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.
Guard Llama
Hijo and me after our bonding walk. Now I hope he likes Gaviota and Dasher, Boey and Petunia, Agaleah and… Racu’s demise has left a power vacuum on our ranch. The goats have been unruly and the coyotes get way too close at night. A consult with our Animal Communicator Rafaela Pope suggested… Read more »
Compost Cycle of Our Ranch
Dasher and Valley clean last leaves from chardonnay vines. White strips are pheromone strips to control European grapevine moth. Compost Cycle of Our Ranch I think of our goats as kinds of blenders: they mix up the food stuffs of the ranch, then release what isn’t digested to be composted and put back into building… Read more »
Zipping up for Winter
Frost cloth stays on all winter, transmitting 70% of the light as well as the rain and allowing several degrees of frost protection. Goats have to be watched with the tender new plants (which you can just see in the mulching straw.) They love tender green almost anything! This season is always more… Read more »
Propagating Rose Geranium
The tiny cuttings will spend the winter in our greenhouse and be planted in the spring after frost danger. Propagating Rose Geranium Moon in Aquarius, an air or flower day, and we propagate 288 rose geranium cuttings this morning. We work with the aromatics on “flower days,” days that the moon is in an air… Read more »
Natural Nematode Suppression
Nematode marigold Several years ago we planted a marigold that was designated as a suppressant of nematodes, and we have not had to replant since! The five foot stalks bear tiny yellow marigold flowers which produce copious seeds, which then scatter throughout the garden. They sprout later in summer and we leave them… Read more »
Recycling Olive Branches Part of our goats' diet includes prunings of olive trees, other brush, you name it!
Goat Waving Olive Branch (of which most is in her mouth) Part of our goats’ diet includes prunings of olive trees, other brush, you name it! This week they are busy at work on branches from three olive trees in our courtyard. There is a cyclical process here: the olive leaves nourish the… Read more »
Walking the Land:There is an old saying: the best fertilizer is the farmer's feet.
Walking the Land There is so much you learn from walking your land each day! There is an old saying: the best fertilizer is the farmer’s feet. I understand this in many ways. Most days my goat companions walk with me, along with the dogs, of course. There is an implicit order: who walks… Read more »
Is Nature's Last Hue Gold, too?
Is Nature’s Last Hue Gold, too? This season the gold is what draws you in, like that first gold of spring. But now, with the veil thinning between worlds, the gold takes us down, especially today. It’s been there all summer, that gold, maybe even ever since Frost proclaimed nature’s first green is gold! Is it… Read more »
Rose Geranium: Last harvest and distillation of the season
last harvest We have completed our last harvest and distillation of the season! Always this is an illusory feeling of relief! Illusory, because there is ever so much to do before the rains begin, and never more so than this year with our replanting of lavender, rose geranium, and helichyrsum. But there are also compost… Read more »
Whispering Persimmons
Lisa and Jesse harvest persimmons with pruners. They talk to you as you work: the persimmons, that is. The late afternoon sun is cool; the October earth, Mediterranean dry. The work goes quickly. Images come, for that is how persimmons speak: Trap gophers! Interplant more rose geranium! Irrigate earlier for larger fruit! Jesse, Lisa, and… Read more »
© 2024 Patricia Damery.
Recent Comments