Monthly Archives: September 2012

Look who came to Chico!! We had a fun-house full of little girls.

They arrived together (two cars) the evening of the 14th. This is the first time we got to hold the baby and we couldn’t believe how much the other girls had grown up in the last six months. We got to have them with us for almost a week.

Working around toddler naps and our schedule was a challenge, but thankfully they were content to cruise and enjoy the farm. We got to the pool twice.

It was fun going to church together. The oldest was in our Sunbeam class and got lots of attention as a “visitor” and the middle girls had a great time in the Shaw’s nursery class. During the week they did some shopping and checked out Bidwell Park. (see top picture and below)

The kids and dads took advantage of the open spaces.

They seemed to like picking plums, watching the trains and cracking walnuts.

Corie missed the walnut harvest tour…

but she found her own way of harvesting walnuts.

We got to enjoy meals, movies, marshmallos and a mountain ride together. It was wonderful that the four of you would bring your little ones on that long drive to spend time with us. Thank you so much and thanks to the girls for making us something to remember this special week.

Just Southeast of us is a town called Paradise. We decided to check it out last weekend.

Our first stop was Nobel Orchards. They’ve been doing business in Paradise for 90 years. We bought some peaches and apples. Paradise is up in the mountains a little and very woodsey. Really quite pretty. We (read that ‘I’) couldn’t resist some garage sales along the way.

This is from an overlook going back towards Chico. Then we went to see what it looked like from the bottom.

This is one of two covered bridges in the area. I think this one is called Honey Run.

Butte Creek Canyon.

This pic is from a few days later at a thrift store in Orland. Just had to include it. It was already sold and of course we couldn’t get it home……but how fun would this piece of furniture be.

It’s harvest time for the plums on the farm–in fact they’re almost finished. Last week we went on a tour with the interns to see the whole process. It’s really interesting how two trucks with trays go on either side of the tree. An arm comes out and shakes the bejeebers out of the tree and all the plums go into huge wood boxes. The whole process takes about 30 seconds or less from tree to tree. I’m going to try to put the video on here, but just in case, you get the gist.

This is us at the dryer. Love the outfits.

These are the plums waiting to go into the dryer.

You might want to call these prunes after they’ve been dried, but we don’t use that word anymore. They are “dried plums”—The Super Fruit. Higher in potassium than bananas, more fiber and less sugar than raisins or cranberries and available year round.

Sometimes some plums need a little more drying in boxes, but they need to be moved around from time to time. The nice man in the light shirt hurt his back so they changed him to take care of the yards, but someone remembered that he was the go-to-guy for this machine that jostles the plums, so the lawns are going to have to get along without him for awhile.

Once they’re sorted and dried, the plums go south to Yuba City, where Sunsweet rehydrates them, removes the seeds, dries them again and packages them in various forms to go all over the world. They are very popular in China.

I suddenly have a bunch of pictures to post, so I’ll update every couple of days for awhile.The Fanos came to visit in early August, but I only recently discovered that Beth had copied pictures for me on my flash drive. We met Beth in Sacramento (Thanks Marshall) and shopped while we waited for the Fano flight. 

After our late night visiting, only Dad/Ralph was up early to work. He had a dental appointment in Chico, so we took lunch to Bidwell Park and hung out on the kiddie playground for awhile.

This little one was obsessed with the lion drinking fountain and Beth captured the sharing.

Sitting on the wall with Mr. Dumpty (before his fall).

The swimming hole was “closed” and the water was really shallow, but it was full of people on such a hot day.

This is on the farm playground.

The pool was their favorite spot in Chico. Thanks so much for spending time with us!!