Where have I been ?

No I haven't been abducted by E.T.'s, I guess I've been busy on the Farm. No. Of course I've been busy on the Farm.
Here's a brief rundown. 2006 was a good year. Most plantings went well, and the fertility is really growing. I did quite a bit of soil testing that year and have been using it, and further testing to refine my fertility program. I continued to refine my planting program , with a goal of creating more produce in the late Fall, as the Chico Farmers Market crowds in the Fall are getting bigger. We did get the shop built in the late summer, which was really nice as I really needed the storage, trying to run an 8 acre farm with 200 sq. ft. of storage is a pain, not to mention all the stuff that can't be properly stored.
Lisa's goats were bred in the Fall and kidded in spring of '07. Cute babies, all went well, and goat milk is delicious, with a few nice benefits. First no buying milk!! second raw goats milk has a wonderful effect of loosening up my joints and muscles so in the morning, when I put on my boots I don't feel like an old man!!! ( which I can verify cause do to an incident we are not milking goats right now and I'm a bit creaky!
In regards to my health I did make a full recovery from West Nile. It took quite a while. I was
pretty much back to full strength for our vacation to Thailand. It was fantastic, 'cept on the last day I broke my pinky toe so I hobbled around the farm for a month and couldn't wear boots. for

Now for 2007. Our apprentice for '07-Angela came to the Farm 8 days before our departure on vacation. EIGHT DAYS!!! Eight days to train her on every aspect of the farm, from picking,selling at Market,taking care of the animals,to fixing anything that might go wrong. It worked out fantastic!!! After the first day both Lisa and I had confidence that she wouldn't kill any animals, or not be able to handle what came her way. How did it turn out? She handled the responsibility superbly. I can't even imagine what was like for her to come here and 8 days later the owners wave goodbye with her in charge of everything for a Month. Wow must have been mind blowing. She performed like a champ, our customers at Farmers Market started their Love affair with her, the animals were just fine, she handled every little bump that came along, and we had very few concerns during our vacation.
The field operation in '07 went very well. I didn't have any big changes in plans, just further refinement. Fine tuning things. The field ended up looking the cleanest it ever has. The apprentices ( Elisabeth was the other apprentice) took a great interest in maintaining everthing without me having to micro-manage the mowing. Micro-management is not my style, and who has the time! ( This last year I was working on psychic management which worked pretty well )
Some of the standouts for '07 - No gaps in Tomato production solid production till Nov.
Crazy good cherry tomato harvesters, Pretty Purple Peppers comin' out of our ears, and Gypsy peppers galore! I did try a new technique with the Gypsy peppers. I interplanted them with Basil, which due to prior observation when planted close to Basil led to less disease. It worked very well. None of the usual leaf drop. We had excellent melon production both Watermelon and Sharlyn. And our Fall crops doing very well. Broccolli and Orange Cauliflower being standouts.
Both apprentices as usual were standouts also. Our customers took to Angela very well. Almost too well. When I came back to Chico Mkt. in the Fall instead of saying how nice it was to see me they said "Where's Angela?" . She also managed to learn many of their names which is not exactly my forte'. Making me look bad and raising the bar of customer service.
Elisabeth the other apprentice had the duty of staying on the farm Sat. mornings and cutting Zucchini. She of course was wonderful in her own right. She had prior commercial farm experience, with also having served in the Peace Corps in Africa. Needless to say that woman is hard core. Tireless in the field, a dedicated disposition, and a very grounded world view. Needless to say she was glad when we finally pulled the plug on the Zucchini. All are.
On Lisa's front, she and the girls ( women actually ) milked the Goats that kidded, and evaluated them for production, fat content, and milking disposition. Needless to say the Goat milk turned out to be delicious "like melted vanilla ice cream" and Lisa makes cheese that's Divine. I mean Divine. Most who taste it say they never had goat cheese so good.
She also raised Hogs again. They took a bit longer than they should have to reach mkt. weight but of course turned out again to be the sweetest most tender pork you ever had. She added molasses to their feed ration and boy do they love that. I even got in on the feeding taking charge in the fall as she was a bit tired of feeding them every day.
I also managed to get the sombrero up around the shop, which seems to be one of the last huge development projects. Felt nice to have all that additional storgage and proper storage for Garlic/Onions.
What did we try that was new in '07 I took a huge gamble on the carrots and tried a new triple row bed. If it didn't work I would come up very short in production. If it did work, I would have all I needed ( had a big contract with the school district ) and be able to meet increasing demand in coming years. Well, after a few nervous months, it turned out that triple row beds yield just fine. We had record sales that Winter/Spring and plenty for the school tasting program.
Winter time:
Elisabeth departed for a bike trip to New Zealand and Thailand, and Angela went and visited family for Thanksgiving/Christmas, then returned so Lisa and I could go to the Phillipines for our vacation. The R.P. rocks. Beutifull, ( rice paddy's acoss the road from the ocean) nice people,
great diving. Angela again ran the farm seemleslly, staying till March when whe went to another farm to learn there for the year.
O.K. here's a bit of 2008.
Leo, one of our new apprentices arrived in Feb. He adjusted to the farm pretty well and got to experience the carrot harvest/ marketing in all it's glory. Eric turned up at Farmers Mkt. looking for work and endend up filling the second position. Both turned out to have their own talents. Leo's being very interested in all the aspects of the Farm from planting to marketing. Eric's being able to make Zuchinni grow forever due to his majical whistling and cheery dispositon. Eric likes to say "yup, yup" must be from being from Kansas and nobody hearing yup the first time cause the wind. They both shone in the field with dedication and fortitude. Leo did Chico mkt. and Eric had the daunting task of cutting Zucchini every day. I mean every day. Every single day. I had to tell him if he stopped whisteling the Zucchini might slow down to a point where we ( he) would stop cutting it.
We had challenges of course: Late frost and cool spring. We had to replant Zucchini, and there was a week where I got very little sleep being up monitoring for frost and frost control measures.
We had a low of 26 one night but thanks to agribon covers and additional measures the Tomatos pulled though with little damage. The rest of the year went pretty smoothly. With most crops doing very well. Garlic was one standout with a large amount of jumbo heads and tons of large heads. Tomato sales at Chico mkt. doubled and overall sales at Chico went very well, with increases in most veggies. Our Fall Broccoli was pretty ugly for a long time ( due to a very warm Fall ) but it sold well. And the Orange Cauliflower and Romanesco is flying out of the stall at Mkt. And of course our customers are very happy to have Sweet Carrots again.
We did implement hopefully a new tradition here also. For our Thanksgiving Mkt. we donated all of our sales for the day to Heifer International. Our gift will give 20 flocks of Chickens, 20 flocks of Geese/Ducks, 6 Honeybee hives, 4 Goats, 2 Pigs, and 1 Sheep to family's all over the world to help them raise themselves out of poverty. Life for us here is pretty bountifull, and now I want to help others experience Earth's Bounty.
Well that's about it for now. I'm going to have the goal of writing here every week now, so I'll see how it goes.