Morning Song Farm News

I mentioned in a previous post that we're nearing the finish line to offer our farmhouse for vacation rentals to our CSA membership. We have planned on welcoming our first guests starting the weekend of October 3rd. Price for CSA members is $250 a night, two night minimum, with a $100 cleaning fee which includes bed linens. I'm working on an activities book that guests can make reservations from, prior to their arrival. There's a local Swedish and Deep Tissue Massuese that will come out to the farm with her table. Ever the diligent farmer, I have voluntered to submit to a massage this weekend to see if I should include her in my activities book. I'll let you know! There's also several wine tours, cheese tasting, olive oil tasting, ballooning over the wine country of Temecula (which is just one exit north) and antiquing. I also thought I'd try to reach my old spinning teacher, Lila Sturges, to see if she'd come out by appointment and give an individual class ...

That Parsley Isn’t Plate Decoration! Many of my adventuresome supporters must have rolled their eyes when they saw the parsley in their baskets this week. But wait! Hear me out! I too, remember being told not to eat the Denny’s plate parsley as a child. It wasn’t to be consumed, it was just there to class the plate up a little. The logic escaped me then, and the value of parsley has been in question ever since. But several people have said how they enjoy cooking with parsley, and the seed catalogs claim it’s easy to grow (true) so I thought we’d enjoy trying it out. Of course numerous thumbs’ down will affect next year’s seed buying forays, so don’t hold back if you hated it. But first just try this recipe, which is so easy it hardly counts as a recipe. I made 2 cups of a brown rice (no bleached rice in my kitchen which really is a kissing cousin of the zero value Twinkie and Ding Dong). I chopped off the woody stem ends of the entire bunch of parsley and put half in the cuisinart and ...

Here’s the pick ticket for this week: Parsley Kale (that’s the heavy duty looking green thing) It can be chopped up and cooked just like spinach Lettuce Head Beans Avocados Asian Pears Cherry Tomatoes; red and yellow Swiss Chard Beets in large baskets only Baby lettuce in large baskets only Mint Basil Peaches (I think I should grow more of this particular tree; they aren’t super pretty, but sure are good!) Limes Heirloom Cukes Jalapenos

By October or so, we will finally be able to offer our little farmhouse for weekend farm experience rentals. It has 3 bedrooms (2 heated) with a total of 4 queen beds. We had always planned on doing this, but have had maintenance issues that needed addressing. We're almost there! Feed the llamas, gather eggs, walk the miles of trails that cut through our farm. You're far enough away from the city to actually see the stars! One exit away from the Temecula vineyards and numerous golf destinations, there's plenty to do for everyone. Temecula has a wonderful craft/food/farmer fair on Saturdays in the middle of their Old Town section of town. While you're in Old Town check out Temecula Olive Oil Company's tasting room. Farmers themselves, the olives for their oil is pressed from their own harvest. They actually have a CSA program just for their oil that may interest some of you. There's plenty of antique shops, candy stores, a magic store my own kids love, several re...

We're happily pumping from our new water source, the well we successfully drilled months ago is operational. Before we had over 30 valves to cover the east portion of the farm, now it's down to 2 valves. Water pressure is outstanding! Work load is reduced! We're giving our beautiful macadamia trees more water than they've ever had, and the crop looks excellent. We should begin harvest in earnest end of next month or early October. The clunker of a Kabota tractor we inherited isn't working yet, but we plan to get it fixed. I can't believe how much even a used crummy tractor costs, so this one will have to be repaired. It looks more like it has more value as scrap than anything else, but we've been told it can be fixed. Meanwhile we rented a nice one from the rental yard and tilled the rented acreage next door for our winter plantings. The summer has proved to be pleasant! No heat waves since May. Would love to invite interested parties to a weeding event end ...

Well, we sure are knee deep in cherry tomatoes. I hope the majority of my supporters are tomato fans. Here's a pick ticket for this week Avocados Limes Head Lettuce Baby Lettuce Carrots Chilis (both the medium hot Japapeno which is plump and the long weird Pico de Gallo which isn't very hot at all) Peaches Swiss Chard Mint Pok Choy (large head) Green Beans Cukes Leeks in large baskets only Oranges Cherry Tomatoes