November

Here is this month's snapshot. You'd think with the respite of winter, I'd have more time for blogging, but the opposite seems true. We're happy to have our integrated flock of all young hens. These ones are much tamer also. Egg production is still a little slow, but picking up.

This month saw the last of the summer produce coming in. I fermented all these lovely jalapenos and serranos, and we put them on/in everything! They are amazing.

And the first of the fall harvest has begun. I fermented some of the cabbage, but we just ate the broccoli.

We also harvested the first mandarin on 11-18, but while it was fully ripe, it wasn't quite sweet yet. We'll wait for some more cold nights to increase the sugars.

We got some rain throughout this month. This pic is from 11-1 and the last storm dropped another half inch, with more expected.

My backyard fall garden is thriving. No broccoli yet from here, but I'm harvesting a lot of arugula.

So what do we do now that summerfall has given way to winterfall? Well for one thing, we put on hats and coats and drink in the bar when it's rainy. We also make fires or fire up the heater.

Catherine encouraged me to make hats for cancer patients this year, and here she models one. I'm using "eyelash" yarn, which makes the hats fuzzy and "hairlike." 

This varigated one is really pretty.

I had to rearrange the furniture in the patios, and I really like the sofa in this room instead of the back patio. But we had to move it because we ordered a new hot tub! Brand new! We don't have it yet, but it should come in the next week or two. It was pricy up front, but it should last a long time and be very efficient to run. We also got an ozonator so we won't have all that chlorine exposure. We totally cannot wait for it to come!

Jane usually hosts Thanksgiving, but this year she's deeply in the midst of remodeling her cottage, and simply couldn't take the time. So she provided the dog-friendly venue, and I got to cook much of the food! I actually was sort of missing getting to make the feast, so it worked out perfectly. I bought a beautiful big organic turkey.

And made rolls,gravy, mashed potatoes, and stuffing. All totally homemade: I ground the grain to make the bread to make the stuffing, for example. And of course I roasted a chicken the week before so I  had homemade stock for the gravy and stuffing. Cindy brought cranberry sauce and butternut soup, Jacqueline brought asparagus and yams, Jane made cucumber salad and appetizers, and Lori and Becky brought pies, Rick brought the beer, and Titus did the dishes. What a feast!  

Halloween

Halloween was a time-traveling trip at Amberglen's Crosstime Saloon. From Vikings rampaging with Mormans (don't worry, Mr. Smith drank only "grape juice") to ...

hitchikers and steampunkers from far off lands...

Amelia gets with Tacky.

Holiday confusion ensued.

Gone fishing...

Even big bad wolves like Sierra Nevada. This one sang Little Red Riding Hood...

And no saloon, Crosstime or otherwise, can be complete without some Bar Flies.

Food Day at Chapman Market

In case I didn't have enough going on this month, I participated in Food Day at the Chapman Market. It was a great event and a huge success. It was a perfect, crispy fall day and the stalls were overflowing with fall produce.

 I had gourds for the kids to color, which made my booth very popular. And while the kids colored, the moms and dads looked at my wares. I bought some daikon from the Yang's and served it with samples of my Garlic-Herb Salt. I sold 6 bags! I also brought jelly but that wasn't as popular.

I was glad to see that lots of people came out. What this market needs is more awareness and visibility and I hope folks will remember it as being lush and inviting and worth coming back to.

It was a lovely day in the park. You can see the vegetable chucker in the background...There were lots of activities, including some great drummers from Chapman School and a band as well as lots of informational booths about nutrition, GMO, and other food related causes.

The kids all had a good time.

Single, Fresh, Wet, and Wild Festival

This year's festival was every bit as good as the last, if not better! First of all, we had perfect weather. There were a ton of great breweries there, and the space was big enough for the people.

And going with good friends only makes it better!

Rick clowns around in the big brew kettle photo op booth.

There was space outside the big tent to sit and relax between pours.

Then back into the fray! They had fantastic food too. Karen and Glen show off the giant pretzels, but they also had ribs, brats, and lots and lots of other food.

I marked 33 beers that I tried, and I pretty much drank all those pours. No sip and toss for me. That means I drank about 11 beers! No wonder I felt a lil hung-over the next day. Fortunately we'd spent the previous week in training during Chico Beer Week. There were specials all over town and we hit most of them!

At the farm afterward, Karen and Glen show off the fresh hops they liberated from the giant piles available.

Fully Fall

Fall has fell, and we even got a little rain. It's colder now, but still mostly sunny and crisp. We're still outside enjoying the lovely weather, but wearing coats and hats. We even had our first fire of the season. The farm is thriving. The broccolis are broccing, the garlic is up, and the tomatoes and peppers are on the way out. I even got new straw paths down since this picture was taken.

I continue to make fermented veggies. This is a chunky batch meant to be finger food at the farm. This stuff is SO good!

Rick C. had a birthday, so we had a little get together at the farm. Ann was going to make a cake, but she got sick, so I grabbed one from Tin Roof that was fantastic. When Ann felt better, she made him a Boston cream pie, so we ended up with two cakes!

And we had Rock Band last week and we got to meet Jae. We've been getting a good crowd these days.

SummerFall

It's been a lovely summerfall this year. Summerfall is that time after the worst of the heat when it's cool at night and warm during the day. We had one good rain at the end of September to wet things down a little, but none since. We got all the bean stalks out of sector 1 and put the chicken on it for a bit. We've just moved them back out so we can plant onions and garlic there. The tomatoes are about done (sector 2) and we're taking them out bit by bit, as we have room in the bin after tree pruning. I've got all the small trees pruned, and I'm working on the bigger ones. I pushed the gourds aside in sector 4 and planted some broccoli over there, as well as the brocs that are in sector 3. I do have two big gourds forming at the farm, and one at my house. In our backyard, I have onions, arugula, and broccoli in rows 1-3. I still have a lot of basil at both places, and I have been harvesting it and making herb salt. This was the last big batch (this is only one of the containers!).

I've also been making fermented vegetables. They are fantastic!

I bought some airlock caps to fit my mason jars. I also picked a bunch of jalapenos and serranos to make this amazing fermented hot sauce. Rick got me some supercool big glass jars with glass caps (on wires like a Grolsch bottle) so I can store all my bounty.

We got a pullet surprise when we checked the little girls yesterday. Yep, our babies have become hens. Now it's time to get rid of the old ones.

We got the doors up in the bar. Despite the setbacks, they look lovely.

Rick had extra peppers, so I froze a bunch. How could I manage to do that?

Because we got a freezer! Now I have a ton of room to store excess produce for the winter.

We had a fun party for Laura's birthday at Grana. We had a veritable feast, including Laura's homemade cherry pie cake. Yep, there's actually a whole cherry pie inside the cake.

After lunch we rampaged around town for a bit.

We went to Taste of Chico with Tom and Nancy, and it was a great time. They had an excellent beer garden with pourers who weren't overly diligent about punching your ticket every time. We drank lots of good beers. It was sort of Beer Camp light. Single, Fresh, Wet, and Wild is next weekend! Yay.

Then it was Catherine's birthday. Anne made her a cake and we had a party at the farm.

Tom and Nancy had a kick-ass Rocktober party, featuring Old Spice.

Rick and I took advantage of the good weather to hike around 5 mile.

I won at croquet :)

Because of the fires, one evening we had a totally red sun. It was redder than I've ever seen it. It was kind of scary.

We had a very well attended Rock Band this last week. Tom stopped by to see how awesome Lori is.

We had 14 people total! If you look closely, you can see the sheer intensity on Jacqueline's face.