Farewell Pope Valley Fruit …

My ninety days is up so it is time once again to leave the farm ... but this time my travels are over and it is time to head back home. The summer on the farm has gone so quickly and I hope that I leave having made some small difference to lives of all that live here … two legged and four legged.

It has definitely been a summer of the shovel … old dirt, new dirt, gravel, compost … you name it, I’ve shovelled it. Whilst Emmanuel has been busy building lovely things out of wood, I’ve been painting pretty much anything that will stand still for long enough. So the farm is looking really pretty. The photographs show the house when I arrived at the beginning of June and how it looks today … with the amazing ‘mothership’ trellis, porch, swing, hammock, new trees and flowers, and blooming grapes. We have taken out doors, installed new windows and added new outside spaces … it is almost a mansion (just don’t tell the County).

The rock wall for the root cellar has been started and is looking great, the boys will hopefully have a door on in time for all the winter squashes, figs, pears and persimmons that are on their way in the orchards. Sadly again I have to leave before the fab looking watermelons are ready and I have spent most of the summer trying to get beets to grow … the new batch of seedlings look the most successful to date. The goats are super happy and the kids are getting bigger each day … it is quite the strain to pick them up these days. It will soon be breeding time again and come March 2011 the next batch of babies will be arriving. I will miss them terribly, especially my (not so) little bouncy Penny.

It has been a summer of making the most of what we grow and make on the farm … from all the lovely vegetables and grapes, fresh eggs and milk to making cheese and ice-cream. Just this week I used some of the basil to make batches of pesto for the freezer. One of the lovely things about being on the farm is eating food that you make from scratch and not relying on processed and packaged foods … breads, pizza doughs, etc.

It has again been a great summer on the farm and to my dear friends Nancy, Terry and Emmanuel … I will miss you all so much. Thank you for making me feel so welcome … I will remember this summer as a time of fun and laughter. Dx

Cheese & Bingo

It is hard to believe that it is already mid-July here in Pope Valley. One minute I am just arriving back at the farm and now I find it hard to remember life before PVF. It has been an amazing month at the farm … the thermometer is hitting the 100f mark most days, the sunflowers are blooming, the lake is warm … and Nancy and I are back at senior centre bingo. We have been working on lots of projects and having a lot of fun in the process.

The amazing grape trellis designed and built by Emmanuel (I held the other end of the tape measure) is now almost complete and looks absolutely amazing. It is such a beautiful structure made from recycled wood and is going to look even more wonderful with grape vines covering it. We just have to be patient for the next three years or so…

Whilst Nancy and Terry have been away on holiday, Emmanuel and I thought we would try and surprise them with a couple of projects for when they return. Em has made a swing out of cherry wood for the trellis ... we both hope that it will be somewhere lovely for N&T to sit and drink their Yorkshire tea in the morning. I have been working on finishing up the screen porch so that we have somewhere outside that is bug free to eat. This version is just a temporary structure so Nancy and Terry can get used to the scale next to the existing house … but it will still be great for this summer. I have been using my limited sewing skills to sew pieces of rebar into the hem of mosquito net to weight it down. I recently caused much confusion in Steve’s Hardware by demanding to see their selection of Christmas lights in July. Luckily they had the perfect ones - which I have now hung up in the screen porch and created a fairy grotto.

The last month has been also filled with ongoing smaller projects. We have finally got used to the new weed-eater and are taking out the star thistles one patch at a time. The veggie garden looks great and we have recently been enjoying tomatoes, zucinni, purple beans, kale, collard, beets, and best of all, yummy potatoes. I am measuring the watermelons daily and trying to encourage the asian beans to climb up the string wall I’ve made for them. The figs, asian pears and persimmons are getting bigger each day and fig season should be here in a couple of weeks.

Animal Farm …

Amazingly one of our chickens, Tyra Banks, survived a mauling from a pesky fox who broke into the hen house. We had a few worrying days were we thought we were going to lose her but some encouragement and extra chicken scratch seemed to do the job and now she is back to her normal supermodel self … just less a few feathers.

