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