Full Belly Farm

On Monday evening Amanda and I arrived at Full Belly Farm in Guinda, CA, about 2.5 hours Northeast of Bolinas, as the sun was setting and got a quick tour of only a small portion of this very large organic farm. Nolan is about two month's into his one year internship there and is loving it. As an intern he is set up with his own yurt and is provided with the freshest food imaginable. Every day he sets out to complete a WIDE variety of tasks throughout the farm, doing work where needed, which means he's being exposed to and is developing an extremely diverse set of skills.

After getting bucked at by a cow, walking into half a dozen walk-in refrigerators to collect dinner-making ingredients, and eating wild boar burritos, we settled nicely into the yurt for the evening.

The next day we followed Nolan around for his animal chore duties. First off was milking the cows, Arnica and Pinto Bean. I'd never done this before and it took some getting used to, but I can see how you could get the hang of it and be super fast like Nolan (and Antonio in the video).






This calf loved to suckle on fingers


This goat really needed Nolan's help


After milking the two cows we strained it


And put it into jars. That's about 6 gallons a day this time of year for the two cows. They can't sell it because it's unpasteurized, but it is delicious indeed.


Then Cookie and her piglets needed some feeding


I'm unsure of the exact number, but they have around 500 chickens on the farm, some escape, so there was a lot of chicken wrangling through the day


The chickens were so hungry and excited they bowled the fence over, don't worry, Nolan controlled them


We later helped him chop the artichokes off of the plants to prevent a waste of energy on producing flowers


Pretty though


Later we collected eggs! Here they live:












One day's worth:


There are lots of walnuts on the farm, and this is how they get them down: SHAKE 'EM!


THANKS NOLAN!

From DC, NYC, Boston and Shutesbury

Over the weekend I had some visitors. It was fun. Ben, Lizzie, Maya, Carson and Peter all made it out to Leverett for some hiking around Mt. Toby, outdoor games, settling of Catan, and great great food from my dear mother. My dad also got them to move a huge rock.

Pondering the flip
Trying to flip
Flip!
Thanks mom!


Ben, furiously arguing the rules of SPUD


Carson, in fact, still has it


We found this little wren on a walk, looked like it was hit by a car, but could still make it?


Up at the Peace Pagoda



Just got back from Maine. Katahdin and banding at Manomet pictures to come.

Stanford for the win

Some of my favorites from my dad from the weekend:









Many of the alums in attendance






JON HAHN!


I LOVED this play, Patrick deep on Feldman:


It reminded me a bit of this oldie, but Patrick's getting the D here:

Put it on a pizza

Friday night Michael and I threw a little keg party, providing a barrel of Lagunitas IPA. Staff and friends from Oakland attended. Twas fun, but I never want to do it again.


The day after the party Baylis, Emily, Boris and I headed up to Drakes Beach to see the Elephant Seals. Expecting rain that day, we ended up having beautiful weather.












At the parking lot


Beach full of seals


Male bullying a pup



That evening Amanda arrived in Oakland after a 55 hour drive from NC, and Mammel and Greta joined us at the BFBF house for LOTS of P-I-Z-Z-A.

We all went to the explOritorium in SF on Sunday

Dobbinator

Great weekend in Oakland. Had a chance to meet the Dobbins parents and have a couple of GREAT meals out with them (one was at Chez Panisse, Alice Waters' restaurant in Berkeley, mind blowingly good).


Franklin was there too.