First Goodle yarn ball

Farm and Garden 2007 Season

Tasty red delicious

Apple pressing

Good goat milk

Florence

Intern Camp Project

Painting by the Swedish sisters

Built mostly of local and recycled materials

Forest Stewardship Program

Before tending

After tending

Autumn Activities

Jars ready for juice

Putting up animal feed for the winter

Winter arrives

Early January snow

Clearing winter storm

The garden this year was slow growing with the cool summer we had here. There was an inch of rain in mid July which is not very common. The summer time temps were just in the 80s with a few days reaching 90 F. The corn did not get very big and the cucumbers, tomatoes and watermelons wilted with a mid June frost and had to be replanted getting a late start. We then had early frost mid September which killed our melon and squash vines leaving the pumpkins and squashes to ripen in the sun later. The greens did great in this weather with a summer long abundance of peas, lettuce, chard and kale. The summer squashes did great also, inspiring many new recipes. The apples came on by early September and it was an abundant year. We kept busy with juicing and canning all the apples. The apple crisp were coming out of the solar oven almost daily.

The farm picked up action with the kidding of three does in May by our Nubian goat Tiny. With the help of interns Montana and Kelson we milked Tiny and bottle fed the kids three times day.

Alfalfa, Zeta, and Florence were weaned off Tiny's milk by mid July and the farm started enjoying the milk by making Feta and Chevre cheese and Kifer. We sold Alfalfa and Florence in September to a family in Petaluma and kept Zeta to breed next winter. Thanks for the help and knowledge of Ellen Stretton when the what to do questions came up.

We started the building of intern camp in April with the digging of the septic and leach line. We got all that done by June ready to test out with the first big group of folks up for the season. Then pole gathering and peeling started in July with the raising and roof going on by the end of the month. In August the sink, counters and shower went in and then the walls went up and final touches were done in September.

Thanks to Christina, Clair and Whit for the great digging. Thanks to Caroline and Greg for the pole gathering, peeling and raising. And to the Swedish sisters for the art work.

We tend to the ongoing project of thinning and clearing in the forests around the farm. Lots of trees were planted through the 1980s and have become thick and over crowded. This causes the trees to become weak and creates a fire danger. We have been going in and thinning trees out. We use the poles from these trees for a veriety of building projects. Then we limb the trees as high as we can to prevent fire, if it does come, from climbing into the canopy. We also clear larger trees around the oaks as they can get shaded out as the fir trees get tall.

Thanks for all the help of wwoofers, friends and visitors for the healthy forest.

When the days start to get shorter and the nights longer and colder we think of getting the firewood pile stocked for the up coming winter. All the apple and pear trees were full with fruit so the sauces and butters were canned up and juice bottled. The herbs were gathered and dried and put up for winter seasonings and teas. The Feta cheese was made weekly and put up in olive oil and herbs for the winter.

Thanks to Lucy for herb gathering and drying, firewood gathering and helping with octagon improvements. Thanks to the Swedish sisters for firewood gathering, apple picking and all the tasty sauces and jams. Thanks to all the woofers for their help getting stonelake farm ready for the winter.

We got our first snow falling in late December with the big snow fall leaving two feet in early January. It all started with 6" of rain fall over night causing the creek to flood and by the next day changing to snow.

It was a grand winter with lots of exploring on skis and relaxing by the fire with a good book. There was no place to go with the road being impassable till mid march so we did art projects and stayed at the farm living off the supplies we stored up from garden and farm.