The Year That Slid Away...

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This is our first genuinely rainy day of the 2024 season: 0.55" so far since midnight, bringing us to 0.91" for the year to date. Quite a bit of time has elapsed since our last post... The year, quite literally, slid away.

A few weeks after our update last January, a large section of Mountain Charlie Road began traveling downhill. We were cut off from schools, work, life... It was truly one of those 'you don't fully appreciate what you have until it's gone' moments. The road was out from February through the end of September. We are super grateful to have it back!!

That said, lots of photos above of the year gone by. Thank heavens the rain is returning... there is hope of another system rolling through later this week. It has been a very dry fall with a couple of fires in the past few weeks entirely too close for comfort.

Sending love and light to all who follow these musings!

New Beginnings

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Time and seasons slip away... much has elapsed since our last update here! We're already 12.44" into a new rain year. That's ~5" below our historical average for the first week in January, mostly on account of it being such a dry November. Fingers crossed for El Niño to pull us into the black over the next couple of months.

On the farm front, we're back around to citrus, although our yields on that front are also trending lower. Last spring's snow wreaked havoc on developing citrus blossoms. Even the Meyer lemons are only holding fruit on their lower/more shielded branches. That said, the fruit we do have is exemplary.

In other news, we recently received additional Organic Certification from The Real Organic Project. We support their mission to stop the corrosion of the organic label by industrial agrobusiness. We are also proud to be among the founding households in the newly incorporated Mountain Charlie Firewise Chapter. Lots more information and resources about the Firewise program can be found on their National website as well as the Firesafe Santa Cruz website.

Wishing all a happy, healthy new year!

Successful Seasons

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What a winter... over 70 inches of rain so far (and still falling as I type), and nearly 7000 pounds of citrus out the door. We finally "sold out" for all intents and purposes of full size oranges, mandarins and lemons yesterday.

The winter's weather included the President's Week Snowpocalypse, which blanketed the Santa Cruz mountains with 8-14" of the white stuff depending on elevation, as well as a carpet of power outages and broken limbs. The cleanup is still ongoing and was only compounded by last week's "bomb cyclone," which came equipped with whipping winds, power outages and blocked roads of its own!

Between squalls, the sun is becoming an ever more present visitor. Yesterday was outright warm. Birds are busy, buds are breaking, and plants are flowering everywhere... Already looking forward to mulberries!

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Keep on Growing, Keep on Going, Keep on Flowing

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What a difference an atmospheric river makes! Our rain gauge now stands at 44.33" for the year, 19.54" of that since January 1st. We've had power outages, high winds taking down trees, and mudslides along our roads. Mostly however, life's been a giant game of Whack-A-Mole, trying to keep culverts from plugging as epic storm surge chucks sticks, mud, rocks and even entire logs down the hill to the creek.

That said, we are grateful for the water; we are grateful to have such juicy fruit this year; and we are grateful to live in such a beautiful part of the planet!

"And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way." John Steinbeck, East of Eden, 1952.

Vitamin C-son

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Our citrus season is in full swing with Bearss Limes, Meyer Lemons, Australian Finger Limes, Owari Satsuma Mandarins and Buddha Hand Citrons all going out the door last week. Wonderfully, rain season is on too! We recieved 1.91" today, bringing us to 8.95" year to date.

We had very sucessful pomegranate and persimmon harvests this fall. We cut the water to both after the September rain and, after some cool nights, wound up with perfectly ripe fruit and only a handful of culls. The leaves around the property treated us to a vibrant change of seasons as well.

Wishing all safe holidays and a merry burn season!