It has been all change in the goat ghetto. Our two little boys goats have gone to goaty heaven. It was time for the farm to just have girl goats so a family friend, Bilal, came to the farm and carried out a very peaceful and painless slaughter. Obviously I still blubbed like idiot and we do miss the little chaps but it sure is a lot calmer in the kidding pen. Lola has also left PVF. She has gone back to her old home as it turned out that she wasn’t pregnant and was becoming quite anti-social with the other goats and us. So we now have Jada and Wanda and the three ‘teenage’ kids … Greta (who looks like a little Angus cow and is rather cheeky around the alfalfa feeder), Ava (probably the most beautiful little goat ever … think bambi) … and then my girl, Penny (thinks she is Tigger and thus is just recovering from her latest injury from too much bouncing). Nancy and I have started baby goat training which involves trying to get the girls to walk in the same direction as you whilst on a lead. Let’s just say it’s early days.

They have been enjoying the beginning of a ‘goat circus’ in the kidding pen which seems to be providing them with much amusement and almost distracting them from being weaned from their mums. We now about three quarts of milk a day from Jada and Wanda as we are back to milking twice a day. Even with Nancy and I having quite the iced-coffee addiction we are still laden with milk so I have started making cheese. The mozzarella is working out great but I have just started making ricotta and it is yummy … we have been putting it on every meal we have whether it goes with the food or not.

Well that is about it from the very happy British girl for now. More news from PVF soon. x

Welcome back to Pope Valley Fruits ... Summer 2010

After 9 months of exploring 'down under', I have returned to wonderful world of Pope Valley Fruits. When I left at the end of August 2009 after spending a glorious summer wwoofing here at the farm, I knew that I would be back one day. Luckily for me my last stop before returning back home is back at the farm for another summer of goats, figs, planting, digging and concreting ... perfect! I experienced a very strange event when I first arrived ... a day of rain. But now the temperature is rising and I am sure we will soon be experiencing over the 100f mark. Sunscreen at the ready.

Nancy, Terry and I have been laughing a lot when we talk about the great things that happened last summer and it is so great that there is now a facebook page so we can all stay in touch. There have changes since I was here last. What was the rather crazy wwoofer HQ has now been turned into Nancy and Terry's lovely home, there are grapes blooming all around the house, we have wifi (it must be goat-powered), the root cellar that we built last summer looks amazing ... and but of course the most wonderful thing has to be the new four-legged additions to the farm family.

Back in the Spring, Jada gave birth to Boots, Mr Brown and Greta; and then Wanda produced Ava and Penny a few weeks later. The two boys and three girls are extremely cute and even though they are getting bigger every day, they still want cuddles and to generally use us as human climbing frames. Nancy says they are in their teenage years so the naughtiness is to be expected .. but trying to get in and out of the milking shed when five kids want to get in with you is slightly challenging.

We are milking the mums in the morning and will soon be weening the kids of the milk completely so we can start milking in the evening. We obviously need the milk to keep up with my iced coffee and ice cream demands. As with last summer, we are waiting to see whether Lola is pregnant. If so, then there will be some more additions in 2-3 months.

We have a smaller number of wwoofers this year. Emmanuel is here for the summer and up until a couple of days ago Justin was also working with us. Justin has left to wwoof at Sarah and Andy's goat farm and we hope he will come back and visit with lots of goaty knowledge. Emmanuel is a carpenter and is making a beautiful redwood trellis that will wrap around the house and the grape vines will grow up it. I am currently working on the root cellar entrance walls and I'm relearning (the painful way) the art of digging.

When we are not working I have been rediscovering all the lovely walks around the farm, swimming in the lake (which is completely refilled from the rain over the winter .. and still a little chilly), kayaking and the simple pleasure of good book and red licorice on a sunny day (sitting in the shade obviously).

Bye for now ... project updates and photos very soon. denise.x

Charlie's Last Post

Hey everyone,

I've been away from the farm for just shy of a month now, having been to LA and driven back across the country to Chicago and then New York in the time since I've left, yet my life at Pope Valley Fruits has never left my thoughts. When I drove Kai to the airport in Oakland and then drove down to LA to visit a friend, I was re-introduced to what it's like to live in civilization. It was pretty jarring and surreal. My best example is showering: when I took my first shower post-farm in LA I was scared half to death of all the water surging out of the showerhead. It seemed endless, and the way it was coming out reminded me that there is such a thing is extreme water pressure. It felt, in a word, decadent. I took my shower as quick as possible so as not to waste water. I'm glad to say I've kept the habit from my farm days.

