The Atlantis (Casino) Visits The Winery

October Garden Update!

Footsteps towards freedom. 

Fall is certainly showing itself here in the garden and we are looking up at grey skies on and off. A few sprinklings of rain here and there is keeping the garden moist and the wild grasses and weeds are germinating. It has been a busy busy month for our entire family and our planting schedule is a bit off kilter but we are pressing on and doing all we can. 

A sudden seed casualty set us back a few days when we discovered that the entire box of seed packets we've accumulated over the past year had somehow gotten wet and the seeds had sprouted and were damaged beyond salvaging. Justin and I are going to the local nurseries and farm supplies to restock the few varieties we'll be planting this fall/winter.

The brassicas have gotten a late start but we have onion starts and peas in at last! We've decided to splurge on some row covers (small hoop houses) for our new raised beds and we think it will extend our season allowing us to plant later and harvest later in the year too. 

On the urban chicken front, we recently downsized our little flock and relocated 5 of the Buff Orpington hens that made up the bulk of our egg laying brigade so now there are far far fewer eggs than usual. We now have mostly cochin and easter egger bantam hens who don't lay as much but they are wonderful to have around anyhow. There are also a few standard blue cochin pullets who will be laying soon and are just the dearest things. And finally, there's Brownie Buttons who came to us from a good friend of ours who's daughter brought a chick (mystery breed) home from her school chick incubating project. We miss our golden Belina's but it has been a heck of a lot more peaceful around here and those big girls needed more space to roam. 

One bit of sad news, Vivian, one of our little Easter Egger bantams has been showing signs of some sort of illness and we have had to separate her from the rest, gave her a warm box, lamp, clean bedding and are watching her for any signs of recovery. So far, nothing has changed in her condition and it has been about a week and a half since she became lethargic and fluffed up like she had a chill. Thankfully she is still eating and we think she is drinking water as well. Of all the research we've done, sadly, nothing has been very helpful. There seem to be a great deal of illnesses that can effect chickens and, since do not have enough experience in dealing with chickens, we are investigating the possibility of finding a professional specializing in holistic animal husbandry as soon as possible. 

All in all, it has been quite a month here at the Urban Farm and I thought I would post a few pictures of the recent events and happenings. I would have liked to post a separate blog for each group of photos but there are far too many! (Well, you can never really have too many photos!)  Here they are:

Peas, planted!

Onions sprouting after the rain.

Ta Da! The studio is done!

Chickens checking out the yard progress

Drying Beans

Lots of beans!

Ancho Chilies

Assortment of hot peppers drying for storage. 

Last of the Chard. Time for more!

Work in progress..

First attempt at Nasturtiums (Edible Flowers)

Looking good.

Baby steps

Garden Art Sculpture. (A group collaboration)

::Thanks Justin for taking the most amazing photos!::

Wild Life

Great Horned Owl

Nala, the Great Horned Owl and foster mom, Debbie Duvall

This weekend I attended the first annual Wildlife Care Association Benefit at Flower Farm in Loomis. Our family winery donated two cases of wine to the event and in exchange, they gave us tickets to go watch the release of two Great Horned Owls! It was truly a beautifully touching moment and I am in love with the wonderful and kind people who dedicate so much of their time to this good cause. There was an article written about it in the Sacramento Bee and Justin took some really amazing pictures of the owls!

Weather

The Path

Sunset at Flower Farm

Speaker from the Audubon Society

Amazing Dinner

Auction

Back to the wild..

Excited!

Today at the urban farm we had a birthday party for my adorable little nephew, Vincent. He turned three today! It was a wonderful day and even though it was sprinkling a bit we ate pizza and cake, batted around a pinata, and opened lots of presents!

I am extra excited about my studio that is finally going to be built this Wednesday. This has been a goal of mine all year and now I will finally be able to paint without suffocating myself or splattering paint all over the walls. :) Will be putting up pictures when it's done!!

Okay, I have a million projects and school assignments to finish before tuesday so I will make it short but FIRST I have a lil secret to share with you all. Take one big, juicy date and stuff it with a large pecan.... It tastes JUST like pecan pie!!! I'm serious, try it! 

Beans.

Here's some pictures of the bean harvest that went on today. We didn't know if they were supposed to dry on the vine but some of them did. Some were huge. Might make a pot of chili...

Storm's A-Brewin'

Tonight, Mom called us over here at the Urban Farm and warned us of a huge storm that is supposedly descending upon our town threatening to knock over trees and power-lines. A storm of "biblical proportions" she called it. It's a good thing some one in the family watches the news.

Right now Justin is outside tying down everything that might blow away and we've brought many things in off the patio. The chickens have extra food and water and we are putting up their winter lamps and extra tarp coverings tomorrow in case it gets bad. Unfortunately, I have school tomorrow but, thanks to state-wide furlough days for the Professors, my late class will be cancelled and I won't be driving through the rain and wind at night.

We just finished putting in three kinds of onions today and are starting to level out another area of the front yard to make way for a path and arbor into the vegetable garden. Good thing about the rain, at least we don't have to worry about watering! Keeping our fingers crossed that it doesn't get too windy and the new fence doesn't blow down...

UPDATES

We recently attended the Auburn Food and Wine Festival last Saturday and, once again, it was an amazingly fun time. This is the 4th year Auburn has hosted this event and it is so funny seeing so many people walking about town with wine-glass in hand. We had plenty of volunteers working at the table so Charles, Justin, and I were able to relax and enjoy some of the most amazing catering and wines from the local area.

Another fateful event happened last Friday. After many stressful weeks waking up to the loud morning calls of chickens, we relocated five of our beautiful Belinas (Standard Buff Orpington Hens) to a local farm. Living in the city means you have to keep peace with neighbors so we knew it would be best for everyone. It was a sad occasion seeing them go but we figured, after much deliberation, that they would be happy to roam free on a larger farm out in the countryside. Our bantam chickies are much more subtle in their clucking and the garden has been strangely quiet ever since... We are missing those girls and hope to visit them soon.

Recent activities around the farm include, prepping beds for planting, planting, pruning away over-growth, composting, and keeping things looking nice after the summer months. We took took a trip to our local organic farm supply and probably spent too much money on garden stuff! After having an entire planting of Rutabagas decimated by slugs, I have an organic weapon I intend to test soon. We also ordered a few different kinds of heirloom potato varieties to try and a big bag of cover crop to get the new perennial garden out back started. Exciting! We have a seed planting get together planned already. Anyone wanna plant some seeds? Its more fun than one might think ;)

Anyways, here are a few more photos from the winery this year I thought you might all enjoy...

Human power, the old fashioned way..

we were all purple after this...

Grape juice!

Magic...

It was a lot of hard work but worth it.

Did I mention a lot of hard work?

Compost!

Hand bottling

Pass it on..

Put a lid on it.

And more!

Mmm Wine.

Charlie Green