We are changing our website, finally, to reflect so many of the other changes that have occurred. Our homepage now references our partnered activities with Scofield Farms, who have farmed the soil of Arbuckle many decades longer than we newcomers have. Actually, we have 5 more years to go before we can talk about any decade at all, but who’s counting? The information available will hopefully explain more about our collective growing practices for the benefit of our customers, both locally and in our market in the Ashland, Oregon area. If organic growing is "the left", and conventional farming is "the right", then I guess we can be described as "slightly to the right of left". We will soon have pages developed to explain our "beyond organic" description that we use…it doesn’t mean we feel that we are better than organic, or that organic is better than us. It simply indicates our evolution past the foundation laid down by the organic growing movement. More on all that soon…. We have been busy. This last weekend we lifted hundreds of dollars of dahlia tubers from all over the property; the first stage toward their relocation in a permanent flower bed actually designed to support this spectacular cut flower.

Some long overdue dormant spraying happened, and the first few snips of winter pruning occurred. A messy, weedy chicken pen was cleaned out and all the offending vegetation burned up right there in the pen. If nothing else, the poor birds got warm for a few hours. Did I mention that we have been in the grip of that freeze that is causing high losses for citrus growers? We collectively have citrus too, and a lot of long night hours have been spent in the citrus grove with smudge pots, bonfires and christmas lights. It appears that so far we have only limited losses, and, I’m thinking the price of lemons is about to go up after all the work involved. The winter garden is suffering from the freezes, but the real miracle is that it hasn’t already been completely wiped out. We’ll see where we’re at when the temperatures finally rise. Part of our tree order is already here, about 35 trees. We are replacing the lost chestnuts, and adding other stuff in as well. Another week on the farm……oh, one last thing. The cats must understand English. Ken announced to them the day before that as no rodents had been caught for months now, there would be no more canned cat food until proof of dead rodent was delivered. Later that same afternoon, a very plump gopher was laid out on the living room floor. Eerie………and the canned food was served. Coincidence? You decide…….