On the Road Again

After another wonderful summer working at Breitenbush Hot Springs in Oregon, Aña and I are back on the road. We've made our way down to the bay Area for a second Thanksgiving with her brother and a wonderful Guatemalan family. Along the way we enjoyed the company of many friends in Oregon and California and some shared adventures. We've eaten some of the best food in our lives, had some incredible mushroom hunts, checked out a couple of wwoof farms (see link to wwoof site on the right), and even spent a night playing at a gymnastics gym.

Aña and I are hoping to end up wwoofing for up to a year. It seems to us imperative to gain homesteading skills. We have spent the last couple of weeks on a farm outside of Ukiah, CA with our friend, Briz. I was hoping it would be a farm we could spend a year on, but upon reflection we're deciding to move on. It is an amazing farm with a huge orchard, chickens, and a few ducks. The only drawback is that the main focus seems to still be on medical marijuana cultivation that funds the farm. We're hoping to find a farm with more animals and less prevalent cannabis consumption and more focus on animal husbandry. It's also hard to feel comfortable around the owner as his communications are vague and he doesn't seem too interested in getting to know us.

After searching out and contacting some more farms on the wwoof site we have now formulated a new plan. Currently we're set to move to a different farm by Santa Cruz in a week. We'll spend a month there, then head back to Oregon and fill in for a week at Breitenbush. It will be a great way to cover the cost of traveling and visiting friends there. After that we have another gig lined up outside of Crescent city in Northern Cali. A retired couple that owns a hobby farm we stayed at on our way south want us to caretake their huge house and animal collection for a few months. We spent only a night with them but enjoyed their company immensely and fell in love with the area. They're located 25 miles from the nearest city nestled in red wood hills. On an all too brief outing with them we were in mushroom heaven and harvested so many chanterelles we had to sell some. We'll be taking care of their Great Pyrenees dog, four pigs and some piglets, two cows, and a variety of chickens. Come march we're hoping to have another farm lined up that does a farmer's market and has about 60 goats. Given our love for goat cheese it will be great to be a part of the process of making it.