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!

Finally Fall...

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The leaves on our pomegranates are golden yellow, and the first few cases of their fruit went out the door yesterday. This fall has blessed us with seasonal temperatures... cool mornings and warm afternoons, which are a welcome respite from the weeklong heatwave that ushered in September. Our weather station recorded 111 degrees on the hotest day. In a dramatic turn however, we had 1.85" of rain fall a couple of weeks later, greatly reducing the fire danger.

Heatwave aside, this spring and summer were not all that terrible temperature-wise. A low pressure system set up off the coast, allowing the marine layer to form in Santa Cruz and occasionally blessing us with foggy mornings. The real issue with this summer was that it began last January... Only three inches of rain fell last winter after New Year's, and our rain total for the entire year ended up around 32". Holding thumbs for many steady rainstorms this winter!

On the farm front, the first few cases of Meyer lemons went out the door yesterday as well. We have heavy crops of Fuyu Persimmons and Bearss limes looking to follow suit in a couple of weeks.