Mid Winter

Even though we're in the depths of winter, there's plenty to do at the farm. And of course, this is Nor Cal winter, meaning it drops almost to freezing sometimes! OMG! We haven't had much of a hard freeze yet this year, and it's already unseasonably sunny and warm. And we could still use some more rain, although we've had a bit, and a lot of damp fog and dew.
Delina and Jae came to visit. This was Jae's first visit to the farm and we sent them home with broccoli and eggs.

Bill and Laura came to visit also. You can see how bleak and wintery it looks.

So we have to stand around the fire to stay warm.

Speaking of staying warm...the guys pretend warm themselves at the candle lantern. Why are we sitting out here? Because I just sprayed all the trees (with organic dormant oil). This will prevent peach leaf curl and rust on the fruit trees. This was on 1-11, and we shouldn't need another spraying.

I wish I could have grown this beauty, but I bought it at the market from Grub. I am still fermenting everything in sight. This guy is destined to be kim chee.

I also did some bar mix and some daikon-carrot mixes. Everything but the lemons are in the fridge by now, but the lemons need to ferment at least a month.

The big adventure is that the dryer broke. I had carefully washed all my outerwear after using the spray, so I had a big pile of wet clothes, including my fleece jeans. And... no dryer. Lemme tell you, it's no easy feat to air-dry fleece-lined jeans. The washer was on its last legs too, so we had little choice but to replace them both. We got lucky on a dinged set at Ginnos for a reasonable price. So... at that point, it didn't make any sense not to completely make over the laundry room. First step was to get everything off the shelves. I started in on the painting even before the shelves were down.

The back walls are the same turquoise as the mudroom, while the other two walls are the gold from the kitchen.

Here you can see both colors.

The inside door frame is Jane's lovely faux, and it looks great surrounded by the turquoise.

The old flooring was in tatters, so we replaced that also. Yeah, these are more cheap peel-and-stick tiles but hey, we just bought a lot of stuff and we're broke!

It matches the rest of the mudroom floor so it looks good.

Now the room is all finished and awaiting the machines.

The finished product looks great. In fact, it looked so good we couldn't stand to put those ratty shelves back up, so we're going to get a couple of inexpensive cabinets instead.

It looks much better with all the appliances behind cabinet doors.

This whole project took 5 days, but it wasn't all work. We had brunch at the pub and tried Hop Hunter for the first time. It's our favorite new beer since Flipside. Hop Hunter uses steam-distilled hop oil for amazingly fresh floral hop taste.

New Year

Well it's a new year and time for some new things! Most importantly, we finally replaced our ancient, leaking hot tub. I put my foot down this time, and made sure we got rid of the old one.

I listed it on Craigslist, and got someone to buy it! And more importantly, haul it away.

We cleared the patio, and waited. And waited some more... not all that patiently...

But finally it arrived.

We got a curtain for it, and lights, and got the furniture all arranged and such. It's so nice! It's the only way to deal with these cold days.

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Weather Note
We got some good rain early in the month.

This is the fullest I've seen the gauge get in one day! We had to dump it out so it didn't overflow. We got more than 6 inches total from that storm.

After the rainstorms, it turned cold. The broccoli is still producing, but it's not as happy.

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We've been picking our citrus. The mandarins ripened first, followed by the lemons.

The oranges are just ripe now, and seem more juicy this year.

I'm still fermenting everything in sight, including this weirdly flat cabbage from the Yangs. I also made sauerkraut from our napa cabbages--yum! But probably the best is the "bar mix": cauliflower, carrots, and onions, with curry, caraway, garlic, and turmeric.

I tried fermenting some lemon slices. The big jar is small pieces of lemon for making picklemon. And the two colorful jars are red and green cabbage with carrot shavings and some orange slices. I also added toasted caraway, celery, and mustard seeds.

I made some little scarves. I like how the buttons make it fancy.

I made this one for Laura. I also made one for Jane and a couple for myself. I'm still making "cancer hats," but I think I'll finish up and actually donate some!

Ed got his kegerator set up. We had to inspect it!

My folks came to visit. My dad can't resist posing in a funny hat.

On New Year's Eve day, we walked to a couple of pubs with Karen and Glen, then walked to the farm, and walked over to Titus and Jane's for a bit of Rock Band, then stumbled on home.

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What We're Eating
The girls are laying like crazy and we've got tons of broccoli, so... broccoli quiche. I actually made the crust myself, and with a little tweaking I think I can get it to come out great. I used the food processor to cut in the semi-frozen oil, and used a bit of vodka in the water.

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