Fix Blitz, First Egg. Last Peaches

My ongoing saga of trying to keep the farm insured continues. This time, they asked us to take out a tree, fix the porch roof and add handrails, and paint the house. Now that last makes sense because we all know that a fresh coat of paint will make a house much less likely to catch fire... Also, Chico city code says I need handrails on any landing higher than 30 inches, and that one is 17. So basically they are just fucking with me. But I have to have insurance, so we decided to comply. Rick replaced the front poles on the porch while I continued to clear the whole perimeter of the house.

Rick put new roofing on the top. I cut the pieces and Buddy handed them up and steadied the ladder.

Then we rented a pressure washer, and washed off a lot of old paint.

I got M and S Wesley to take out the tree. That really needed to be done because it never should have been allowed to grow in the first place, and the roots were trying to get under the foundation. Plus it hangs over the roof and in the electric wires.

You can see how it's much too close to the garage.

We watched from the safety of the beer garden while they cut it down. The guy who did it was very skilled.

It didn't take that long, and it was the only part of the whole project we didn't have to do ourselves!

Tree be gone!

Meanwhile, back at the painting project, we started primering. I tried using a roller but... yikes! We quickly decided to get the tool co-op's paint sprayer.

Rick had to do all the ladder and roof work.

We had to do a lot of scraping and caulking.

But once we got the color on, it looked great. I'll have to add more "after" shots later, because we're still doing cleanup and touchups. But this should be good enough to placate the insurance agency. I mailed the pics off with a few days to spare.

When we were all finished, we treated ourselves to a well deserved reward. I had beeramisu, and Rick had wings.

Meanwhile, other things happened at the farm, even though it seemed like this took all our time. One cool thing gets its own post, but here are the rest. We got our first eggs from the baby chicks. Our babies are hens now! That means soon we will have to integrate them.

The peach tree put out a bumper crop of really delicious peaches. This pic also counts as a weather note, because we got a smattering of rain on 8-4. That's good news in a summer of drought and wildfires. Anyway, the peach was ripe about the first two  weeks in August, for future reference.

I picked the last of them on 8-16.

Summer, With a Vengeance

We've been sweltering lately. We hit 107 for several days in a row. Today is a bit cooler, but it's been a hot week. What can you do in that sort of heat? Almost nothing. Last Friday, Old Spice played the Concert in the Park, and fortunately, it was a cooler day than usual (meaning *only* 100 or so). They did a great show.

 We all had a great time. It's nice to see the community come out.

Other than that, it's been hard to do anything but drink beer. We tried this River Ryed. It was nice and crispy, much different and lighter than Ruthless.

We got bar 36 at Mariscos La Costa. Great Mexican seafood; we'll definitely be back.

We're also working on some fixes to Buddy's house, to appease the insurance company. The weather is really too hot for doing that but it needs to be done.

PizzaQue

Karen and Glen discovered this awesome cooking tool, the PizzaQue. It hooks up to propane, and gets super hot: over 800 degrees. Glen got his first, and had us over to check it out. It fits right in with the rest of his outdoor kitchen.

We were sold! I said I was willing to buy one just to not have to finish the pizza oven we started at the farm. So we ordered one also. Rick got it set up for me. We had to move that piece of counter at an angle so we wouldn't burn up the fence.

I had to brush up on my paddle technique, but I learned fast and started cooking pizzas.

Ta-da! Poor Rick has had nothing but pizzas for a week. Yesterday I made 5 of them. I figured once I got started... I took some to the farm and saved some for quick dinners.

Summer Slowdown

We've had some hot hot weather this summer. First, it got super hot (105) in mid to late June. Then it cooled down for a bit, even tried to rain a little, then went back up to the 90s. With this sort of heat, it's hard to do much. In fact, this is when I'm reminding myself that you don't really garden in July and August. All you can do is water and harvest. The crops at the farm are doing well. My crops at home are struggling more.

One surprising crop was the buckwheat. It grows super fast and doesn't mind the heat at all. We are using it for green manure/chicken food, and we had to move fast to get the chickens to it in time! We built more frame pieces so they can eat half a row at a time. I will plant more soon, because I can get another whole round before the fall crops go in the ground. But this time, I'll stagger planting so they don't all come ripe at once. Speaking of ripe, here's a lovely big harvest of tomatoes.

