Midpines, CA: Yosemite Bug Rustic Mountain Resort (The Bug)

The view from our daily hike!

So, after all that hullabaloo with the Zinger, it ended up making it the 12 hour stretch from Valley Center to where we are now in Midpines which is basically right near Yosemite!!! We're staying at a rustic mountain resort and have been introduced to many as their "organic farmers"(really? maybe, it's just weird when we're called something we've never really thought we were...haha). We arrived on a Saturday and were welcomed by Douglas, the co-owner of Yosemite Bug Rustic Mountain Resort who took us around and gave us an initial tour and then got us aquatinted with where we would be getting paid (in food) ...THE CAFE!

The Cafe

The Cafe at the Bug is really a big hang out area where locals, as well as guests who are staying at "The Bug", as well as The Bug's employees come to UNWIND and/or RECHARGE. Douglas introduced us to almost everyone he knew and we ate amazing food. Because it was our first night and "The Clangers", a local band was playing, Douglas kept the pitchers of local beer comin'! We really enjoyed our introduction (some might have called it an initiation) and couldn't wait to start working on the Garden.

Behind us is a steep uphill back to our tent cabin and ahead of us is a steep uphill to the Cafe. Really energizes the metabolism before and after eating!!

Where we are staying: Tent Cabin A, is a close walking distance away from the gardens, but a 10 minute hike both ways to the CAFE (each way uphill). We also have to climb 50 ft of stairs to the bathroom (yes, even in the middle of the night). So, if we don't get a bagged lunch at breakfast time, we hike 60 minutes everyday. It's actually been really great because eating the amazing cafe food all the time...we never ever have leftovers (and we have an excuse!).

Our tent cabin and the stairs to the bathroom...haha

There are two gardens here: the north and the south. We spent a few hours on Sunday mapping out both of them and Curt is currently putting our map into a photoshop document (rough draft below)

so that we can easily organize where to plant and put all the drip lines (soooo professional!) We might blow it up and laminate it too so that we can use dry erase markers for planning. There are 38 beds in all,  each are 16' by 2.5'. There are scattered tire planters, about 15 total, rose bushes, apricot trees, and a couple random herb plots. We definitely have our work cut out for us and the last couple days we have surely put our feet into high gear! Each of the beds have to be cleared of last years roots as well as completely cleared of all weeds WOAH....and there are a LOT of weeds, it took us 9 hours to clear out the South Garden beds and we are just about finished now with the North Garden. We then need to add onto the original beds to make them higher and then fill them with 4-6 wheel barrel loads of manure and mushroom compost (that's about 200 wheel barrel loads). 

South Garden

North Garden: before and after weeding

Curt's rough draft of the garden map for the North Garden!

The next project will be to get the compost area in working condition. We were really happy to find a pile of old compost that was basically a worm breeding pile! We made a sifter and sifted out the amazing compost and used it in our seed starting mix (4 parts sifted compost, 1 part vermiculite, 1 part perlite, and 2 parts peat moss). We are waiting for the seeds to come in the mail so we can start tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants in the greenhouse! 

Compost sifter from recycled materials and WORMS!

Well that's all for now! We've got to go eat some food and talk garden talk. We're excited for the upcoming weekend as there is another band coming friday (every weekend there is a band actually) and saturday there is a mycology event that Douglas invited us to join (YAY, we love mushrooms). Sunday we have scheduled a NOT DOING ANYTHING CAVE DAY! It might be a while until we make another post but we'd love to hear from all of you who have been following us. Let us know you're out there by telling us about your favorite things happening this spring!