Adventure Time!

Well, after a 2+ month blog hiatus, we're back! We spent November at the farm, and we both headed to our respective homes for three weeks in December before making our way back to Boonville for another few months on the farm. Here are the biggest highlights from the last few months and lots of pictures, too!

- Unfortunately to start on a sad note, Izzy's cousin and our Boonville mentor, Zoe, moved to Oakland and onto LA. As we've expressed in previous posts, she's the best and introduced us to pretty much all of our friends here so we are forever in her debt. But we'll definitely be able to see her again once or twice before we head back to the East Coast.

- Nick and sherry and claire came for a two night visit and it was so so so much fun. It felt really special to show friends what we've been up to and what the farm means to us. We ate and partied and walked amongst the redwoods. We even played settlers while overlooking a vineyard. It was magical to have them around and was such a fun few days!

- Just before Thanksigiving, Jeremy and Rowan's band, The Honey Mountain Doo Doo's, went on tour from Portland to New Orleans, and took Delaney with them, so we had another sad goodbye. However, we were able to see them when they drove through Boonville in December. But as we lost those WWOOFer friends, we gained another when Derek arrived at the farm. He's a much more experienced farmer than we were, so he was a big help on the farm and we got along really well with him. He's an awesome dude, but after we left in December, he decided to move in with a friend near Ukiah and hopes to start his own farm soon.

- We also spent a day riding The Skunk Train in Fort bragg. It's a beautiful historic steam engine that goes through the gorgeous coastal country side. Our friends mark and Robert (Robert runs the train!) Opened the train to all of their friends for a day. It was beautiful and exciting and we drank and were merry all day. Zoe came up for the event and it was amazing to spend the day with her. We had so much fun we even bought a little skunk stuffy to remember it by.

- Thanksgiving! Both of our families were spread thin this year, with Chris and Joanne in MN, Anna and Clay in Spain, Ben with Lindsey in VT, Russel in NYC with Sara's parents while Scott and Sara were with Scott's mom in Baltimore. It was obviously disappointing not to be with our families but we were excited to be together and to be invited to Rizzo's aunt and uncle's house in Monterey! We picked Zoe up on our way down and our two friends from Boonville, Katy P and Nico also came for the day. We also met one of Ann's coworkers, a woman a few years older than us who's family lives on the East Coast. On the morning of Thanksigiving, Rizzo and I went for a beautiful run along the beach with Aunt Ann, and then we went for a walk with Zoe, Katy, Nico, and Nico's dog, Pipo. Meanwhile, Uncle Brian spent the entire day preparing the delicious meal to be described soon. Rizzo and I contributed some carrots and turnips from the farm for and appetizer, and I also made Grandma Messerly's famous sweet potatoe dish. Okay, I'll try to be brief, but here's a quick overview of the meal:
Mashed potatoes, both regular and horseradish, my sweet potatoes, homemade stuffing, vegetarian and regular, cranberries, turkey, green beans, vegetarian and non veggie gravy, and delicious pies via Katy (apple, from the farm) and Brian's mom (pecan, apple). We also had a large bottle of wine that Zoe blended herself!
The meal was amazing, as was the company, and we spent the rest of the evening laying on the floor in food comas. We left early the next morning to get back in time for Jack to work at the hotel, but we were sad to leave after such a great day.

- The first week in December was our last in Boonville before heading home for the holidays, and it was also the beginning of a crazy few weeks of storms in northern Cali. Fortunately, we were out of the trailer for this week since we were dog and house-sitting for our bosses at the hotel, Johnny and Marcus. They live in a beautiful yet modest house up in the hills overlooking the valley with a great young husky called Kai. The rain kept us inside for much of the week, but we enjoyed lots of TV and movies and good food. Colter and Derek came up for dinner and Settlers on separate occasions, too.

- The Hotel held its annual Tree Lighting Ceremony on the last night before we left, too. We sang Christmas carols and lit the giant tree outside the hotel. Rizzo was working and served us winter squash soup with crispy shitakes, vegetable bisque, clam chowder, and cheesy biscuits to raise money for the Anderson Valley Food Shed. It was delicious and very fun.

- A baby lamb was born just before we left town, too! It was a healthy and adorable boy whom I named Django. He's still very healthy and has grown a LOT.

- On December 5th, we caught a ride to SF with Krissy and Brennan for our flight home on the 6th. We first met up with my mom's cousin, Dave, and his wife, Anne, for lunch which was great. We had amazing BBQ brisket and good beer after learning a great new game called Qwirkle. Dave drove us to Oakland where we met up with Zoe and we went to her place and watched the Justin Beiber documentary, Never Say Never. I should note that although not initially interested in watching it, Zoe and Rizz convinced me that they'd heard good things about it and that it would give us a new perspective on the Beibs. Long story short, he's a pretty talented dude but it was definitely underwhelming. No Beiber Fever for us. Then Zoe drove us to Nick and Claire's apartment to surprise Claire for her birthday! Hooray. Nicks good friend from home, Tucci, had also recently moved in, so it was good to see him, too. When Nick got back from work, we went out for dinner at a cool bar with good beer and went back and played Bang! before crashing on their air mattress. The next day we went for a run around Berkeley after a super good breakfast and checked out an awesome game store in town. Then they drove us to the airport and we were off to MN!

