A huge thank you to Krisha and Stacey and friends for volunteering their Saturday on the farm. Krisha and Stacey run our office, and happen to have lots of friends who wanted a day of action on the farm. They destroyed a field of weeds, a barn of rotten timber, and a hot lunch.
arriving in the back of the farm truck
The sheds you can see beyond the mustard are the outbuildings of Phipps Country, where the Phipps family stored their heirloom beans, grown here in Pescadero. Tom and Teresa retired from their farm last year after the water shortage severely reduced their olalliberry crop. They will continue to sell beans from their barn in downtown Pescadero (117 Stage Road, Friday through Sunday 11am-5pm).
Update, April 21 2014 - Tom and Teresa plan a move to Arizona. We wish them many, many years of warm retirement.
With the mustard and hemlock gone, Alison our rabbit czar will install outdoor pens for the rabbits to browse during the day. The pens will be enclosed with mosquito netting, since biting insects can transfer the usually fatal myxoma virus to rabbits, . Alison will also plant herbs said to deter mosquitoes, like feverfew, catnip and marigolds. She is planning to scythe and harvest the grass later on in the spring to dry as food for the rabbits.
We’re clearing the outbuildings to ultimately house our baby goats. Our farm manager will live on the premises to keep an eye on the babies as they grow. We will keep the famous olallieberries, but due to water rationing will probably not have sufficient for public berrypicking.
Thank you! And a special thank you for sharing your photos, too!
The least we could do is serve them a hot farm lunch, with pear pies made from the pears in the orchard just next to the rabbit pasture