on the weekend. We tore apart the house looking for the two boxes of pickling salt that we both saw on the counter, and knew we had, and are absolutely convinced are staring us right in the face.

And then we gave up and went to the store and bought more.

The girls hung out together most of the weekend. This was their first meet up.


  • Sammy showed Roxie precisely where to stand to get any leftovers from the chopping block that might fall a dog's way.
  • Roxie showed Sammy about how fast people move when they cross the road to the neighbor's farm. Bad, bad idea, city dog.
  • Sammy taught Roxie how to run up and down the stairs and make a grand finish by jumping the last couple of stairs.
  • Roxie taught Sammy about how to toss a golfball.
  • Sammy taught Roxie the joys of sofa and bed sitting.
The rest was kind of a blur.



Monday, November 19, 2012

An Electric Blue Well

I'll admit living with a well is a little bit different than what I expected.

For instance. It's not this kind of well. It's this kind of well.  

This is what we got
This is what I had in mind

The charming well is from one of the many
trips to and from Chico that I admired as I
passed by an old man's little roadside shop with
windmills and wishing wells out front.
I had to have one, and we shook on it
and in a couple of months
when he got around to it, he said he
would call. And he did.
 
 
We had to get to the bottom of this well thing. How exactly does it work, and how long do they last, and when was our soon-to-be well dug and by whom? So many questions. 
 
We got a tip that a local drilling company did the work sometime in the 70s, a father/son team and we found a really old number and rang them up just to see what would happen, and darned if the driller's wife didn't answer. Coop was long since retired, but he found the original drawings for us and dropped them by and chatted a while and had all sorts of recollections about who lived here and when. 

 
You can't buy that kind of connection. We also had the water tested. Being surrounded by farmland that probably uses some type of pesticides, we were leery of it as drinking water, but it turns out as the water makes its way trickling down 275 feet through various layers of rock and shale, it is cleansed and flavored before it is drawn back up through the enclosed pipe, filtered once more and then diverted to the house and yards. 

We were deliriously happy.

And then came the first shower in the guest bath, by one of our sons who worked his butt off to move us, and who emerged with the most vile stinky sulfury smell on his skin, wafting from the bathroom and filtering down the hall. Whose great idea was this country living, again? We needed this looked after, and how.  And the next day the problem solved itself when the sulfur smell was flushed through the system and water flowed sweet and clear again.

When the water pressure became iffy, we figured out about the filter thing and how to balance the output. A friend asked the other day about our plans for a storm generator, and I replied happily that we were in the process of procuring one for the house, but she asked if we were getting one also for the well, and I looked at her dimly because at no time did it occur to me we would need one for the electric pump that motivates the water to the house.

There is no more shock over the modern looking, electric blue well that stands out like a sore thumb. Now there is only appreciation for how strong it is and how capable. And yes, we are on the hunt for a little generator for the well, and another for the house, as winter sets in.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Clean Sweep

So what if I name my trees? I think we get on better being on a first name basis. A gnarley, neglected fig tree sits in the yard with a gaping wound that carved out much of its base. The arborist thought maybe it was a split trunk that was taken down in a storm, but who knows. We at first thought it might be from termites or in danger of falling, but in the end the oodles of charm won us over. Figaro stayed.

It was loaded with fruit when we got the keys to the place, and I handled the not-quite-ripe yield. Just a couple more weeks, and they'd be ready to pick.


Fat chance! A week or so later, a huge flock of migratory blackbirds swooped down and ate every stinkin' piece of fruit on the tree! The noise was deafening: they appeared out of nowhere, covered every branch of the tree, and just as suddenly the little thieves were gone.

So, no figgie for us this year: the whole of it had been picked clean in a matter of minutes, with nary a taste for the hosts.

My grandma used to say figs don't ripen once they are picked, but I'm hearing it depends on when they are picked and if the ripening is underway, the fruit should continue to ripen even after harvesting.
We'll try for a little intervention around harvest time next year just to best The Birds out of another clean sweep.

Above the Fruited Brain

The news came out today that the fabulous Capital Nursery is going out.

Thinking a lot about fruity things ...
And harvesting patterns ...



Apples: July-early November
Apricots: May-June for most varieties
Avocados: autumn-spring in California
Blueberries: 60-80 days after blooming
Cherries: May-July
Citrus: Year round in mild climates
Figs: First crop June & July; second crop in September in CA
Gooseberries: Late spring-summer
Nectarines: June-September (as early as April in milder climates)
Peaches: June-September (as early as April in milder climates)
Pears: July-late October
Plums: June-August
Raspberries: Early summer; everbearers can produce into autumn

Boy, are we in trouble.

{Sources: Sunset Western Garden Book; Sunset's How to Grow Fruits, Nuts, and BerriesSee more}

Monday, November 12, 2012

Oliv-ia

Olivia
We've got a couple of olive trees and the other day took a walk over to show the family, and darned if they weren't loaded with fruit.

Wow.
Olives.
Hmmm.

Our favorite website said it was olive harvest time (mid Nov to mid Dec, before the frost).  And so just before dark last night we headed up into the branches, with ladders and rakes and a plastic tarp below, and started to harvest.  Ours are very small black olives that grow in CA and we are told are probably Mission or Kalamata.


The first half :)
Either or any! We picked 3 lbs in about 30 minutes. This year we'll experiment with harvest times and brining methods. This first group will be half dry rub and half water brine. In a couple of weeks we'll harvest again at the end of the season, and see if the olives are plumper and more flavorful.

Water Brining


The Hubs brought home pickling salt and so it's game on, Oliv-ia. Can't wait to see what the trees do next year with some fertilizer and regular watering.


Simple Abundance

About three years ago when the economy was slapping us around, and Real Estate wasn't panning out, the Hubs and I got down to brass tacks. The issue was whether it was realistic to sustain the lifestyle and financial commitments we had, and what would take its place if the answer was no.

At that point we were viewing the goings-on from the root cellar, hanging out until the storm passed. We had no chubby pensions and killer 401ks our friends were getting but we figured we'd be alright if we just hung on.

What lit the fire for us was a layoff for me that lasted 15 months, and a six month 40% scale back for him that also unearthed the difficulty of finding work in your late 50s.  It came on like the flu, the realization that we probably wouldn't have the choice on when to retire, or how, and that near-seniors were losing jobs in record numbers. And it was likely we would not even be able to keep what we had.

The desire for sustainability came up more as a reaction to disappointing governmental intrusion, but as we got deeper into the idea, we noticed similar conversations reverberating around the dinner tables of our friends. There seemed to be a groundswell of similarly-interested boomers going back to our roots. Literally.

A year of unprecedented change has deposited us here, a native San Franciscan and Silicon Valley girl with no real farming experience in search of a simpler, more affordable, growable, raiseable, and satisfying life that we can call our own.

Simple Abundance, Step One.

Out: the city house with the mile high mortgage, pool, hot tub and gourmet kitchen, big city neighborhoods, conveniences and water/sewer/wifi.

In: the century farmhouse with a modest payment, an acre of land, septic/well/propane, no outbuildings or fences, just-slightly-better-than dial up, and a population of 61 (well, 63 including us).