Food is Magnet To Meet Wonderful People

I can't believe the gifts of friendship we have received recently, all because our farm's produce brought them to us.

We received a call from the parents of one of our daughter's friends, that had moved to Paradise to retire.  They wanted to know if they could stop by as they had heard we sold produce, which they did.  Frank and I were right in the middle of cutting tomatoes to sun dry them.  The couple was so excited to see what we were doing, they wanted to help.  So we quickly got a huge amount of very ripe tomatoes cut up and set out the screens on the saw horses to dry.  We took them out to the garden where they picked the vegetables that they wanted along with picking some dried beans.  A few days later, they called and said they might stop by to leave us a few gifts.  She had made some delicious beans with ham hocks using the dried beans she had picked and shelled; she made us a peach/nectarine cobbler using our fruit; AND they brought us a garden cabinet that they had made using re-cycled wood, pulls and baskets found at yard sales.  Needless to say, it was such a surprise and a wonderful- way too generous gift/s.  Since that time, they have become Windmill Farm fans and very good friends.

Some people we have met are seasonal friends.  We only see or hear from them during certain fruit or vegetable season.  One dear couple LOVES to can peaches.  Not just any peaches, only a particular variety of CLING peaches.  She sets aside a certain period of time just for canning when her friend comes to visit her each year.  She delights in arranging those fun visits whenever I let her know the time is right for cling peaches.  She and her friend spend days peeling and packing jars of fresh peaches from our farm.  Occasionally, in the winter she may call me letting me know they are eating the peaches she canned and how yummy the flavor is and how much she appreciated me saving her those special peaches just for her.

Another seasonal friend/s revolves around Meyer Lemons.  One day in early

winter, I was out front raking leaves when some people stopped at my roadside stand to look at the Meyer lemons we were selling at the time.  So many people stop and look or purchase what we have, but I don't always see who they may be as it is a self service fruit stand.  This time the man waved at me and asked if I could answer a question about the lemons.  I gladly stopped raking to talk about food!!!  While talking for some time about lemons and other things, Frank heard us and came over to the stand too.  We were out there for well over an hour and felt instantly connected to this fun couple.  The man had gone to school in Gridley when he was young but moved away and he and his wife live in Arizona.  A few times a year, they come visit a friend who happens to live on our street on their way to their 2nd home in Northern Oregon.  They had asked their friend to look out for any Meyer Lemons to buy and their friend remembered my stand and told them.  Well, they ended up reading this blog; sending us emails; and we have become very good friends. We see each other several times a year and every time they pass through Gridley heading North, we load them up with eggs, fruits, vegetables, hugs and well wishes. Oh, and their friends on our street who we never knew until we met the Arizona people? They have become great friends too!!! The Meyer Lemons brought us all together.

In one of my previous posts, I told you about the person who wrote me a very nice email after following my blog about the farm.  She is a life long maker of beautiful braided rugs. After chatting back and forth for several months, we met in person and she agreed to finish my mother's rug that my Mom had started more than 40 years ago.  This last week while delivering our CSA baskets, one of our stops was at her house to pick up the finished rug.  What a fabulous surprise to see it done.  Not an easy project when you think that I did not have any of the original wool pieces my mother used so she had to find some wool in her stash.  She said she ended up going to some thrift shops looking for wool jackets or wool men's pants to cut up to use.  I am so pleased with the results and I can't thank her enough.  She showed me some intricate designs in the braiding that I had not noticed previously, I know my mother would be happy and we have a new wonderful friend that we would have never met if it wasn't for growing fruits and vegetables; and the farm blog about food, gardening, flowers, design and life on a small farm.

 

Call your local farmer; stop at a local farm stand; order some local fresh cut flowers, you might be surprised to find a kindred spirit, a life long friend along the way.  Until next time from our farm-

Clever Frank; Saving $$$

Good Morning from Windmill Farm.  I don't know about you but I am really, really getting tired of all this continual heat, are you?  Supposed to be 103 degrees today-OMG!!!