The amazing thing about coming back to civilization is that many things become novelties since you've been gone. Things like beds and air conditioning (that sinful luxury). The downside is the knowledge that you have lived without these things for a period of time, and not just lived, but lived well. And the realization you get from that is how over-saturated and wasteful much of it seems. My time at the farm will definitely inform how I make my own home in the future.

I must say, despite how much I dreaded my domestic days and bemoaned my fate when they came, they ended up being some of the most valuable time I spent in Pope Valley. For one, I can now look at a stove without feeling like I'm looking at something strange, foreign, even hostile. And how I made Kai and Denise laugh, with my shudderingly naive questions about how to cook an egg and other basics! I should be ashamed, but really, I just chuckle when I think about how young I was then. So young, so inexperienced, so green. (I haven't changed much from that, but basically, I can now fry an egg.)

I think the thing I really loved about living in Pope Valley was the simplicity of it, how stripped down it was. When you weren't working, besides a trip to town/Turtle Rock (or the AARP-type place for some poker) your only options were to read, sleep, or swim, and perhaps play Quelf (how I miss it!) with everyone on a given night. I was never flooded with sensations of anything that wasn't natural—no ads, no flashing lights, no traffic, no horns, no anything except a million billion stars, the milky way, the back porch of the bungalow, and some good friends. Ah, and the heat, lest I forget. There is that. But I even miss the heat a little bit, honestly. It made cold water taste so good, and it made the rest at the end of the day feel deserved.

But that's just the down-time. The work itself, as I've written before, was so essential, and also pretty simple. (Note: I speak for myself here. That irrigation stuff that Nicolas and Denise handled seemed more complicated.) Dig, hoist, hose, stack, pour, scrape, smooth, mix, roll, pig-ring, pound, clip, clop, bippity-bop (not in that order.) All these daily menial projects went toward building something good, an organic fruit farm and a home for Nancy and Terry. Many required working as a team with another person or more, which is a surefire way to build friendships. I'm remembering John D. Rockefeller's quote, "A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship." Well, a friendship founded on digging is better than digging founded on...? Hm. I should work on that a bit more, but you get the idea. And when I did work alone, which was fairly often, I relished being able to concentrate so much on a basic activity, trying to bring to it an awareness and a thoughtfulness. This is probably the most important habit that I've kept. It's very easy to do things—like type a blog entry, or drive a car, or cut an apple, or ask for your change—without really thinking about them, and without really being present. The reason I always requested the grunt work was not because I wanted to let my mind wander, but rather because I wanted to anchor it to something simple and repetitive while I savored the present moment.

(Okay, let's be honest. I wanted to get buff.)

((Marginal success.))

Well. It's pretty simple. Pope Valley and the people who live or WWOOF there, I salute you, and I miss you. I cherished my time with you. I will be back one day.

Charlie

Happy Chickens, Happy Wwoofers

Hubert is clearly after the same spot of shade as Lola and Wanda ...

The Wwoofers head to the Local Senior Centre for a night of poker !

Beautiful Lake Berryessa from the farmJenna digs to Chinachickens
Celebrating Denise & Jamie's Birthday ... in 1970

How many Wwoofers does it take to build a root cellar?

Perfecting our techniques ...

The temperature has dropped to below 100F today so the laptop works and we are once more able to blog. We have had an amazing July here at the farm with exciting new projects on the farm and new Wwoofers arriving just in time for a series of summer parties, Pope Valley Style.

Our lovely Charlie and Kai have recently left Pope Valley to continue their summer adventures. We miss them terribly but luckily the arrival of four new Wwoofers has helped. Brandon from LA arrived last week and has already become a very skilled roofer. Also new on the farm are Melanie, Allison and Jenna (all friends at Barnard).

