My Week in Pictures

Welcome Home!

It's like I never left.  But I did.  And I'll leave again, soon.  :)

But for now, chores await.  Number one priority has been to "Pixel-proof" the front yard at the walnuts.  How to do it has been the question.  How, indeed.

My sister is a Master Dog Whisperer, and cares for them deeply.  Her house is dog-centric.  When I visited back in May, I saw what she had done, to keep a 4 lb Yorkie enclosed.  She welded expanded metal to her wrought iron gate, then painted it to match.

Hers:

 Ours:

 You probably have to click on the photo, to see the expanded metal addition.  We have 10 panels to go, we still need to weld the bar across the top, and we still need to paint.  But by the end of the week, the front yard might just be Pixel-proof.

Another thing happening out at the walnuts is the latest pair of strays.  They showed up last week, looking quite ragged.  Their tails wag constantly, they are thrilled to see us, but they are skittish.  I've dubbed them "Hansel and Gretel."

They absolutely would not hold still for a picture.  Their tails wagged constantly, and they were jumping all over each other.  My guess is that they are litter mates, and they were dumped.

I was able to catch Gretel - the one with the rasta hair - and take her to the vet yesterday, hoping that she had a chip.  She does not.  He said she is a young dog, definitely under a year.  She's covered in ticks and has tapeworms, but we vaccinated her and dosed her for the ticks/fleas/worms, etc., with Trifexis and Droncit.  Same with her brother.  (He's intact, she does not appear to be pregnant.  yet.)

The plan is to take her to the groomer next week, once the ticks are dead, and shave her down.  Hopefully Hansel will be tame enough by then for the same treatment, or at least a good bath.  Then we'll take their pictures and post them with the Clinic. Perhaps there is someone out there looking for a pair of dogs.  She is 15 lbs, he's a bit smaller, maybe 12?

We're keeping them outside the fence, but giving them water and some food.  They're loving little dogs.  Want them?  They'd love a happy home.  Pixel is quite jealous of the attention they are receiving.

Back at the house house, I've basted two quilts, trimmed 4 of the 12 strips that I pieced last week, and finished the hand applique on my Thimble Towne Challenge.  I have two more quilts to baste and 8 strips to trim...and two quilts that really need to be quilted NOW.  It's hard to do only one thing at a time, and keep the momentum going.  But the fence has been waiting for months upon months, so this is the week we are focusing on getting it up.

I got home around 3pm.  When I dragged the garbage can to the back of the house, I discovered that one of my Naked Ladies is blooming!

Elaine B gave them to me at least 3 years ago.  This is the first time any of them have bloomed.  woohoo!  I can't wait to see what she looks like!  ;)

 I also found this gorgeous box waiting on my doorstep:

Elaine S., you are an angel!  Thank you!!!

It's good to be back.  :)

Old Pictures

Are a hoot.

SJK with Missy - 1968 - Del Mar Fair

Rain Today, Sort Of

I'm not sure if it's Farm Show that dictates rain, or rain that dictates Farm Show. All I know is that they go together like peas and carrots. I spent this morning and yesterday morning in this building, quilting.

Here we are, yesterday, working on our opportunity quilt.

Here we are today, again working on the quilt. We do it backwards, quilting from the inside out. I know you usually do that when quilting by hand or home machine, but in a large frame? Usually you quilt from the outside in. But if you're relocating repeatedly, and storing the quilt, it works better for us to quilt from the inside out.

It was gloomy outside. I love this picture.

This one? Not so much. But I like the blimp, flying among the tree toppers. (At least I think that's what they are.)

At the walnuts, we have texture. It needs to dry and be sanded before I can try out my sample paint color. It's cold outside, so it's drying very slowly.

The painter IS out there, caulking the outside. The contractor would like him to paint the interior ASAP, but the wet mud on the walls makes that a bit difficult.

I finished another quilt-for-hire today. The quilting designs don't show up too well here, but they look good in person. I'm not so sure I like my new camera.

This is the back of the quilt. If you click on it, you can see the design much better. I think it is quite balanced and lovely. Let's hope its owner thinks the same.

And that's what I've got for today. Hope you enjoyed the show...

