A leak and a party

If you look at the mid-right hand section of our weather station, it indicates over 13 inches of rain just since last October! That is close to our yearly average and it's only 4 months into the season.

This last week has been one for the books as far as rainfall goes. We've basically received our yearly allotment of rain for the entire rain season already -- and historically February through March are also usually quite rainy, so it looks to be a banner year for this part of California as far as the wet stuff is concerned.

Greening up nicely.

Of course this does not really get us out of our drought since it's so entrenched and has gone on for so long, but it does help on a short-term basis. It will be nice to see our spring wildflowers in moist-enough soil to thrive, and there is standing water everywhere right now and creeks running that we've never even seen before. So I expect everything to stay greener than usual if we keep getting regular installments like we've just had. Fingers crossed.

So last week we had a leak, caused by a loose vent on the roof, which put a little spot in our bedroom closet ceiling and led me into the attic with a flashlight, a bucket and a tarp. Big Ag is having shoulder issues and can't climb up there but I wanted to make sure all my clothes and shoes stayed dry during the deluge. Luckily the leak was easy to find and fix, so now everything just has to dry out -- and our clothes are safe. 

Since our geographic area tends to relocate to the damn surface of the sun in the summertime I have no doubt that the drywall will air out with no mold issues, so that's good. And we already removed all the wet insulation.

Winter Table.

Dig in.

So the middle of the storms and leak, I did the logical thing one does in the face of terrible weather and decided to have a big dinner party at our house (on a night when we only had showers expected instead of a downpour).  We called it "The Essentials" and asked all our friends to bring a bottle of either red or white that they adored, and always made sure to have on hand when they were having wine at home. I made ribs and sous vide turkey breast, so you could sample appropriate food with your wine, as well as roasted potatoes, a pot of beans, and garlic bread. It was sort of barbecue meets elegant, or whatever passes for elegant at this homestead. I thought the brown and white table decor came out rather well.

I am also learning to not be afraid to use shortcuts in some areas when entertaining, in order to make myself more accessible to guests and so I don't need to start drinking at 4 pm to take the edge off my stress. I try not to fix things that need a lot of babysitting, instead doing some store bought things (like the garlic bread) but giving the main courses my full attention. 

Need to call the sommerlier to choose a winner from this bunch.

But even Yoshi the Somm is undecided.

So a lot of wine was drank, massive amounts of food consumed (so glad I don't have self-conscious friends who merely graze on stuff, this group really digs in) and a homemade apple pie, brought by one of my guests, for dessert. A spontaneous after-party ensued at my neighbors' house and featured slot machines, cards, beer drinking, popcorn and karaoke. 

No one even discussed politics, despite the inauguration being held the day before and the marches taking place that same day. Which just goes to prove good wine really does make everything (seem) better.

As you can imagine, Sunday was enormously quiet due to small but significant hangovers for both Big Ag and myself. Oh well. We watched a shameful amount of television, ate what we pleased, and expected nothing productive to occur.  It's been too long since we spent a day doing nothing. And unless you are sick or hung over, doing nothing is harder than it looks. Chores sing the siren song of the Puritan Work Ethic, but sometimes you just need to resist for the sake of resisting.

Without making a resolution of it, I've sort of decided I want to entertain a lot more in 2017 and think the enjoyment of friends, good food and wine may be what it takes to have a great year. Between my garden, my home and those people I most enjoy being around, I'm thinking "Make The Homestead Great Again" will be a mandate we follow through on.

Of course we all know the homestead is already great. But you gotta have a good catch-phrase.

Wild weather

Yes, that is snow!

After a couple of crazy Pacific storms, we awoke to sunshine this morning as the ground gradually dries out and  the songbirds emerge to sing again. As the skies cleared, we even noticed there was snow on some of the highest peaks of the Coast Range, probably in southern Big Sir.

We Californians are a tender lot (as far as weather goes; in earthquakes, we are storm troopers) and an inch of rain in 24 hours is a very big deal for us. But this time, in addition to the scary, wet stuff falling from the sky, we actually did have some damaging winds which took out a couple of residences, several garden sheds, and even a huge water tank.

