We plan our Farm Club San Francisco Retreat for a weekend that is after shearing and before lambing. We were introduced to Native Daughters of the Golden West by one of the original Farm Club members who was also a member of NDGW. Members and their guests can stay in “The Home” designed by Julia Morgan and built in the 1920’s. This time thirteen of us gathered for the weekend and three others met up with us on Saturday.
Since Farm Club members are scattered around several counties we couldn’t all meet here to carpool. Four of us left from the farm and decided to check out SCRAP on the way. SCRAP is “a non-profit organization working at the intersection of arts, eduction, and the environment”.
This building holds an amazing amount of STUFF that has been donated–all things that someone could imagine using for an art or craft project, however wacky it is. There is a complete list on the website of what they will and won’t accept. I have included just a few photos here, although it is very difficult to portray what it is really like inside.
We spent a couple of hours here and then drove to our destination.
A feeling of serenity after the chaos of SCRAP. This is the room that I had for the weekend. We usually don’t spend much time in our rooms because we are gathered in the parlor, the dining room, or on an adventure of some kind in the city.
We ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant within walking distance of the Home…
…and spent the rest of the evening in the parlor spinning and knitting and visiting. To be continued…
From looking back at photos and blog posts I figured out that the first Farm Club Retreat was in 2011. That would make this the 13th retreat, but we had to skip 2020 through 2022. It was fun to look back through that post just now and see the origin of some of our traditions.
Entering San Francisco from the north we drive across the Golden Gate. It was gorgeous weather for this visit.
The Native Daughters of the Golden West Home is on Baker Street. It was designed in 1928 and built for NDGW. Now members and their guests can spend the night in SF in a spacious yet cozy and friendly space. One of the long-time Farm Club members told us all of this in 2010 and that’s when we began the tradition of our Retreat weekend. It used to be just for one night, but we enjoyed it so much that now we make it for two nights.
We were the only guests there for Friday night and we all had our own rooms. Room 401 was a new room for me. Each bedroom is decorated by one of the Parlors (chapters of NDGW) and has it’s own style.
There is a bakery across the street that used to sell pies. We began the tradition of lemon pie for breakfast. Some of us started to bake our own pies and that’s a good thing because the original bakery is no longer there. Saturday morning began with pumpkin pie, lemon pie, apple pie, and plum cake.
I pulled up the live YouTube for Hayes County (TX) Livestock Auction in which my granddaughter was “selling” her Champion bunny.
This is an auction to support all the 4-H and FFA youth who win champion awards in the show. It turns out that the entries go home with the kids but the bids are for real money that go into the bank accounts to help support future projects and college funds.
After watching Kirby we gave our new Farm Club members a tour of the building. This is part of the museum collection in one room. These are gowns worn by some of the Grand Parlor dignitaries. (I can’t remember their designation.) This made me think of watching the movie of the recent Taylor Swift tour with Kirby and DIL Meryl right after Christmas. Taylor had a bit more sparkle but these ladies were very sparkly for their time.
We decided that our destination for the day would be one of the SF Library branches. There are so many fascinating houses.
I’d sure love to see inside some of them. Look at that gorgeous detail.
It was about a mile to the Presidio Branch. Why the library? A California resident can get a SF Library card by showing up in person. That card gives access to all the digital and audio materials from the library and a lot of us make good use of those.
After getting our library cards we split up and two of us walked to Golden Gate Park. This was a unique art structure not far from the park entrance. These are LED cubes that change color I think. If you search for Entwined in Golden Gate Park you can learn more about this art installation that has been in various locations for four years.
Our destination was the Conservatory of Flowers, visible behind the Love alphabet blocks.
The Conservatory originally opened in 1879.
I took photos of some of the extraordinary plants we saw. The variety is fascinating.
The sign here says “The Fanged Pitcher Plant may look sinister, but in the wild colonies of an ant species called diving ants live symbiotically with this plant.” The ants dive into the pitcher part of the plant to consume pests and in turn fertilize the plant with their droppings.
The common name for this plant native to Peru is Lollipop Plant or Golden Shrimp Plant.
Beautiful shades of green on these leaves.
When I saw this I thought that now I know where candy corn is grown!
We walked a few blocks to a restaurant where we enjoyed a great dinner. In this photo we have moved onto dessert. After dinner we went back to the Home to spend the evening working on projects and enjoying the atmosphere.
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