Off to the Dehydrator

Okay, so the nuts are off the tree, now what? Where do they go? Do they go straight to the buyer? The answer is "no," they go to the dehydrator.

With all of the shadows, it was tough to get a picture of the nuts beneath this grating. This is a holding pen, for the freshly harvested nuts. These are our nuts.

The nuts leave the holding pen, and travel up the conveyor belt to the left, to be cleaned up.

As they go through this processor, twigs and leaves and hulls and debris are all removed from the nuts. Much of the process is automated, but there are stations where women still pull out debris and uglies by hand.

Once they've been cleaned as thoroughly as possible, they travel up this conveyor belt into the dehydrator. That's the big metal building on the right.

This is one of the fans that blows the hot dry air through the building. I'm guessing it's at least 10' in diameter, if not more.

This is Leslie, my tour guide, taking me behind the curtain.

And this is where the nuts are held, as their moisture content is taken down to 8%. Buyers don't like to pay for a lot of water weight. Who knew, other than walnut farmers/buyers? Not I, that's for sure. One of these bins hold about 8 tons of nuts when full.

There are a lot of bins in the dehydrator. I'm standing about 3/4 of the way to the other end of the building.

And these two bins hold our nuts.

It's not all of them, the nuts shown in the first picture in the holding bin still need to be processed. Once the nuts are dehydrated, they will truck up to Selma, to the buyer. Apparently he also has quite the operation, where they rate the nuts and shell them and do this that and the other thing with them. In the next week I should be heading up there for yet another tour. Stay tuned, as I'm sure to share it all with you.

Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

I guess it's official. We are walnut farmers, and today began the harvest of our first crop. Our farmer called at 8:30, to tell me that the shaking would begin soon. I drove out to the property, and saw this equipment parked out front.

This long lean machine is the shaker. It starts the work. Do you see the brushes, in front of and behind each wheel? They brush the nuts out of the way as the machine zooms back and forth.

I think this is the blower, but now I'm not so sure. It looks more like the scraper, that pushes the nuts to the center of the check.

Maybe this is the blower. hmmm. I thought I had it straight this morning, but now it's hard to remember. I should have taken more than 80 pictures, as apparently I did not take enough.

The shakers began at the far side of the checks. We could hear them rumbling and roaring, and the house rattled constantly as they shook first one tree then another.

The noise grew as the machines moved closer. I could gradually make them out as they emerged from clouds of dust.

Here you can see the machine grabbing the tree. It then shakes it violently, for about 15 or 20 seconds. I was amazed by how quickly the shaker zipped back and forth across the check, shaking this tree then that tree then yet another. zig zag zig zag shake shake shake.

This is what it looks like, when it's raining walnuts.

At this point, the west trees have been shaken and the machines have moved on to the east trees. Look at all those nuts!

I left for a few hours. While I was gone, they blew the debris away from the nuts and scraped the nuts into long piles down the middle of the checks. Then a big blue rumbly machine barreled back and forth down the rows, scooping up the nuts. If you click on these pictures, you can see much more detail. The rumbly machine is crossing the far side of the dirt road, going from west to east.

Once it's rumbled by, the orchard is quiet, filled with rays of sunshine, like a magic fairyland. Only it's a filthy dirty magic fairyland, with the rays of sunshine captured and reflected by the airborne dirt.

Hard to believe that's dirt? Believe me, it's dirt. This is a green car that was not dirty over the weekend.

But it's all worth it, as you see this bin full of walnuts go barreling off to the dehydrator. wow. We really did grow some walnuts. This was the second load I saw leave the property. yay. I guess there were more nuts than I thought!

And finally, we've still got nuts. This tree was shaken at least 4 times, if not more, yet look at all those nuts still on the branches.

As soon as all of the machinery is out of the orchard (possibly this evening, possibly tomorrow morning), we're to do one more round of irrigation, then shake them once more.

I don't know about you, but I found all of this fascinating. Growing walnuts has been quite the education!!

Walnuts: They're good, and they're good for you! :) Buy some and make a farmer smile. :)

P.S. Diana & Heather. I've wanted to respond to your comments, but you don't have an email link on your blogger profiles...