Riverwood Farm
Located on the lush riparian loam soil of Maidu Konkow land in Butte County. We recognize the heritage of this land, and the violence that stole the land from the Konkow tribe. We seek to steward the land back toward regenerative practices.
Our great-grandfather bought the land from the US government at the end of World War II and converted the wild oak, raspberry, and shrub ecology into commercial agriculture, starting with almonds and prunes, then walnuts, then kiwi fruit, and now all back to walnuts.
Summer
Marked by long days, bold colors, and a flurry of activity, summertime is one of our absolute favorites on the farm. Due to the irrigation in the orchards, our farm tends to be about ten degrees cooler than the weather forecast and about twenty-percent more humid! Sometimes walnut orchards feel more like Texas than California in the summer! The farm backs up to the Feather River, and we enjoy long evenings swimming, relaxing, and cooking down along the cool shores. We watch blue herons, killdeer, ospreys, egrets, and swallows bob and dance with the trout, salmon, catfish, crawdads, and pollywogs in the water. We spend our work days gathering produce and eggs, selling at the local market; our time in the orchard is spent irrigating, spraying, and mowing.
Fall
Marked by harvest and quickly changing weather, fall is at once unforgettable and gone too soon! We love the changing leaves, shortening days, and the hard push for harvest. With every passing year we understand better and better why holistic cultures built festivals around the harvest - there is so much work and so much to be thankful for, celebration is truly to best response!
Winter
Marked by death and rebirth, winter bundles us up in the cupped hands of late sunrises and early sunsets, shortening our line of sight with the fog and mid-afternoon darkness. Winter is an intimate time: warm fires in the woodstove, short work days, long cold nights. It is a time of crispness: the air is thin and dry, the leaves crunch with every step, and the trees reveal the sky beyond in a way the canopy conceals all other times of year. Our main tasks are planting cover crop, repairing irrigation lines, keeping the animals fed and warm, pruning the trees for the next year of growth, and doing all the building and machinery maintenance that got pushed off from summer and fall.
Spring
Ah, spring! Truly the time of year where we begin to breathe deep and light once again! Marked by bursting new life and the return of colors and birdsong, spring speaks a language of the soul that is most poignant after the cold of winter. Spring is also when we get the most rain in this part of California -- "April showers bring May flowers" rings true. We spend our days building new tools for the coming season and planting the garden. We turn over 2-5 acres of orchard each year, and in the spring we are prepping the land, laying new irrigation, and planting new walnut trees. Spring is the time to stretch the legs of our inner dreamer once again -- all things are made new!
Our home
We live in a 1920's farmhouse that we've remodeled into a "modern farmhouse". We love all that is *real* and enjoyed pouring our own countertops, making our own butcher block, laying our own hardwood floors, and honoring the heritage of the home by preserving some sections of old wall. Originally, this house had no running water or electricity, and our great-grandfather actually had the house moved from town out to the property when he first bought the land! It has undergone a lot of history for one little farmhouse!
