Monday, November 11, 2024

The Year That Slid Away...

~Full Screen: Opens in Separate Window~

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!

Thursday, January 4, 2024

New Beginnings

~Full Screen: Opens in Separate Window~

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 NiƱo 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!