{"id":5242,"date":"2015-01-05T10:42:18","date_gmt":"2015-01-05T10:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/?p=5242"},"modified":"2016-04-08T10:43:32","modified_gmt":"2016-04-08T10:43:32","slug":"a-note-from-farmer-al-january-5th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/a-note-from-farmer-al-january-5th\/","title":{"rendered":"A note from farmer Al : January 5th"},"content":{"rendered":"Dear CSA Members,\r\n\r\nAs always, weather is the big story here on the farm. It\u2019s been good so far,\u00a0with lots of rain in December, and now we\u2019re getting the cold temperatures we\u00a0need to achieve our chill hours. \u201cGood\u201d, but not \u201cGreat\u201d. Not great because\u00a0so far we\u2019ve gotten only about 150 hours of below 45 degrees Fahrenheit\u00a0temps, which is the lowest I\u2019ve ever seen here in the 39 years I\u2019ve been farming\u00a0this ground.\r\n\r\nWhat\u2019s worse is that it\u2019s looking very much like an established\u00a0pattern or trend; warmer winters for several years in a row! Global warming\u00a0is very likely the cause but so far that is only an anecdotal observation on my\u00a0part, not a scientifically established fact yet.\r\n\r\nToday, it\u2019s extremely windy, which also makes for great beauty. The air is so\u00a0clear one can see the entire Sierra Nevada Range, two hundred miles of snowclad mountain peaks, off to the east; and to the west, are the emerald green\u00a0hills covered with grass growing tall for the first time in several years!\r\n\r\nOur orchards are plenty dry now due to this wind, so we\u2019re getting caught\u00a0up on some much needed work. Today, I\u2019m really happy to get the \u201cpre-plant\u00a0compost\u201d application done. What\u2019s this? It's fifteen pounds of fungally\u00a0dominant compost, which is also rich with protozoa and nematodes, placed on\u00a0top of the exact spot where the new tree is to be planted. Later (a week or so\u00a0depending on weather) we\u2019ll add worms to this mound of compost. All of this\u00a0\u201cbiology\u201d right on top of the soil to be planted will enrich the soil with molecules of nutrients which are produced by the metabolic activity of microbes\u00a0and worms! This is an experiment designed by our molecular biologist Christophe. I\u2019m eagerly looking forward to the results!\r\n\r\nA most prosperous and healthy New Year to All!\r\n\r\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Signature of Farmer Al\" src=\"http:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/assets\/FarmerAlSig.gif\" width=\"250\" \/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear CSA Members, As always, weather is the big story here on the farm. It\u2019s been good so far,\u00a0with lots of rain in December, and now we\u2019re getting the cold temperatures we\u00a0need to achieve our chill hours. \u201cGood\u201d, but not \u201cGreat\u201d. Not great because\u00a0so far we\u2019ve gotten only about 150 hours of below 45 degrees [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-note-from-farmer-al"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5HwAU-1my","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5242"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5244,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5242\/revisions\/5244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}