Left Coast Cowboys

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 least 50 years old. And he didn’t want to wait 50 years to get it. We argued about the ethics of this. I thought I’d won when I found exactly the right quote from a Greek proverb: “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”

Andy’s response: “The Greeks are idiots.”

So good or bad Mojo aside, today an olive tree arrived on a large flatbed truck.

And the huge crane you see above.

Which they ratchet up so the truck bit isn’t even touching the ground.

Everything is balanced on these huge “feet”.

Then the tree wrangler secures the tree. Hey look at the size of that rootball!

 

And we have LIFT-OFF!

Swinging it around:

Meanwhile Felix Sr. and Felix Jr. stand by with the crew.

The Felixes are our go-to guys for just about everything. Any fancy stonework you see at Two Terrier Vineyards, those guys did it. They built Lake Charles. They built our amphitheater. When our friends Rob and Susi had their wedding here at TTV, Felix found a Mariachi Band. He was heartbroken that Susi didn’t want him to lead her in to the ceremony on one of his Andalusian horses. (But Susi was only prepared to go just so country.)

Now Louise Leff, our Landscape Architect supervises the arborial landing for exactly the right orientation.

Then the Felixes and their crew move earth faster than you can ever imagine it could be moved.

Thanks guys!

After the drama of replanting a tree, I felt a little guilty thinking about burning a tree. But it’s cold and rainy and the woodstove is the only source of heat here at Chez Terrier. (See yesterday’s post for the whole drama of no wood.)

So I hitched Old Paint to the wagon.

Not really. I took Old Chrome Paint. And Oscar wanted to ride.

Here’s what I found from Felix’s last deadwood cutting exercise.

I should test my theory that wet wood won’t be wet anymore when you throw it in a woodstove. However, if a log is hollow and filled with water, that probably won’t work very well.

But I managed to gather enough to get me through the evening, I hope. Although I’m a little nervous about burning parts of the tree that died in that spot and letting the smoke waft over the newly planted tree. Got to be some bad Tree Mojo in that.

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 go nuts, especially when driving. People suddenly forget what lanes and sidewalks are for and which side of the road we drive on here. Well, apparently it happens to birds, too.

We’ve got dozens, maybe hundreds of little birds that dart in and out among the oak trees near the barn. They perch on the railings, they fly around the barn. But so far, they’ve always managed not to hit it. Which you would expect because, well, fer Pete’s sake, it’s as big as a barn!

However, as soon as the rain started: Thump, Thump, Thump. Three birds in succession smacked into the window. Luckily, each of them was only stunned. But something had to be done while they recovered. My dogs are complete failures at the expected Terrier Core Competencies, but I figured they could probably do damage to a stunned bird lying dazed on the flagstones.

I spent the next half hour, scooping up the first three birds, then the next two and putting them in the fenced-in raised bed where I’d just harvested the last of my corn. I figured that gave them a safe place while they recovered.

See, he really did recover!

That was my good deed for the day, although I won’t say I wasn’t motivated to get a few Bird Brownie Points. I mean, I’ve seen The Birds about a million times and I wanted to make sure that, if this was the start of an attack, I might be bypassed as A Friend to Birds.

Which is a long prelude to get to the fact that I’m going stir crazy again on the tail end of six weeks living alone in a barn and babysitting grapes. (Just read the last few weeks of posts to understand why.) The rain was making it even worse. Now instead of barricading myself in the barn when darkness falls and large animals start prowling, I was barricaded in the barn watching the rain fall.

This may not be Julian and John's great grandmother. But it could be. (Courtesy Google Images.)

Luckily, I got a call from Cousin John who said he was in the Sonoma area and could he stop by. Cousin John is not actually MY cousin, but the cousin of my extremely brilliant and eccentric friend Julian. Remember that name. Julian is going to be featured in these posts. And please believe me when I say that in my world eccentrics are not just people with a few quirks. I mean people with generations of behavior that, if it weren’t done so flamboyantly and with such style, would be labeled Bat Shit Crazy (to use the proper medical terminology). Julian’s mother ran AWAY from the circus and took her brother, John’s father, with her. Truly. She was from a very famous European circus family (her grandmother was painted by Toulouse-Lautrec in a tutu standing on horseback.) So that’s why Julian and John aren’t wearing harlequin outfits and juggling flaming torches. But they are no less wildly entertaining.

