Well, that would be us … who decided to start farming on the side of I-80. When Sasha and I first looked at the land, I wasn’t sure about it – it was a 16 acre parcel in the middle of vast, large scale agriculture with a prime view of the highway. Now we have two more partners (Marisa and Aubrey) who have joined this wacky venture. It is a far cry from the cozy Capay Valley. No rivers or lakes nearby; all our water comes from the vast buried river that is our groundwater. But over the last two farming seasons, I’ve grown to love this little piece of land and also all the unpredictability that comes with it.

The noise from the highway is actually surprisingly quiet and soothing – we are always surprised when we look up from weeding carrots and we’ve forgotten about I-80 altogether. We always daydream west, to the beautiful view of Berryessa Gap, but occasionally it is nice to turn east and face the traffic head on.

Other things are less soothing – our locked shed was broken into this week and the most random and infuriating list of farming tools was stolen (two trowels, one hula hoe, drip valves and goof plugs, a weed-wacker that took us two weeks to find, our donated bike). I can’t imagine that whoever stole them could find as much value as we did from those rusty looking tools.

Our road-side stand comes with both the good and the bad. We are always amazed to think that 20,000 people drive by Kidwell exit every day. What an enormous potential market! I always smile at the traffic when driving home on the tractor – maybe one day, someone will wonder about what that tiny tractor is doing and stop at the stand. I’ve met friends at the stand that I went to high school with in New Hampshire and haven’t seen since. Of course, some of the customers are less than ideal – in addition to our loyal customers, we just love the people who drive by the stand (which is all of 120 square feet) super slowly, look us directly in the face, and then peel out when leaving. Or the people who call out from the window for us to carry them a melon. This is a different way of meeting your farmer.

We have a vision for our road-side stand, which is always being revised as we encounter opportunities and obstacles. My original thought is that we would complete revolutionize the highway pit stop! You could get a farm-fresh smoothie, some healthy snacks of vegetables and nuts, maybe an extra treat of a pie, go to the bathroom in a composting toilet – perhaps someday in the future, use our solar-powered wi-fi and fill up on biodiesel. Certain things change for the better – our friend Sarah from Pop Nation is going to be bringing us some delicious popsicles, made from the fruit on our farm, to sell at the stand. Pies and snacks are in the works for this year as well. The toilet – well, not so much. It turns out it is completely illegal to have any kind of composting toilet in Solano County. We are only allowed to have either flush toilets and use up our groundwater resource (and install a leaching field) or have a porta-potty and have people truck our waste, mixed with some questionable blue chemicals, to who knows where. I’ve worked on multiple farms with beautiful composting toilets, and shoveled them out to fertilize some big apple trees, but not here. Bike smoothies – also not allowed in Solano county. I think we’ll figure out some alternative solutions – we’ve got our thinking caps on. Starting a farm can lead you down some mighty interesting (and unexpected!) paths.

Two weeks ago, we had a visitor who took the cake for unpredictability. We met a pigeon racer, who drives about 160 male and female pigeons from Berkeley to our farmstand a couple of times a year. I briefly talked to him last year, but didn’t understand at all what was going on. I got the full story this time. He releases the female pigeons first who fly straight from Davis to Berkeley roughly at the speed of a car. About a half hour later, he releases the male pigeons that over time are trained that the first guy to Berkeley gets all the honeys. These pigeons are fast! He likes the farmstand location so much because, from Kidwell exit, I-80 points directly to Berkeley. Along the way home, the pigeons recognize the truck and will fly right alongside. The flock merges with traffic, crosses above the truck and then behind, swooping back and forth in a game of pigeon tag.

I like to think of the pigeons flying west, along with the vast, murmuring flood of traffic, above the imperceptible flow of our groundwater to the sea. In just a few weeks, some of our vegetables will join the migration. Who knows what effect that will have: whether the people coming by the stand will decide that stealing from beginning organic farmers isn’t worth it or whether they’ll decide that was the best popsicle they’ve ever had, and come back for more.