And while it was no polar vortex or Hurricane Katrina, we did wake to strong thunderstorms which rained, hailed and generally blew us around most of yesterday.

This little sparrow seems glad it's stopped raining.

One thing is for sure, we needed the water, and honestly, we need about 15 more storms just like it to even begin to make a dent in the drought.

While I don't hope for any more damage to property, I certainly would like to see another 15 inches of rain. And since snow in the high hills equals water in our reservoirs, I say bring on the white stuff, too.

Sputnik demonstrates appropriate anti-hypothermia techniques for stormy weather.

Preparing

Pfft. Let it rain...

So the weather forecast this week is predicting more rain than we've seen in a long time...possibly three inches by the week's end. It's been so long since we've seen precipitation like this I'm quite skeptical it's going to happen. Everybody in California is talking about the Mighty El Nino Effect, but I'm seeing it more in the midwest than here on the coast.

Nonetheless, if it does happen to end up raining a good amount, I've made sure we don't have to be out in it doing anything non-essential. I'm doing the last of the laundry to hang outside right now, we have plenty of food stocked up, and everything we might need to do in town has been done.

And the final series of Downton Abbey starts tonight, so I predict we'll be snug by the fire watching the adventures of Lady Mary, the Dowager, and Anna and Bates as the first of the storms rolls on in.

Fingers crossed for water and safety to all if we end up getting deluged!

I'm off to the manor with Lady Mary and the Earl of Grantham.

First Fruits

First lupin.

After our rainy weekend, we are drying out and warming up, which is actually quite nice.  All over the signs of spring are becoming apparent -- the early-blooming trees, and a few flowers and buds on almost everything.  The rain was a much-needed drink for everything and a great softener of the soil, so I spent most of this morning weeding around my trees and vines, by hand.  I love the frogs and toads who sing to me all night long, enough that I am willing to forego spraying anyplace which might provide a habitat for them.  And when the soil is this loose and wet, pulling weeds is honestly just as easy as spraying them.

As I was working this morning, I spied the first wildflowers on the hill, as well as the first lupin blossom.  My own habit is to never take the first fruits of anything from our property -- not flowers, fruits or vegetables -- for ourselves. Instead, I like leaving it, if possible, as an offering to God and the land itself, as recognition that I play only a small part in the cycle of life around this place, and that most of it is not within my power.  Flowers are easy to leave, but since leaving produce on the vine to rot is not always wise, where it's not practical to do so I give it to the field or the chickens, as a way of passing it on instead of taking it for myself.

I realize I'm not the first person to dedicate "first fruits" to the Creator or Mother Nature, so I'm guessing there's something instinctive and hard-wired into this method of honoring the natural world.

Mr. Roadrunner.

As I was working in the sunshine, a large roadrunner sat on one of our fence posts and sang his song to me. The song of the roadrunner is a low, almost mournful kind of "hoo, hoo, hoo," but mournful is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder; I sensed my roadrunner friend was feeling good and looking for a lady friend, so obviously the low hoo-ing is a spring sound, filled with hope and anticipation.

And so, with my seed packets and empty mason jars, I am also filled with hope and anticipation with the start of this new season.  Hoo hoo to the roadrunner and everything else coming back to life in this season of Newness.

Christmas Eve for CA Farmers!

There's a lot of green on the regional radar today, meaning there is a good chance of significant precipitation within the next 48 hours.  And I do mean significant, nothing like the drizzles and sputters we've had over the last 190 days or so.

That's right.  Here in the mid-latitudes of the great state of California, it's been 190 days since we've seen any rain whatsoever. And the six months or so before that only gave us about 5 inches or so.

To say it's dry is an understatement. But all that's going to end tonight, meaning today feels like Christmas Eve, for farmers anyway.  All day long we'll be watching the approach of the storm like children waiting for Santa, seeing if the front is strengthening (great!) or weakening (no!) and looking for those squall lines heading in our direction.

