The Spring is Sprung, the Grass is Riz...

I wonder where the birdies is (is the old saw). I wonder, too, where so many of the birds went this spring. To the Frozen Tundra? Seriously, did they FREEZE or leave us?
We have lots of birds at Oasis Communty Farm and a wonderful new one (barn owl!), but not the amazing load we had last year. No quail yet and few barn swallows. Few titmouse(s?) Titmice? or finches.
Seems true throughout our region. Last year at Ellis Creek, spotted 13 swans; this year, 4. Egrets? Hardly see a Snowy. A few new Great White Egrets. Once counted 21 snowies flying into Dempsey’s trees. Now just a dead heron is up there attached by fishing line, rocking himself in a tree he used to live in above the restaurant. Tragic really. Better to watch the ever-present barn swallows, red and blue, who swoop with joy over the River. They’re doing fine. Have spotted no Canada Geese and babies in the Petaluma Turning Basin this year, either.
Not to complain! We have scrub jays, robin’s nest full and then empty, occasional barn swallow, REGULAR mockingbird! Crossing fingers the barn owl spotted last two days (Nancy Long says its a good omen) will come into the nesting box we built for just for such a bird!
And we have new young chicks to fuss over – the little Black Star sexlink chicks I went to sit with and talk to today. They like singsong just like any baby. We got 14 but one tiny little girl couldn’t seem to warm herself and nearly died the first night. Should have hand picked the chicks. Otherhand, we now have 27 chickens and a doz. eggs per day for sale! See pics of that and our PLANTS.
This year is when the fruit trees are starting to show what they will do. Lots of bitty fruits on every tree, nectarines, cherries, sour cherries, some bits of leaf curl, but we asked and were told we could wait to treat for leaf curl, just remove the worst and I did. 3 veggie beds coming into their own – will be glad to collaborate w. Petaluma Bounty about getting food out to people who can eat it all up. Beans and peas and squash and garlics and you name it we got it.

Come visit! Much to be grateful for! And hopefully, next winter won’t be so cold and we’ll invite loads of friends to wander around in our new barn and make it feel like old friends have lingered here already for years. So very much to get ready for…

Today at Oasis Farm - baby Black sex-link chicks

Today at Oasis Farm…baby Black Star sex-link chicks

by In.Her.Own.Write

Woke a bit excited and pulled on clothes fast to go check the new chicks in the barn. One was dying; seemed chilly last night, her tiny wings flapping to warm her, she cried and cried. We took her in the kitchen for warm gruel from her feed which she hungrily gulped but she wouldn’t stop crying though she quieted many times in my hand. Now she is still. Just too tiny to get her baby body to work right, I suspect. The runt. Blame self for not hand-picking the chicks; I wouldn’t have picked her but then someone else might have taken home the dying chick. Nature is cruel when she culls her babies.

Saw the African Cats movie yesterday at Boulevard. Unbelievably gorgeous, Kenya and the Big Cats. Hyenas are hard to love. The bit about the lioness who had to leave her daughter and the River Pride was a tear jerker, but we knew it had to happen – like this baby death.

Now we have 27 chickens and will blend the two small flocks when the babies are big enough. My much-petted house cats think the chicks are all right but don’t let a dog come onto the place or they freak. And today, after the house is swept and picked up, family will come see the flower garden and the wild flowers up the hill and how the fruit trees have grown over the winter and into spring. Somehow, this Mary Oliver poem through Larry Robinson seemed perfect this am:

Toward The Space Age

We must begin to catch hold of everything
around us, for nobody knows what we
may need. We have to carry along
the air, even; and the weight we once
thought a burden turns out to form
the pulse of our life and the compass for our brain.
Colors balance our fears, and existence
begins to clog unless our thoughts
can occur unwatched and let a fountain of essential silliness
out through our dreams.
And oh I hope we can still arrange
for the wind to blow, and occasionally
some kind of shock to occur, like rain,
and stray adventures no one cares about –
harmless love, immoderate guffaws on corners,
families crawling around the front room growling,
being bears in the piano cave.

– Mary Oliver

Lovely little things: wooded eggs and lovebirds

Lovely little things: wooden eggs and lovebirds

by In.Her.Own.Write

Sunday was quietly great. Some sunshine flitting in and around Water Street Bistro and the Turning Basin, going out under it. Met a friend at Water St., was a B-Day going on so champagne flutes and little cakes all around! Engaging conversation at every table far as I could see and hear. Adorable babies who were not around last year at this time. Precious – and noticed what good kids these are. Sharing apple slices, giving back as well as taking temporary gifts (a shiny scarf from a pretty young thing posed with, walked with, given back).

Then walking the Turning Basin. Always a joy, we went down the Yacht Club ramp, up the other end, noting what boats are present. Few now but they fill up at holidays including some our little city creates. Miss the great egret who used to show up for fish heads, but then there are few fishermen these days. Too much pollution? Bet that will clear up with hard work from the Water Ways people – another feel good story.

Stretching legs around the Turning Basin works best when you make stops and extensions. This day, Rivertown Feed, to buy little wooden eggs so our Rhode Island Red chickens won’t scold me when I take the last egg from their straw nests in the barn. See attached. From first minutes eggs introduced, a coupla hens nested, cooing atop the fakes, oblivious to my filching their golden yolk eggs, the rich cholesterol high ones I still eat, irregardless of high blood pressure. (This, too, will probably need adjustment).

End of a Rivertown visit is always for me checking out the creatures for sale and permanent residents. Koi fish peacefully floating around in their tanks outdoors, a few fluffy bunnies, now no baby chicks, sometimes mallard ducks, turkeys, wide variety of chickens. Then the pet birds, the loud small parrots, cockateels (very sweet), and the purple headed guy who plucks his own feathers out (noticed some doting friend gave him a little cloth cave he can nest in.) Especially engaged with the pair of orange lovebirds, photos attached. Silly how they crowd each other again the ends of the cage, cuddling postly, sometimes arguing, then back to cuddling. Sometimes upside down.

