I think that I Shall Never See a Crane B...

That is until the Tree Wranglers showed up this morning. You may remember the saga of The Tree We Couldn’t Save. That episode just confirmed my belief that trees should be planted or left where they are, not moved. But Andy thinks differently. He didn’t want a spindly little tree to replace the oak that died in front of our barn. He wanted a mature tree — one at...

Goin’ Feral On the Frontier

If you live in California or have ever visited here at the change of seasons, you know how the first heavy rain of the season suddenly makes everyone go completely INSANE. On a dry year, we can have no rain at all from March to late November. And I mean NO RAIN. Not even a sprinkle. Just maybe some foggy moisture in San Francisco. So when the first drencher of the season hits, people...

And Now I Can See My Imaginary Friends!

Remember the old Romper Room when Miss Vickie (or whoever your RR lady was at your local affiliate) used to hold up the Magic Mirror and intone: “Romper, Stomper, Bomper, Boo.” Then she proceeded to say that she could see all of us ankle-biters in “TV Land” and would call our names: “I see Jimmy and Mary and little Ryan. . .” Even if I didn’t...

A Day in the Life of a Wine Babysitter

 Ever wondered what the typical day of a winemaker is like? No, not the romantic life of the beret-wearing winemaker you see in movies who spends his days in a picturesque villa sipping his fermenting wine and murmuring things like: “Eet is thee terroir.” I mean the grunts who do all the heavy lifting of the winemaking process. Not the glass lifting, but the bucket,...

Stalking Chuck the Buck

As I head into my sixth week of babysitting fermenting wine alone in Sonoma, it’s getting easier and easier to slip into “Dr. Doolittle” Level of Stir-Craziness. If you didn’t read this post, let me explain that the Doctor Doolittle Stage is that point where you progress beyond talking to the animals and truly believe you are having intelligent conversation...

Why the InterWebs Are Dangerous. Or You ...

 Of course the Internet can be a colossal time-waster. Just between Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, you can blow a good hour or two before you know they’re gone. But the real danger are all those weird and wonderful, fun and freaky sites out there that offer nothing more than weird stuff you can play with, link to and send to your friends. The danger of these sites is that time...