- At the airport in MN, we met my parents and Sam Silverman who was visiting to keep a promise he made earlier that spring. His team, the Jets, were playing the Vikings in MN on my birthday and he said he'd fly to MN for the game, so he did. The next morning we were up early to tailgate with lots of my high school friends and the Vikings even won! Woohoo. Then that night, Anna and Clay and my grandparents came over for a birthday dinner!

- A few days later Rizzo and I met a big group of friends at the Wild vs. Islanders game and saw an epic 5-4 comeback win by the Wild. Then Riz went flew home and we spent the next few weeks hanging with family and friends and, to be brief, had wonderful holidays.

- And now we're back! The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of excitement. We flew into San Francisco on the 31st- Rizzo's birthday- as well as new year's where we had a fun filled day. We spent the morning wandering the marina area and having a delicious cocktail to celebrate being back together in California as well as the birthday. Then we navigated public transportation (go us!) and met Claire and Tucci in Oakland. We went to Pyramid brewery and played some settlers. Nick met up with us later and our dear friend Bryce Lupoli decided to come up from Santa Barbara to spend some quality time with us. We ate delicious food that Claire and Nick spearheaded (dumplings, coconut shrimp, spinach artichoke dip and more! ), popped champagne, danced, played games and ushered in the new year together. It was a blast!

- The next day, through a variety of friends with vehicles we made it back up to Boonville. Bryce came with us for 4 days! It was magnificent spending time with him and showing him our world out here. He fed animals, harvested veggies, cleaned our new house, and played lots of settlers with us. We were sad to see him go! What a guy.

- Upon arriving back in Boonville our housing situation has changed considerably. We've moved into a double wide on the property neighboring the farm. Though, we're sort of living in a 1/4 wide since a large amount of it is used for storage. It's very much a fixer upper except we won't be around long enough to do anything substantial and it's getting torn down in April after we leave to become the site of the properties main residence. The property is owned by a very nice Berkley professor named Mike. He can only be up in Boonville a few days a week (though eventually he wants to live here full time) so we are taking care of his dogs Todo and Santo four days a week in exchange for living on the property. The dogs have really warmed up to us and we enjoy taking them on runs as well as snuggling with them on the couch at night. It's a great deal for us--the property is beautiful, we have a lot more space and the dogs are very sweet. After long hours of cleaning and getting our belongings in place it has definitely started to feel like home!

- Since being back we've kept ourselves super busy. Rizzo has been working two days a week at the Signal Ridge vineyards Tasting room, two nights at the Boonville Hotel restaurant, and helping out with farm work on the off days. I've started working in the cellars at Lichen Estates, another winery in the area. Additionally, starting next week I'll be doing some math tutoring at the local high school in addition to staying involved at the farm a few days a week. Needless to say we're pooped pretty much all of the time but we have great friends to spend our free time with and we are learning a lot.

- At the farm we currently have four baby lambs and 15 adorable piglets! The hens are producing an average of a dozen eggs a day and the cow is as awesome as ever. In terms if vegetables weve got some great looking cabbages and some good greens and turnips but a lot of the field work is clearing and weeding now as we are transitioning to colder, harsher weather. There is a lot happening every day!

- We're also learning a lot about wine, both on the production end and the sales and tasting end. We get the nice perk of bring home opened bottles that can no longer be poured at the end of the day :)

- A few nights ago we participated in the Wassail celebrations at the Apple Farm. The apple farm is a bunch of super awesome people on a beautiful and well-run apple farm which turns out tons of delicious apples and apple-related products like chutneys, ciders and more. The Wassail is a festival of sorts honoring the apple tree and promoting a healthy and plentiful coming season. We gathered around a huge, gnarled old apple tree with candles and sang "oh, apple tree" and drank cider and danced and warded off any lurking evils. It was a light hearted ceremony followed by a delicious dinner and lot's of toasts! Overall, another new and fun experience with good people.

- For Our birthdays/holidays/ 3 year anniversary we coincidently planned each other days of adventures to go on together in the Anderson valley and surrounding region. Last week we went on the Rizzo-planned adventure in Mendocino. We went canoeing in redwood canoes down the Big River and saw some sweet seals and birds followed by a beautiful stroll along the river. Then we had a relaxing hot tub and sauna experience at a hippy dippy spa in the area. The night was topped off by a juicy cheeseburger in boonville at one of favorite local restaurants and then then wine and cheese back at our crib. It was a truly amazing day coupled with some much needed downtime! Looking forward to the next one.

- Coming up we're hoping to have a house warming party as well as get back into a good running schedule. We're also SO excited to have both our parents come visit us in February! That's all for now!! Enjoy the pictures. ♡♡
We apologize that some of the pictures are sideways - we can't figure out how to rotate them :(