April has arrived quickly at The Cloverleaf and the season is in full swing.  Our farmstand will be open and our CSA up and running in just under eight weeks.  The past few months have required extensive preparations to get the farm ready to actually do its job: grow food.

Here’s a snippet of what we’ve been up to in the past few months.  In the field, we mowed cover crop; plowed last year’s beds to prepare beds for planting; added compost and limestone to make the soil healthier; planted (and weeded!) garlic, onions, strawberries and potatoes;and now we are beginning to plant the crops for our CSA and farmstand.  We pruned hundreds of trees in the orchard, weeded and mowed, and watched patiently for fruit set.  

At our home bases we have set up our CSA; done our due diligence to get the business up and running; created our crop plan, and read, read, read about how to become better farmers.

We are all very excited for the selling season to begin so we can share our work with you.  And throughout the season, we’re hoping to share a bit of our story as well.  On this site, we’ll write a bit about our work throughout the year, including some of the challenges we face and the learning that accompanies our hardest moments.  We are quickly learning that what helps new farmers the most is shared knowledge.  We’re receiving knowledge from skilled farmers everyday, and we’re hoping to pass our experiences along to others interested in the process of growing and selling food in California. 

Please follow along.  Click “follow us” on the right of the page to receive email updates, or add our blog to your google reader, RSS feed, or whatever tool you may use to stay on top of blogs and news you follow. 

A few weeks ago we asked our talented friend Warren to trade us his photography skills for produce. He shot some awesome pictures (see our Facebook page), but little did we know he would write such an amazing poem for us too. Thank you, Warren.

cloverleaf
by warren jones

what if
i lay my head
down
in the furrows
and lower
my eyes
below
the tops of esculents
that are almost
fit to be eaten

will i get a bitter
view
of the first morning
clouds
lifting off
like a liquid
frozen
crystalline
hot air balloon
regatta

what if i
wake up early
just in time to
watch
the morning full moon
set over
onions
and garlic
and kale
and strawberries

will i get a bitter
view
of what it’s like
to grow
food for the hungry
fed
by more than
just the parts
and pieces
we are adding
to the soil

are we fools
out here
hands freezing
in the wind
or
our we making
a prayer for
all human kind
as we breathe in
and push our hands
into soil

but no
i can hear the earth
shudder
and then exhale
as our hands begin
to warm

this is god’s work
i tell myself
and by that
i mean living
in mult-idimensions

standing still
long enough
to hear plants grow

standing still
long enough
to read the swell
of the land
and hear the dying
cry of the field mouse

to feel the
hem and haw
movement
of the harrier’s eyes

to feel each grain
of blowing topsoil
as it glances
off my leafless skin

yes this is it
all i’ve got to give
and
i’ll take my pay in
wind and sun

Warren Jones is a massage therapist, poet, photographer, musician, bike mechanic extraordinaire and all around fantastic person. He lives and works in Davis, CA. If you want to get on the list to receive his “o poema do dia” (daily poem) via email, schedule a massage, or see his other photos, check out  his webpage here http://www.wjroots.com.

A big thank you to all of those who came out to our pruning workshop!  We successfully pruned about 80 trees thanks to your hard work.  Hopefully you all learned a bit about stone fruit tree maintenance- we know we did, thanks to all the knowledge you brought to the table.  We still have apricot trees to prune, which is guaranteed to be a big job (ladders required!), but thanks to some hard work, we’re well on our way.

Thanks to Eric Winford for some pics of the event!

We are four women farmers embarking on our second season of growing at the Cloverleaf at Bridgeway Farms.  Located just outside of Davis, California, the Cloverleaf houses a 30-member CSA, a farm stand, and a 4-acre orchard soon to be bursting with peaches, nectarines, apricots and figs.

The season’s work has officially begun with fruit tree pruning, crop planning, building owl boxes, creating a composting system and much more.  Our farmstand will be officially open on May 26 and stay open until November.  Stop by for some delicious produce, u-pick events and harvest parties.

For information on joining our CSA, please e-mail thecloverleaffarm@gmail.com.

Throughout this year we’ll be updating the happenings of the season and letting you know about ways to get to know the farm.  We hope to see you there!