The tomatoes were in sector 3, and got some shade. They seemed to prefer this. The peppers in 2 are ok but could use more shade. For next year, I plan to plant flowers again, but farther from the crops, and on the west side to shade them more. These Indigo Roses look like jewels.

I baked them with pesto and parmesan and served them on pita chips. They went fast! I also made plum cobblers that were well received.

Jae's mom is in town, and they visited the farm. I guess they don't get this kind of variety and flavor of tomatoes in Sweden.

We went to La Salles for the Thursday Happy Hour music. Apparently this is where all the old folks go to get their groove on. This lady in yellow was having a blast. She was even dancing with the poles by the stage. Rick said, "If those fishnets come off, we're leaving!" It was pretty hilarious.

Other People's Gardens

I wanted to do a special shout out to other folks' gardens. Catherine planted sunflowers along the side of her house. These are all supposed to be under 5 feet tall! It's gotta be the RickyC compost. We hear that Rick's corn is ginormous.

My dad gardens in a condo by the beach. He only has a small patio, but he still manages to grow quite a lot! He's got tomatoes, lettuces, herbs, and cucumbers in pots.

The cucumber produced even in this small space.

It's amazing how little space you need to grow delicious food.

June 30th

Ok so these were the pix I pulled out two weeks ago to post and ... well I've been busy. The main focus of late June was PLUMS! We had a bumper crop this year.

Did I mention plums? This bucket went home to get frozen.

My freezer is stuffed with plums.

We shared as many as we could. Ann and Ed were good for two buckets.

 Late June was a great time for tomatoes also. I love the variety! Black Icicle, Blue Beauty, Cosmonaut Volkov, Indigo Rose, Indigo Apple, Indigo Blueberry, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye, Caiman, Momotaro, Tangerine, and of course, Sungold.

We had a Somebody Push X reunion for Keith's birthday.

Why is this woman laughing? Well it was a great time for civil rights. Marriage freedom and Obamacare saved, both in one week.

We had an anniversary also, our 30th. Hard to believe so much time has passed.

We went to the Red Tavern (bar #34) for brunch, and I had the best Bloody Mary in a long time.

Went to hear Old Spice at Shenanigans. As always they were fun.

The Spicettes were rocking out.

I got a new rug for the kitchen, in exactly the right colors.

It's Summer Now!

I guess it's time for my monthly post... sigh. Lots has been going on. We got a bit of rain early in the month, but really just sprinkles. Still any moisture is welcomed. We're all in full drought mode, with unirrigated lawns, short showers, and timed garden water. We even put a bucket in the shower. I wrote a poem about my lawn, and taped it to the fence.

And we saw this sign around town.

Despite a few thundershowers, it's been super hot. We already had a day that got to 108 degrees. One good thing about that heat is it makes 98 degrees not seem so bad. All that heat is ripening our summer produce. I got the first borgs from the backyard on 5-27. Tomatoes in May!

They made for a delicious pizza.

By late May we were getting apricots. Not a particularly good apricot year. The branch on the plum/apricot ripened later than the old apricot.

Before it got too hot, we walked downtown to the market. It's a fun community event, with lots of food trucks as well as produce and other vendors.

While we were downtown, we got a sneak peek at the new Burgers and Brew. It's going to be a nice space. We still haven't had a drink there yet, but we will soon. However, we did add a few more bars to the list last weekend: #31: Pour House and #32: End Zone,

I got my beans planted at home, and finally got the last of the beans planted at the farm.

By mid June, the plums started coming ripe. I've been cutting and freezing them daily. I thought I had thinned a lot, but I could have done a LOT more. Next time remember: take off 2/3 of the fruit, not just half!

Tomatoes are ripening at the farm also. The Sungolds make for good snacking.

Bill and Laura came down for Bill's 64th birthday. We sang him a verse from "When I'm 64".

Notice all those ripening plums behind the ladies.

And I caught Rick being silly for the camera. We were lucky that it was one of the overcast days, before it got so deathly hot.