Schaner Farm

Let me try to sum up the most wonderful 24 hours to you as best I can: A Weekend on Schaner farms. 

Emily (one of my four roommates) and I made up our mind that morning to just do it and take the train down to San Diego from LA to visit the home of Sara our roommate on the farm that we had heard so so much about for the past few years. Emily used her charm to get us two seats together on the train, and we chatted it up for two hours while looking upon the pacific ocean's crashing waves beside us. When we arrived, Sara Schaner gave us directions to head W to the water, then turn right and walk until we met her. This was especially fun because Em had a rolly suitcase which wouldn't go in the sand. We eventually met in the middle and S walked us back to where she had set up for the afternoon in the (kinda cloudy) sun. E waited on the sidewalk while I went to put my toes in the water and meet cousin Josh, who E of course nicknamed "Surfer Josh" due to his wetsuit and board, he loved that because all his friends call him "farmer Josh". 


We then walked to the Schaner farms truck, which had three seats, and there were four of us, so there was a little squishing but nothing we aren't used to. We drove about 40 mins through the winding mountains of Valley Center up to the farm! The first thing we saw was the "fence" our friend Danny built with Jake, Sara's brother, when he made is visit to the farm. Then we saw the orange trees along the drive to the house. We came inside, S showed us around the house, her room, their great kitchen, then... the Emus! They just got seven baby Emu's and of course our Ema the Emu fled to them with open arms! 

(this is the ONLY picture I took that weekend)

Then Jake showed up and we all drove to the next mountain over to their cousins farm and swam in their brand new resevoir, which Jacob kept telling us was reverse osmosis so it was good enough to drink, so I told everyone Emily peed in it. We drove back to the house in time for dinner, and who was there but Mary D (a friend from school that lives in the area)!! What a wonderful surprise! Dinner was of course fantastic with salmon, pasta with fresh pesto --don't worry, no pine nuts, fresh berries and tomatoes, quinoa, etc. 


Afterwards, Jake gave us a tour of "down below" or the actual farm part and we saw all the different trees, we checked the squirrel traps, ate the kumquats, held the baby chicks! stirred the chicken feed, saw the shrine to Mary that farmer Peter built, and watched the sun set on the gorgeous rolling hills. That is the part that was the most surprising, is how it was in the mountains! We went back up and Mary challenged Joe to pingpong because she said she was so good - but she lost horribly. Joe promised not to tell anyone at school (since she is a teacher at his school) if she promised not to tell anyone that a couple of girls called him up that night to talk!  One of them was a De La Torre, and apparently all the girls have a crush on him, no surprise there! 


We played a board game, and of course Jake won and everyone else lost interest, and then we snuggled up into bed and played "would you rather" that Mary D had in her head already and just kept throwing them out there. One example:  You are taking your boyfriend home to meet your family and you can not make any excuses for him or whisper to your mom "I don't really like him" or anything like that.  So, would you rather: a) he has one finger picking his nose at all times, like if he goes to cut his meat he has to switch hands but does it so there is always a finger in or b) he has the worst B.O that you have ever smelled in you life.  Jake came in and told us to stop giggling, that people were trying to sleep, so we tried to quiet down.


Then in the morning, we got up with the roosters to go to 7:30 mass, and met tons of cousins afterward. When we got back to their house, we all helped to make a divine brunch, (Jake had gotten up at 6 to make the pancake batter and Mrs. Schaner said not even she did that) and Rose made stuffed squash blossoms which were amazing! not to mention the fresh fruit and orange juice. Soon after that Ross (Sara's bf) showed up so we got to see him interact with the family, which was very fun! Joe teases him a lot and almost put cayann pepper in his waffles. Then we went shooting with Paul and Joe, Ross and Steve (his friend and also his sisters boyfriend and he is even taller than Ross!) Paul and Joe showed us how to shoot each different gun, and we missed every single clay pigeon, but hey, no biggy, right? When we returned, Mrs. Schaner had made two different batches of cookies, like mother like daughter.  After that we were going to go swim in the resevoir again, but we looked up train tickets and realized that if we wanted to get back at a reasonable time, we would have to leave pretty soon. So Sara and Rossy-Poo went to swim while Jake stayed back to drive us 40 minutes (what a gentleman) and walk us to our train (chivelry is not dead!) We rode back not sitting together, but both managed to snag seats on the oversold train that was full of people standing, and we both made buds with the boys next to us (sort of).

I hope this was not too long winded, and do not worry because we missed Kate and Adrienne, the other two roommates, every minute! I can't wait to go back, and I hope the wombates can all make it sometime soon!