The goats are visibly pregnant now, we’re shipping exciting parcels of cheese all over the country, and our Christmas Faire is next weekend. These are the usual routines of our farm and business. For all the routines of summer - such as the hauling of the irrigating pipes across the pastures - there are corresponding jobs in winter - regular mucking-out of the straw in the loafing barn, as the waddling goats spend more time indoors. But we also have the routines of a family, the traditions that bind us as a group. So, December 1st was our annual picnic at our neighbor Sande’s house, up in the hills of Pescadero. Her garden’s a mass of Christmas trees jostling for sunlight, needing a man with a saw. We thin out a few, and dress the barn and shop for their most beautiful appearance of the year.
Which of these hundred identical trees do you want?
Man and tree
Sande’s basket of sherry and deviled eggs
