Phyl and I went tonight’s Farmer’s Market at Depot Park in Rio Linda. I went one time last year to find one or two vendors. Things have changed since then. Tonight there were about 20 vendors, 3 food trucks, and lots of people shopping.
This is Phyl’s neighbor who sells Watkins products but also sells the vegetables she grows at home.
Faithful organizers (seated, L-R) Charlea Moore and Shirley Breckinridge. At right is Pat Day.

Rickey Hill of Broken Plow Farm in Elverta. Come to find out, I taught both of his sons at Westside School.

What a surprise Tommy Hall and his daughter. Tommy has a t-shirt printing business called Konnected whose goal is to provide employment for parolees.

A couple of weeks ago, Sophia decided she was going to learn to ride a bicycle one evening. 30 minutes later = success. Now she will be able to ride the two-wheeled bikes with the other girls in the Tiger group at daycare.

Up in Lake Wildwood, Tim celebrated with a cigar and took this great selfie.

Work ended on Monday July 21 and there’s nothing on the horizon until mid-August. What to do?

Lots of sewing of course. Noticing how the walnuts on Justin’s trees are drooping with an abundance of walnuts. Justin didn’t prune this past winter as he’d intended, so the trees put their energy into walnut production instead of the growth of the tree itself. Justin thinks there may be twice as many walnuts this year. 400 pounds to gather?

Get-togethers with friends. Walking. Barely seen in the background is Jaime’s house, a neighbor of Justin’s. It looked like corn in Jaime’s front field but the 5-foot tall plants seemed tightly spaced with no sign of ears forming. It was Sudangrass. This is when Justin gave me a mini-lecture on the topic 🙂 Planted on July 1, it takes 45 days to harvest and yields 3-5 tons/acre. This silage crop will go to Japan. Current price = $215/ton.

Rule 93: If it’s possible to have a bicycle and a chicken in a picture at the same time, the picture must be taken.

A friendly neighbor barked hello.

Last Sunday, July 20, the Rio Linda/ELverta Historical Society had its monthly Sunday Social at the Dry Creek Ranch House.

It seems to me like there’s been an increase in small agri-businesses in the last few years, particularly in the northwest part of RL – M St/W 6th/U St/RL Blvd for those of you who know our little town. I invited a couple of these businesses to speak. The Refarmery:

Michael Long, Alice, and Jon Kupkowski explained the experiments they are conducting to meet their goals.

Farmer Deno of The Natomas Farm brought a flat of pluots to share with everyone and told us about the many different fruits and vegetables he grows and his plans for expansion. He gave the 9 lb cantaloupe he’s holding to one of our older members who did manage to carry it to his car. Deno has a great blog also at thenatomasfarm.blogspot.com

It appears that I have been locked out of my email account which was hacked last week. I can send email from my account but have not received email for a few days. However “Yahoo’s Partner Application” logs in every 12 hours or so. Perhaps looking to see if anyone has sent money to get me out of Ukraine? Attempting to solve the problem with Yahoo has not gone well. So poorly that I’ve closed the account already.

So, I have a new email address which I will not put here for obvious reasons. I’ve sent out that address to many people, but if you did not receive it and want it, let me know here.

Yesterday, I received a message from Yahoo Mail saying I’d logged in from a remote computer. I had. From a district laptop I used while working at TRUSD. I was directed to login within 48 hours. I did and that’s when Whoever gained access. It’s awful when this happens. I received one phone call, one text, one email to my second address, and one comment to the blog within 2 hours of the hacking. Thank you friends, one and all. My apologies.

Leone Thorne of Calvary Lutheran Church organized today’s gathering.
It was a wonderfully cool day, a breeze was blowing and we all had shady spots under big trees. In the future I need to take some table set-up ideas from Sally, Branch Manager.

Nikki Sadek spoke for the pig encouraging everyone to see our new library.
The local pickleball group (I haven’t played in quite a few months 😦 There are many more people playing now, I need to get back to it.
I was there for the historical society. Several people took the Rio Linda history quiz. I had to smile when I challenged a couple of people to remember all the answers, come to the Country Fair in September, take the quiz again, get a high score, and have their name posted on the white board of highest scores. And they practiced! Slowly I teach.

Farmer Deno from The Natomas Farm.
This event was lightly attended but fun nevertheless.