This post is about Frank, the wonder guy.  He can build, make or fix anything, honestly.  When I first met him 45 years ago, his brother-in-law called him Mr. Fix-it and even at that age, he was making stuff.

His most recent projects have and will save us time and money.

1) Outside lighting.  Frank has installed a great deal of
night time lighting.  He can be obsessive about it, but most of it started out as yard landscaping, then some later for the main driveway.  Then it progressed to our back gate, near the shop, then to the side of the house.  Sorry to say, we do need it, farmers are very vulnerable to all kinds of theft as we have farm equipment, farm metals, tools, etc around.  So all these necessary lights cost money.  The solar lights that you can purchase do not give off enough light for our needs. The solar are fine for simple pathway lights and even then, you can barely get any light out of them.  Frank had an idea that he could change over the regular outside, high voltage lights with LED lighting.  But to purchase new complete LED lighting units cost $1000s.  So he took each landscaping and driveway light, cleaned them up; took the average 25-50 watt light sockets out and made these flat lenses with the LED lights he purchased on-line.

 I am simplifying it for what I understand, not all the light holders were the same so he converted sets that we already had, that had regular Halogen lights and made the lighting units and lights into LED. We had about 25 landscaping lights and 25 driveway lights. So 50 lights x 50 watts = 2500 watts = $$$ that are on all night long every day.  After he converted them all to LED, the 50 lights x 1.5 watts = 75 watts.  That is like having 1 - 75 watt light bulb on compared to the 2500 watts.  The front-street side of our house was always so very dark, so he took his stash of old lights and installed more lights around there, another 25 lights using 1.5 watts per light = 37.5 total watts.  The first month, we noticed about a $20 savings in electricity, now it is about $25-$30 a month savings.  He is moving on to changing over all the very large lights above the shop and garage to LED.  Instead of paying for an alarm system or having our house/shop/barn being broken into, not a bad expense.  I told Frank a 747 could easily land in our driveway now the lighting is so good.

  2) Plumbing Cart: Every time a yard or field  sprinkler breaks, Frank always had to bring out boxes of various repair items and various tools.  New gardens each spring, means lots of boxes of fittings, tapes, sprinkler heads, repair kits, tools that had to be brought to the location.  Even though we are a small farm of 5 acres, to go back and forth to the shop or garden shed meant lots of trips and time.  So he designed a mini cart to put everything he needed into one unit, large enough to include the lighting repairs and anything to do with watering.

He found this cart on Harbor Freight, on sale, free shipping:

Then he purchased two tool boxes at Sears, on sale-clearance; and on one of his trips to Mac's Hardware store, he asked if they had any bins or metal parts they were going to throw away. With those pieces he made the plumbing fitting holders on the top of the cart (which he made a top of the tool boxes and all across the back).

On the back section, he had metal shelving empty in his lean-to that he cut up and made shelving.  He had these plastic drawers already and I had the wire baskets in my garage holding junk so he installed them in the back for other items he may need as he gets used to using the cart.  Celli gave him the large wire basket that now holds all the "get the gopher" stuff  that is mounted on the front of the cart.

Frank doesn't just put a bunch of odds and ends together and they look like odds and ends.  He likes things to look nice, so he cut metal strips for molding, painted the metal sides of his shelving; put non-skid rubber matting on the top so the fittings don't roll.  It is truly an amazing unit now, has a tool drawer; he made labels for what is inside the drawers.  I think he needs to go into production!!  Another cost savings to us too.  As you all know, whenever you need to repair something, half the work is looking for a special tool or repair items you just KNOW you have someplace, but end up purchasing it anyways because it can't be found.  Why do you really think we have all that white plumbing parts?  Because we never could find the right size or elbow or whatever when we needed it that moment.

Frank is really a very talented guy and he says he really has fun thinking, planning and building these things.  Most retired people spend their days sitting in chairs, not Frank!!!  Great job honey.