I attended a very interesting meeting Wednesday evening. I belong to the local chapter of the California Women for Agriculture. Our meeting featured Vivian Robertson, CEO of the Paso Robles Event Center, Home of the California Mid State Fair. She was there to give a report on the proposed budget cuts to the Fair System and how it directly affects us locally and on the state level. Fortunately our own fair doesn't have too much problem with these cuts as they only take $25,000 annually toward their budget. Some other smaller fairs have larger issues since they are more heavily subsidised and those subsidies make up 1/2 of their annual budgets. There is a school of thought that this will actually cause some of these small fairs to consolidate which is probably for the best.
I announced at the meeting that I would love to have volunteers to come to the farm on June 3rd for our Bradley School visit. I had a few of these really great agricultural based ladies that volunteered. Additionally, I met a great gal that is graduating from Cal Poly. Her name is Katie Dirkes and she is probably the most perfect connection for the farm. She has been in charge of the Farmers Markets and has students that may be interested in working on the farm this summer. She is also very excited about coming to help on June 3rd.
We were given 5 kittens for our barn yesterday. They come from "barn cat" stock so should do a good job on the mice. We put them in a round pen last night with lots of food and water, but they climbed out and made themselves at home. One of my "old cats", Red, caught a squirrel day before yesterday. He's 18 now, so that seems like a really good feat and he was praised extensively.
The poor veggies are very confused - the weather can't seem to make up its mind. It looks like it might level out a bit so that should help.
Marvin is making fine progress in finishing our tall fencing across the front of the property. He almost has the section to the south of our driveway done. When this is completed, we will feel better about leaving the dogs in that field to chase off the unwanted critters.
We have some new trees in our fruit orchard. They are Medlar(Mespilus germanica) trees. Although little known in the U.S., medlars have been grown in Europe for thousands of years. They are attractive, self-fertile trees to about 10' with healthy foliage, white flowers, and unusual 1" diameter fruit which is collected after the first fall frost. Immediately after picking, the fruits are much too hard to eat, but if allowed to ripen for a few weeks in a cool lighted place, they undergo a process called "bletting" and become soft, spicy, and rich, with a cinnamon applesauce-like flavor. Fruit may be eaten raw or made into a delicious jelly.
I wanted to revisit the photos above. I took them last year about this time. We had a sow that lived under a large oak tree by the barn. There is an owl box in that tree and we had two baby owls in the box. One night we went to close the barn for the night and there was a baby owl with our chickens. The next morning I went to check on it and it was still roosting in the barn. When I went outside to feed the pig, there was a second baby owl sitting on top of our sow. I went to get my camera and stood there for 20 minutes taking pictures and that baby just sat there riding around.
I heard a great quote the other day. I think it can be applied to issues other physical: "Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional."
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