Most of us in this area are on good, deep wells, but our water has a very high minerality that, over time, can damage both the soil and the crops that are grown in it.  Minerals like calcium and magnesium are fine in small amounts, but without several good downpours, they will remain in the soil, next to the roots, and eventually diminish yields and damage fruit.  So we need rain.  Boy do we.

Of course we have not yet made it to Home Depot to buy our big rain barrels for attaching to our downspouts, but with 190 or so days of dust, dirt and who knows what else built up on our roof, perhaps the water from this first gully-washer is not the best water to save anyway.

But hopefully it's the start of a long and wet season for us.  We're hoping Santa brings us an early delivery of water that just keeps on coming.  That's all this farmer wants for Christmas, anyway.

Rainy Day Tasks

After the storm.

We got a good soaking of rain this last week -- four days of it -- and we're now in the post-rain fog that always seems to come up until the ground dries out a bit.  Right now it's too wet to dig in the ground, so I am left with attending to other tasks.

But as astronomers have books for cloudy nights, surely farmers have tasks for rainy days.

I'm lucky that since spring is here, it's a great time to start this summer's seedlings.  Today I will begin with some spinach and lettuce, and move on to tomatoes later this week. I love to freeze spinach for casseroles, dips and lasagnas, and since last year's crop was destroyed by roly polys and I had to use wild mustard greens in spinach's place, this year I'm determined to get a good, healthy crop into the ground. Which probably means putting them in as transplants, when they're too large for the roly polys to destroy.

 Since I'm going to adhere to the local admonition not to plant my transplanted tomatoes before Mother's Day, my Mortgage Lifters and Brandywines will, likewise, have plenty of time to sprout and get sturdy between now and then in the protected comfort of our solarium.

I can't believe I just said, "in my solarium."  We didn't put it in, people.  It was the lady before us.  And what she used as a lounge area/art studio, we use to store Mason jars, dry fruits and grow seedlings.  Guess we've hillbillied it up a bit, but sometimes usefulness trumps aesthetics.

And as if the news couldn't get any brighter, Wednesday is when Farm Supply gets in a new batch of Bared Rock and Americauna chicks, so we' should be positively springing forth with new life by week's end.

It's funny, no matter how long and how hot summer is, once February is done, I feel done with winter and ready for the inevitable punishment summer usually turns out to be.  I'm sure many of you with harsher winters feel the same way.  I will certainly not turn down any rain we can get at this point, but fast-moving, water-dumping spring rains, not freezing winter storms is what I'm hoping for.

Wet and wild afternoon

Dark skies at noon

It's been a dry year so far, but today the rain poured down for about an hour or so.  It probably won't do much to improve our precipitation stats, but it was a welcome change from our un-seasonably sunny and warm winter so far.  

I was happy to see it, because we water our vegetable garden with well water. And our well water is extremely high in mineral content, as you can see by residue on the Mason jar I use to heat the water for our coffee every morning.  It's delicious water, but needless to say, we won't be needing any calcium supplements anytime soon.

Mineral Build-up

The cure

So this afternoon, even though it was a cool 46 degrees when it started raining, I ran outside to catch some roof runoff so I could water our raised vegetable beds.  Mineral-rich water is not harmful to drink or even to water your plants with, but if you water with it often enough (as we do through the dry seasons and in winter if there's no rain) those minerals will build-up in the soil and can affect plant growth and production.  Out in the fields, there's not much you can do about this but pray for heavy rains, but with raised garden or vegetable beds you can give them a good wash-out by collecting rainwater and soaking your beds with it.

While I was out there, though, the sky grew extremely dark and the temperature dropped at least 10 degrees...and the rain went from pelting to slushy.  Nonetheless, I stayed at my post, doing bucket duty until all the beds (and I) were thoroughly soaked and my fingers were numb and aching from the cold.  It may seem silly to cry cold when much of the nation is experiencing a blizzard as I write this, but standing outside in the wind and rain, soaking wet, when it's only in the high '30's is cold, believe me. 

But then I had the privilege of coming indoors for my farmer's reward....some hot spiced tea, a good read, and the pellet stove warming me from head to toe and drying my wet clothes. 

All for some rain water.  Precious rain water. Totally worth it.