Josh, Ken, Annetta, Marie, Oliver, Kacey, Jana & Carl on the way to White Christmas in SF
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Slow and steady we go! It has been a productive year for us and it is our hope that your year has not only been as blessed but that your blessings will only increase as we head into 2005! At Heron Grove Farm, we managed our first full mowing of the orchard – Carl limbed, Jana dragged the mower behind the tractor – we both have the “sport’s injuries” to prove it! We have achieved Organic Certification for the orchard. This triples the value of our nuts and makes us feel excellent! Along these lines, believe it or not, our new “best friend” is an NRA guy who loves to shoot squirrels for sport. He drives his Jeep through the orchard with our blessing and does his thing ~ the buzzards do the rest and our tree root systems are not being undermined as before! Guess what … this is an organic approach to pest management! My! What we “suburbians” are learning…
We can now look down our rows of trees and see the property lines. We got to enjoy watching the grape leaves in the vineyard next door turn colors and learned that different varieties of grapes turn out different colored leaves – it is fascinating to identify varieties by leaf color... We have officially reached the point where the orchard can be and was harvested using machinery despite the downside which was a smaller than normal yield this season countywide. C'est la vie, the joys of farming!
Answer to our most commonly asked question, “How do they harvest the nuts?” First they bring in a machine that goes down the rows and “shocks” the trees so the nuts fall. Then , a huge blower pushes the fallen leaves into rows, next a “vacuum” sucks up the nuts and they get dumped into boxes which are tagged with our ID and hauled off to the dryer for processing.
On other fronts, we have a flock of 24 laying chickens happily installed in their "new digs” ~ our grape arbor is “half-built” ~ meaning the uprights are in place and some grapes and climbing roses are planted at the bases of the posts, but the top of the arbor will have to wait until Spring. We installed a patio so we actually have a place to be outdoors NOT in dirt. We treated ourselves to a four foot deep Splash pool that is big enough to cool off and putz around in when the temperatures hit the 100s. Next Spring, Kacey’s buddies have “promised” they will dig a hole so we can sink the pool into the ground … Work continues inside the house with new windows and a new deep wood mantle over the firplace .
All of our kids are doing darned well on their own. Annetta works four days for Travel Smith Catalog editing their website and reserves a full day a week for her writing. Marie works part-time transferring film and part-time as a production assistant for Edelman Productions ~ a company that creates shows for the Home and Garden Channel and hopes the position will become full time soon. Kacey has shifted to landscape work in the field for Frank and Grossman and has taken to it like a duck to water. He loves being finished by 3:30 and is once again the tanned fit person of his youth! Oliver worked at two Santa Barbara pre-schools until fall then headed off to Spain, Ireland and Scotland in November. He stayed with newly met 3rd cousins in Glasgow and learned that blood does make family seem familiar! Upon his return, he was hired to go to India in January to be the artistic director for a documentary on Ram Doss that will be entered into the Sundance Film Festival. He never stops drawing..... his website is here (but it is currently down....bookmark the address and stay tuned).
Other highlights of the year were reuniting with the family of my Grama's only full sister - lost in the 1920s! What a thrill to have Keith and Linda find my webpage of information on Edie. They wrote the day after Thanksgiving 2003 and by early 2004, we had all shared and compared notes to assure us we were kin! Turns out I have five new full cousins! Jim and Rosey came to spend a week with us in May and we will make a visit to meet everyone else in the Fall of 2005. When I went to the airport to pick them up, I immediately recognized Jim - the way he carried his head and stuck up above the crowd was just like Dad....
Ken treated us all to a night out to see White Christmas in San Francisco which was just what we needed to jump start the season. He has taken a position as Program Director for the San Francisco Bisexual Gay Lesbian Community Center and is enjoying the benefits (literally!)! He and some friends are working to go in together and buy the two story walk-up flat Ken has lived in for over 20 years as it comes on the market in 2005. Jim & Rosey id-ed it as an authentic London-style flat - interesting!
Times are good for us and it seems to be about time for the universe to smile on us at least awhile. May you and yours enjoy the same ... AND ... come get nuts in 2005! |
