There Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens....

Seagull of Doom

OK then, no clucking about with this blog entry.  I've been horribly distracted over the last couple of months and, as a result, my blog posts have been piling up, waiting to be...um... hatched, so I decided on a whim that I needed to get out of town for the weekend for a self-imposed writing retreat.   I had in mind to drive up North, towards Mendocino, somewhere within a couple hours of the city and retracing the steps of a previous trip I'd taken, 7 or 8 years ago.  Looking online, I wanted to find somewhere cosy, inexpensive and quiet.  Oh, and a bit different to your standard hotel room or B&B.

I once again consulted the online oracle of accommodation oddness, Air B&B, for somewhere unusual to stay (I'd also used this website to book my library in Hawaii and the Airstream in Portland) and yet again it came up trumps for me.  

And so it was that I found myself staying in a converted chicken coop on an organic farm in the heartland of local, sustainable organic agriculture, Petaluma.

Its no yolk. 

Petaluma is only about an hour's drive north of the city, so - come Saturday morning - I hop into the car and head off.  Chick-in time was 2pm, so I'd decided to have lunch at Bodega Bay first.  This was one of the coastal town's on my original route that I didn't actually get time to stop at and explore as I'd radically underestimated how long it took to drive on Highway 1, so it was dark by the time I was passing through Bodega Bay on my way to Jenner!  

So, Bodega Bay and I had unfinished business to attend to and there was definitely a bowl of clam chowder with my name on it at The Tides, one of the more famous restaurants in town.  The whole town is renowned (I guess) for having been the location in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" - you know, the one with Tippi Hedren in it who gets pecked to death by blackbirds.  And there was me going to stay, voluntarily, in a chicken coop??   Hmm.... this might not be one of my best laid plans.... I guess I shell find out....

Sitting on the dock of the bay, wasting time

The weather was absolutely stunning and really quite hot for this time of year!  (I know, I know - but we're talking about SF hot here, not Cyprus hot!).  After my bowl of distinctly average clam chowder (Dad - the one you had is still the best one yet), it was only just gone midday, so I spent a little more time exploring and ended up discovering this adorable little wine bar, with a perfect view of the bay from the patio outside.  It was actually too hot to sit in the sun, so instead I sat under the awnings, looking out across the bay, eating a square of sea salted chocolate (just one - it was one of these artisanal types, so hand made and stupidly expensive) and watching two sea lions playing splash with each other!  It was very cute.

After a couple of hours gently chilling, it was time to head off to my coop and see what the deal was.  Along the way, I somehow managed to resist the siren lure of Wool Goods and Cowgirl Accessories (a three-legged stool and a bucket, perhaps?) and instead head back towards Petaluma.  I did stop off at Whole Foods for supplies and, yet again, proved that it is impossible to go into Whole Foods and emerge having spent less than $50.  I only wanted cheese, bread and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.  How on earth did I manage to spend $57??

Ah well... suitably well provisioned, I drove out to the farm - an organic ranch a few miles just outside town, on Tomales Road.  The directions were fairly straightforward, although I did accidentally turn into the farm on the opposite side of the road first by mistake, drive around some rather shabby outbuildings for 10 minutes before finally realized/hoping I was in the wrong place and hightailing it out of there before the farmer came back!

Dad - this one is for you.
 Maybe this place has your oysters?

Crossing the road to get to the chickens (!), I finally found it without getting my feathers further in a ruffle and I immediately congratulated myself on what a fabulous choice I had made.  The coop was perfect.  It was beautifully, yet simply, decorated with absolutely everything you needed for a comfortable, relaxing retreat for one.   And - despite being chicken coop-y sized, it actually felt pretty roomy so that you didn't feel all...um.. cooped up.  Obviously it didnt take too long to explore and to settle in, so I unpacked my expensive bag of groceries and then proceeded not to blog at all, but instead got sucked into an uber-marathon session of Plants vs Zombies 2.  (some of the levels are bloody hard!!  I had to crack them!).

