Be Careful What You Wish For

See our new swimming pool? Just kidding. That’s the Bocce Court earlier this week. As you probably know by now, northern California is in the middle of an unusually cold, wet winter, and everything is more than a bit soggy. Richard and I are hanging in there, and Puppy Capay cannot wait for a dry, sunny day. As for the lavender plants, the concept of dormancy is important right now. After bloom and harvest, plants enter a kind of hibernation phase, when their metabolism slows. They still perform photosynthesis, but it’s generally just enough to keep the plant alive. If our plants were able to go truly dormant before the freeze – and through this cold, dark, wet period – we hope to see minimal damage in the Spring. Fingers crossed. And our weather report wouldn’t be complete without an update on the olive trees, which are still saplings under six feet tall. The extreme winds blew over about fifty of them. Donning our “mucking” boots, we slogged out to assess the damage. The young trees seem to be all right; that is, not completely uprooted. Though the plant stakes broke, the tree trunks did not. We righted them, stomped on the soil to pack it down, and put in new stakes. Then we crossed our fingers again. As you can tell, the word “dormant” doesn’t apply to the FarmHer job. There are new lessons and new situations to respond to almost every day. I can verify that walking in saturated soil (deep mud) with big rubber boots is an intense workout! With thanks for everyone who reached out to check on us during the storms…