We have been working on building a new root cellar here at the farm. It has been an great experience for everyone and we are learning so much. I have been so impressed how well we are all working as a team and we can now mix and pour concrete like a pro. The plywood roof went on last weekend and the final pour is on Friday. Then hopefully in a couple of weeks we will have a cool space to store the fruits and vegetables (which will also double-up as our cinema).

Other projects have been extending the fencing further out from the main animal area. This will give our goats more area to play in and more shrubs & trees to munch on. The roof is now on the goat and chicken hut and the animals are super happy. Jenna and Allison have been digging and digging .. and are now planting new grape plants around the main house. They have used our new seaweed compost as it has proven to be so successful on other plants in the garden.

We have been having great fun as a group as well. Jamie and myself celebrated our birthdays with a marvelous party in which everyone dressed up in 1970' s or 1980's clothes (rummaged from the thrift stores of St Helena). Music and sushi was made and a talent show performed. We have also started socialising with the locals at the Spanish Flats Senior Centre and are now welcomed for regular cross generation poker nights and lunch time bingo. Much fun is had on Lake Berryessa .. if we are not swimming or kayaking in it then we are harvesting seaweed .. the best way to survive the afternoon heat.

Well that's it for now from our little bit of paradise.

One month at Pope Valley ... and it keeps on getting better and better

Pope Valley Wwoofers hit San Francisco .. they are loud and they are proud!

Pope Valley Wwoofers are ready for Gay Pride 2009

Pope Valley Farm at dusk

No job is too high for Kai, our resident Mowgli !

Jamie carefully selects the largest watermelon (there are a lot of Wwoofers to feed)

The boys enjoy evening sporting activities (I drink tea and eat animal crackers)

Charlie attempts the chocolate game .. pipped to the last mouthful by Mike

Our yummy figs

I cannot believe that I have been at Pope Valley for a month already. I almost cannot remember life before I came here. I have gone from a complete city girl who sat behind a desk for almost the last 10 years to someone who can build a fence, grow vegetables, milk goats, swim for hours in a lake and fall out of a canoe!

It really is quite amazing here. What we are all learning from Nancy, Terry and Jamie is life changing. I used to go to the store once a week and buy lots of packaged and processed foods and now I am eating organic fruits and vegetables every day that come out of OUR gardens. The Wwoofers are all great cooks so each day we have meals prepared from the garden, milk from goats on our cereal and water from the well or spring. I am not sure if I will ever be able to go back to the city living but I do that I will not shop or eat the same way again.

I love most of the projects that we work on .. Jamie and Nancy have this amazing way of making everything fun and we all work well together .. so no job seems too daunting when you have so much support around you. The last week we have been working on painting the Wwoof HQ, goat and chicken stalls (aka Tiki Hut) and the solar shed. The farm now looks even more lovely.

Apart from milking which is just amazing, I absolutely love working the garden. Nancy is wonderful about sharing her horticulture knowledge and a complete beginner like me is already seeing success. The cow peas and golden beet seeds that I planted a couple of weeks ago are sprouting out already. Cannot wait to actually eat some of them later in the summer.

We had our first ripe figs this week and the pumpkins are huge. Every day we have lots of green beans and tomatoes to pick. The eggplants are my favourite as they are a really beautiful plant and taste yummy.

Outside of working on the farm we are still having fab adventures from marathon swims in the lake, kayaking (followed by rock jumping ... not quite as brave as the young ones here .. but hope to have the courage by the end of the summer), as well fun trips out .. last weekend was Gay Pride Parade in San Francisco.

We lost two of our fave Wwoofers this week .. Mike and Hannah have left to continut there amazing summer road trip and are now heading to up the Northern Coast of California. We miss them terribly but are we are soon to be joined by new Wwoofers on Monday and the house / tents will be full, the dinners huge and the Quelf games loud and silly. I cannot wait for the what July brings .... Denise. x

Photos from Charlie

the summer solstice party

jamie, goddess of the harvest

denise, goddess of the kitchen

a prideful mike and hannah

the view from our humble abode

our humble abode, pre-paint
happy pride, san franciscowhat, me cooking?