Noticed the great canoe/kayak? resting on the planter at the entrance to the Petaluma River Heritage Center on McNear Peninsula. Looking forward to a beavy of tiny pink roses in a couple months on the tall, healthy and long row of Cecil Brunner roses. Smell like pepper and dry as perfect buds that smell good for a year. Also look forward to launching our two kayaks off the new dock there, built with help from local teens who built the stairs to the dock.

Then off to the ongoing poetry appreciation event, Nancy Long and Geri DiGiorno’s People, Places and Poetry at the Apple Box…more on that.

Lovebirds at Rivertown Feed, sweet and sociable

Spring is Busting Out All Over at Oasis Farm

Spring is busting out all over at Oasis Farm

by In.Her.Own.Write

Just about a year now we’ve been country folk (I’m a city/suburb girl, Chicago, Berkeley, San Francisco) and then here…in a warehouse 11 years. Still a bit of a lovely shock to see farms all around when I look.

Coming up on time to plant but its smart to wait until after last frost.
Old Farmer’s Almanac says last frost is Valentines Day, but Mother Earth News veggie planner says March 20…so when do you plant your tomatoes? Very different question from when we had zero garden space behind our warehouse Cave on Water St. Some rosemary in a wine barrel made it through the frost each year. Roses in half wine barrels barely.

Here? Wayne just started over 1,000 chamomile plants and I’m trying to track where all the veggies are in MotherEarthNews Vegetable Planner online (but may have to settle for graph paper). A MAP is definitely needed if I’m to help care for all these babies! Chickens now, goats soon.

So many daffodils and paper whites I’ll never even count them, garlics, I think I know where those all are, celery, cilantro, verbena, do you bury the cover crop fava beans as compost or should I pick those to feed the chickens their daily warm snack? Quite confusing without a map.

But this is about signs of spring. Bulbs springing up everywhere. I think that was the mockingbird that came back and pinion jays come often. Most birds though, will wait till there are some more blossoms on the trees. Trees – there’s another thing. We have 30 more trees I haven’t become acquainted with. I know we’ll have three redwoods in the corner near Cinnabar School. Three redwoods! And the Baker’s dozen willow cuttings Wayne stuck in the ground along Skillman Lane all have leaves!

A spectacular aspect of Spring is sunsets this year. See attached. We did luck out with a panoramic view on our hill that looks out on Sonoma Mountain with a bit of Mt. St. Helena in the background, horses all around where people don’t have sheep, Black Angus or peacocks.

Haven’t actually seen the peacocks, but they woke me the other night. Though don’t think that wake up call WAS peacocks. Coyotes was what I heard. Can’t prove it but will listen for them – and the raccoon that I suspect came into the kitchen the other night to attack the cat food bag.
Glad I walked in fast. Want to keep my cats!

Whole different life than downtown, our old haunt. But Jungle Vibes, Wayne’s store, will have a cafe in April – so I’ll be a country girl/city girl once again. See you downtown – or stop by the farm for eggs from the happiest chickens I’ve ever carried around.

Big Sky at sunset

[caption id="attachment_10795" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="New hoop house for baby veggies and flowers"][/caption]

Oasis Farm from Margy's plane

Overlooking Oasis Farm Jan. 2011

Oasis Farm, 280 Skillman Lane outside Petaluma, CA, from the sky is amazing especially after the rains have covered Sonoma County hills with emerald grasses and wild flowers. We're blessed with some of the most beautiful and bountiful landscape on earth; we start from that.

Our friend, Margy Boyle, has the greatest 4-seater Cessna (I call him Marvin) at Petaluma Airport and she's often revved up to go flying so we did a fly over (and stalked our friend, Julie, who has another small farm nearby) about half a year ago, again just recently and this time - wow! I got pictures. Huge changes in the landscape. See attached photos for all the developments in the roadway, completion of the septic system, terracing of the fig grove and more...

Will keep you posted! Barn raising within a year...can barely wait to invite friends and neighbors.

How to build great soil

I discovered that I was growing a giant berm of great topsoil almost by accident. When we planted the grapes on the southeast facing hill we dug in about 4 inches of duck manure into the eight terraces running 100 feet along the hill and planted it to an organic soil builder that featured peas, vetch, barley, and lots of bell beans, (also known as fava so more on that later.) This was not to cover the soil but to build it from the top down, using our own free energy source, the sun to grow soil. Sound to good to be true. Just see what one year can do!

Our first crop of cover was planted in February and was arm pit high in about 120 days. In June we mowed and turned it under and planted again. This time aggressively irrigating it for and even faster 90 day crop which was again mowed tilled and planted for the winter. Now in January after feeding batches of fava to the chickens for winter snacks we have another giant pile of biomass waiting to be used.

Each time we till a little more topsoil sloughs off down the hill so to our surprise just below the vineyard is a growing 15" berm of super rich, fluffy, sandy loam top soil. How big is that? About 14 cubic yards of soil, enough to fill a large 10 wheel dump truck.

It arrived via gravity just in the nick of time as we are planting more blueberries just below this mountain of soil and have used it to amend the planting holes adding a bit more high test compost from Sonoma Compost. Our hillside of blueberries should be very beautiful as the year warms up as the are known for colorful leaf and blossom displays. I will post photos as it progresses

Quince, mulberry, feijoa in the spotlight

Quince, mulberry, feijoa in the spotlight

This fruit smells wonderfully tropical and looks exotic but can grow quite small and manageable like a little natural hedge of fruit. Makes a good landscaping bush as it is very ornamental and evergreen