Casey O’Neill is a farmer and owner of Happy Day Farms in Laytonville, Calif. The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of The Mendocino Voice. If you’d like to write your own column for The Mendocino Voice, send your idea to info@mendovoice.com.
The change in the weather is palpable, cool against my face as I step out into the dawn light. Fog has rolled in during the night, blanketing the landscape, cooling and softening. The air feels moist, the morning is quiet in anticipation of the coming storm. I am glad for the shift, the early fall heat has been wearing on my tired psyche as I struggle to keep cool weather crops wet and happy.
With rain coming, I’ll spend my day preparing, putting away the accoutrement of summer and shifting towards the change in our Mediterranean climate. I reflect on how different my life is during the wet season, a slowing and mellowing that brings delight and joy to my soul. Out will come the rain gear, boots, jacket, and bibs so that harvests this week will be comfortable and dry. Soon it will be the time of wood stoves and soup, books and games, short work days and long nights. I rejoice.
As a younger man I resented winter, the slowing of the work, the chill in the air. Now I revel in it, taking time for things besides the pell-mell rush of farming. Crops grow slower, as do weeds, and I don’t have to hustle around managing irrigation and making sure animals haven’t flipped or fouled their water in the heat. Farming is a dawn-to-dusk enterprise, which makes for a much shorter winter work schedule.
Now is the time of firewood; the shed is half full of cured manzanita and madrone, but I must fill the other half if I’m to be certain of making it through a cold winter. With such a mild summer and these early rains in September, I feel like it’s going to be a real one. The wood is piled in chunks across the driveway, just needs finishing out and putting into the shed for use in the inevitable early spring snows.
This morning we walked the gardens, scoping the glistening cannabis flowers for changes in the trichome colors. The trichomes start out clear, then as the flowers ripen they shift to milky color and finally turn amber as the plant finishes out and eventually dies. We like to harvest with a preponderance of milky trichomes and a balance of clear and amber on either side. There are lots of different opinions about the appropriate harvest window, but when we factor the color of the finished flower and the more uplifting high of the earlier trichome stages, we opt for this methodology.
It’s the earliest year for harvests that I can remember, with strains that we’ve grown for years coming in a week to two weeks earlier than normal. I think it has partially to do with the cool, dark spell in early August, and also the September rains that came two weeks earlier than what we call the “Earth Dance Weekend rain” that often happens between Sept. 17 to 22.
Overall, it feels like the season is progressing a couple weeks faster than normal. Tomorrow morning we’ll bring in the Gelonade, Candied Bacon, and one row of the Papaya Bomb. It’s amazing how fast the plants can change, which is why we walk the gardens every day to see how the different strains are progressing.
With a possible inch-plus of rain coming in the next few days, we’ll be focusing on getting straw and seed down to prevent erosion on the earth moving that was done this summer for tank sites. Garlic that has been curing will be tucked into dry storage, and the wash-pack area will get reorganized to be ready for wet weather. We’ll give the animals access to the barn (the sheep and pigs don’t seem to care much about rain, but they’ll likely sleep in the dry straw inside) and button up any loose ends of tools and projects that won’t like being rained on.
After a long summer of intense farming, I’m ready for the seasons to slow. Harvest is still a big push, but there’s an excitement to it that helps to carry me through, and the shortening days and cool nights mean that I get more sleep and better rest than during the peak of summer. I’m grateful for the changing of the season, for the crisp coolness in the air and for the oncoming moisture.
This much rain means more potential for mold, but that’s just part of farming. Each year is different, and that’s a huge part of the fun and excitement that keeps life interesting. You never know what you’ll get, so you learn to roll with the punches and not get too hung up on the vicissitudes of weather. As always, much love and great success to you on your journey!
Casey O’Neill owns and runs HappyDay Farms, a small vegetable and cannabis farm north of Laytonville. He is a long time cannabis policy advocate, and was born and raised in the Bell Springs area. The preceding has been an editorial column. The Mendocino Voice has not necessarily fact-checked or copyedited this work, and it should be interpreted as the words of the author, not necessarily reflecting the opinions of The Mendocino Voice.