At around 5pm, one of my hosts, Tim turned up to say hello and to give me a tour of the farm.  It was really quite impressive - not just the farm and all the multitude of organic, heirloom varieties of fruit and veg they grow, but all the other stuff they do too!  I can barely do one job well, but these guys are growing stuff, raising animals, painting fine art, building houses, planting orchards, making spice mixes, crafting felted stuff, making sofa cushions out of wool and hosting guests with gracious hospitality and friendliness.  As we wandered round the farm, we collected some veggies for my supper that night and for breakfast the next morning - beautiful heirloom tomatoes, a big fat fragrant onion, some carrots pulled straight from the earth and a few leaves of purple basil.  All the eggs had been collected earlier in the day, but Tim said to go first thing in the morning and to help myself, straight from the henhouse!  (I was relieved to see that the chickens' new digs were much more palatial and spacious than their previous residence, so thought that that reduced the likelihood of Birds-style peckage considerably).

So that was fun.  Also fun were the panoply of various cats and dogs roaming the grounds - the two big shaggy white dogs were very friendly and served a very useful purpose of keeping the coyotes at bay (yes, there are coyotes out in the hills!  eek!).  Not quite so useful was their subsequent relocation of my sandals that I'd left outside the coop (they were just a tad stinky).  The cats were adorable as well (not quite sure I ever got an accurate headcount of those guys), especially this one black cat who I named Velcro Cat - who wouldn't leave me alone and who wouldn't shut up.  I thought it could have been Izzie in a black cat suit, following me out to Petaluma, but the eyes weren't crossed enough.

After the tour, it was growing dark so it was time for supper, a nice glass of local sustainable wine (check out the label) and to finally get down to some blogging.  I managed to crank out a Vegas blog before finally succumbing to the lure of the very comfortable day bed and hitting the virtual hay.

Waking up the next morning, I felt so relaxed and chilled out, I decided on a whim to stay an extra night and to drive back to SF Monday lunchtime.  I had my wireless hotspot and cell phone reception was fine, there was no problem with being able to log onto email and work free range, so I thought why the heck not?  I still had plenty of food from my Whole Foods splurge the previous day, so I didn't need to go shopping again - the only one slight improvisation needed was on the clothing front.  I had literally packed enough to wear for just one day - and so it was that I spent Sunday, merrily blogging away, wearing the skirt from the previous day stylishly paired with my purple polar bear pyjama top. Organic and sustainable Petaluma fashion, right there.  Fortunately, Velcro Cat didn't seem to mind and, somehow, it seemed in keeping with the whole stripped down, simplified weekend.

It was, indeed, a most eggs-cellent adventure.

Small but perfectly formed.  

The Coop's Stoop

Yes. That really is sustainable wine about to
 be consumed from an Artisanal Cheese Festival
wineglass.  How very Californian....

Exterior of The Coop Stoop

A cat, a laptop and a wicker chair in the shade.
Sounds like a perfect Sunday afternoon to me.

Ohh....how those childhood memories came flooding back.
Evil Goat.

Not Homeless Chickens

Fruits of the land, still warm from the sun

Egg thievery about to go down...

The Egg Motherlode.  Still warm from the chicken's bum

Come on now.  This is just too adorable.  Pass the mint sauce.

Various organic loveliness earnestly growing away
 - and not a Monsanto seed in sight!

Lettuce lines

The New Coop Stoop

Even the tractor looks organic.

Gatherings.

Dang fresh eggs.

Farm fresh eggs on toasted garlic bread with heirloom tomatoes
 and fresh brewed coffee.  Not too shabby for a Sunday morning breakfast.

Velcro Cat doing what she does best - meowing.
 Loudly.

Chilling

Tucked up for the night

Still bigger than most Manhattan kitchens...

The Coop Stoop Poop Scoop

The perfect place to sit, write and think.