The following posts were taken from the website for Harms Vineyards and Lavender Fields, which we operated from 2010 until 2019. They offer a window into our lives on the farm and the ways the farm changed us. In 2018 we decided to end our lavender business but we continue to work with our land in ways that bring balance and health. Posts on this website will continue to follow our work.
Replanting Biodynamic Lavender There must be a eulogy for the old lavender and a blessing for the new, as there must be a prayer for the bare earth in its liminal, in between state. This week we pulled the last of Lot Sophia lavender, 420 plants, just as the new replacements arrived from Cottage Gardens… Read more »
Farming and Politics Farmers have always been independent, grassroots kind of people, at least the farmers that I grew up with, and this meant that they were almost always Republican. It also left them wide open when Nixon’s administration pushed to cut the hedgerows, plow everything, get big. Many of the farmers I knew had… Read more »
Stand Up For the Earth! Donald and I work on sign boards today. We are joining other citizen groups to alert the town and county as to the importance of preserving our watersheds and our Ag Preserve. Degrade them with more tree cutting and clearing and event centers in the middle of pristine forests, and… Read more »
Making Barrel Compost In December Jesse and I made barrel compost and buried it in the hollow of an ancient oak that fell last May. We “stirred” eggshells and basalt dust into Biodynamic cow manure that Jesse got from his friend Seth (we do not have cows on our ranch) for a full hour, and… Read more »
Fallow and Storms Winter fallow, grey day. Clouds press down, a storm predicted this afternoon, tonight, all day tomorrow. Promises of great quantities. Ramon rushes the rain, pruning vines. He will finish today, four weeks of pruning, no need this month to worry about keeping vine cuts dry. (We spray BD 501 when there is… Read more »
January 31: Valley oak leaves catch dawn's light.
Climate Change and Protecting Valley Oaks We mark the seasonal data in a small notebook that I keep on an altar table in our home: first milkmaid of the year, first Valley oak leaves, the day the upper pond fills, first shooting star wildflower, first blue-eyed grass—and so on. First milkmaid: January 5, 2005; January… Read more »
Crystallization Time: January 15-February 15 We have entered the crystallization period, January 15 to February 15, that time the fallowness of the earth allows most receptivity to the cosmic forces. It is also a time I use intention to be receptive to forces within myself as well as spiritual forces without. In our fast moving… Read more »
Comments to the Planning Commission, January 7, 2015 To the uneducated eye, it may look like a good place for vines. But in fact, it is a vital part of an oak savanna and watershed. Yesterday a number of our neighbors went before the Napa Valley Planning Commission to voice our concerns about the incursion… Read more »
Casey spraying along the perimeter of our ranch this morning.
Epiphany: the Gift of the Three Kings Today is Epiphany, the day the three kings arrived to visit the Christ child. Each Epiphany we do a gift spray around the perimeter of our property, a distance and ruggedness that we seldom encounter. This involves not only the gift spray, but two before it of an… Read more »
Solstice Sunrise. May the oak savanna survive.
Land Use in the Napa Valley and Consciousness It is the end of a season and of a year, and we in the Napa Valley are hardly in a sleepy, midwinter’s night space! Land use issues are reaching a boiling point, heated up by the drought and water scarcity, and the decreasing amount of land… Read more »
© 2024 Patricia Damery.
Recent Comments