Main Character Introduction

Welcome to Orange Grove Road!

So glad you came by:).

Before we begin, I’d like to prepare you to expect a work in progress.  Orange Grove Road is a blog about choosing a path, and nurturing growth.  You’ll see plenty of weeds and bare ground, figuratively and literally, as we have lots of room to grow.

  We try to stay focused in the direction we want to go, while sharing lessons learned on both good days and bad.  We aim to grow as much food as we can handle on a scant acre doing everything as holistic and sustainable as our knowledge or access thereof will allow.  So far the results have been beautiful to me, and we feel so blessed and thankful for the opportunity to live this lifestyle, and share what we’ve learned, our experiments, and what we learn from you.  We hope you enjoy your time here. 🙂

 May I introduce:

Livestock Guardian Dog

Molly- our livestock guardian dog.  So far she’s proven to be a wonderful protector and gopher terminator extraordinaire.  She’s even learning to not wrap her massive paws around my boots when I’m going up and down the stairs with my hands full of milk buckets and egg baskets.  Progress is progress 🙂

Nubian Goat herd

Marmee (Little Women) – our ‘queen’ of the Nubian herd.  I also happened to be making marmalade the day we got her so it just seemed fitting 🙂  Perfect color match.  She is the sweetest doe I’ve ever had.  She’s very respectful and doesn’t try to stampede me when I’m getting food.  She waits patiently and then comes by for a little neck massage before proceeding to go eat.  I’d say we’re bonded.

It’s hard to tell from this close up “nose” picture, but this sweet doe is due to kid May 11, 2017.  Ultrasound shows 3 babies.  For some funny reason she looks tiny in this picture, but in person she’s huge!  I promise I will work on my camera skills…

Little Pearl.  She was born here and I’m pretty sure she’s the real herd queen…shhhh…don’t tell Marmee…

UPDATE:  She has been sold to a good home who needed her milk for their son with athsma.  I’m so happy that she will be able to bless a family!

And Maybell.  Curious and excitable.  Super smart and can usually figure out how to get her way.  She has been the subject of many farm projects…we love her dearly anyways.

The Chickens

Our resident roo and some of his ladies.  This handsome guy has proven he would give his life to protect his hens.  After watching him sound the alarms, get all the girls into the barn and stand guard outside to face off the hawk…much respect.  He’s nice to the human kids too so we enjoy letting him play his part.

Coming in for dinner.

The “Neighbors”

And then there’s this guy…whoo knew?…snort.  ‘Bout scared the tar outta me one day as I was walking along the grove just a few feet away and felt something looking at me.  I turned to see him just 3 feet from my face.  He couldn’t fly away because it was daytime and he couldn’t see much so he kindly sat there and waited a few hours for me to go get witnesses.  When we came back, I got a little too close and he hopped down and waddled away (reminding me of Yoda), turning every few feet to glare at me for interrupting his sleep.  oops.  He has since found his revenge.  Every once in a while around 2AM, as he sits on the pole next to my bedroom window and hoots his little heart out.  Funny.  Good thing he functions as a another gopher terminator!

I could go on and on about how much I love the environment around here and how it all factors into our little place, but I’ll restrain myself for now, and wrap it up with just one more shot I couldn’t resist as I was driving past my neighbor’s eucalyptus tree yesterday.

The neighborhood vulture family roosting for the night 🙂  They certainly keep things clean around here!

I hope you enjoyed your mini-tour.  Sign up for emails to get updates as Orange Grove Road matures into something that we hope will bless your life.  Whether you have livestock, just love real food, or want to learn deeper truths about health and fitness, I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Learn more about Orange Grove Road and my FMS recovery.