You’ll meet Julian later. Let’s focus on Cousin John, who is sort of the Indiana Jones of Northern California. He’s one of the guys called in when someone wants to stop developers from putting a shopping mall on top of an Indian burial ground. I get the best Facebook alerts from him: “Found an intact human skull today. Hooray!” and “Great morning’s work. Both recovered femurs show traces of old injuries.” When Cousin John isn’t digging up ancient bones, he also experiments with making some truly terrifying and horrible home-brewed wines. We’ve sampled his strawberry wine and lived to tell the tale, but just barely. His latest project is scavenging feral grapes and fermenting them with whatever yeast falls out of the air. So you can imagine he was interested in seeing how we were progressing with our ER style of winemaking that aims at keeping OUT all yeasts but those we introduce. (If you are unfamiliar with our obsessive cleanroom winemaking technique read this.)

When I casually mentioned to Cousin John that we've found an Indian grinding stone and several arrowheads down near our seasonal creek, he was all for marching through the forest in the rain to look at it. I convinced him to drink wine instead.

It was great to have company and slowed me from going completely around the bend before lunchtime.

Then Cousin John left and I was plunged into a Cro-Magnon level of hunter-gatherer subsistence. Yes, I’d run out of firewood and since that’s the only source of heat here in the barn, it was a pressing matter. We are not going to mention any names, but someone was up here over the weekend and it was noted to that person that the available supply of logs that actually fit in our tiny woodstove was shockingly low. This person, rather than cutting the logs to size, dismissed me with a cavalier suggestion that I could buy some firewood in the grocery store. Note to that person: yes, you buy boxes of insanely expensive firewood at the grocery store in San Francisco, BUT NOT IN THE COUNTRY. People in the country cut their firewood or buy cords of it from someone who does. People who inquire at grocery stores in the country about where the firewood is are laughed at and given that smirky “City Slicker” look.

So I’ve been wandering around the wilder parts of our 40 acres looking for scraps of firewood and flammable branches. Luckily, the people who were trimming some dying trees cut them into logs and left them for me around the property. Unluckily, they are probably drenched by now. Let me also add that firewood wouldn’t be such a necessity if someone who shall not be named here had bothered to fix the broken hinge on one of the windows in the barn so it wasn’t in a permanently open position. That’s okay, I’ll just huddle by my rapidly diminishing store of pitiful gathered twigs and brush and feel the feeble heat it generates shoot up and out the window. Not a problem. I’ve read Jack London’s short story To Build a Fire. I know if things get desperate, you slit open a dog to warm your hands.

Lucy looking completely unconcerned about the possible need for Jack London Survival Techniques.

What did I tell you about the first drenching rain making people crazy?

POSTSCRIPT: Some readers have been griping that I seem not to know an election is going on. Hey, even living in a barn without radio, television and spotty cell reception, I do have WiFi. And the terriers and I are doing our best to keep our politics partisan.

Oscar with his George Bush chew toy. He says "THROW THE BUMS OUT". But only after he bites off his head and removes the squeaker.

And who would think that a mug bought as a gag gift would prove so prophetic?

Just a few short months ago, converting Red States would have been a pipe dream.

But just add your favorite hot beverage. . .

And, hey Presto, Obama Mojo Magic!

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 get a shout-out, it always creeped me out. SHE COULD SEE ME THROUGH MY TV! Romper Room usually ended at my house with me hiding behind the couch.

I lead you through Memory Lane for a purpose. Suddenly I have THAT power. Yes, the Romper Room Magic Mirror has been passed to me!

Because it’s the 21st Century, it comes in the form of a bit of code for my blog called TracemyIP.org and I got it here.

I don’t usually enthuse over plugins, widgets and code. More likely, I’m cursing at them or weeping tears onto my keyboard over them. But this thing is AMAZING.

It gives me a report of every single person who lands on my blog. No, not just a visitor count, but as accurate a profile as I would get if my blog were a high-security airport and my visitors had to go through a full body cavity search to get in.

A lot of counters can tell you who your visitors are by IP address, server and location, as well as by where they came from on the web, what circuitous route they used to get to your blog and how long they hung around. Yeah, TracemyIP.org can do that. But then it goes one Secret Squirrel Super Spy trick better.

I can actually click on a visitor and zoom in, through Google Maps, to see exactly WHERE they are by block and street. Well, I’m actually not so sure how completely accurate this is as one of my San Francisco visitors was shown to be in the middle of four lanes of Geary Boulevard while still on-line. May I put on the record that I want readership, but not badly enough to risk a pile up on San Francisco’s busiest street during morning rush hour.

But wait. Don’t order yet. There’s more. And to someone like me who is still struggling to figure out what an IP is, this is the best feature.

TracemyIP.org shows me little pictures of each of my visitors. Yes, little Jimmy, Mary and Ryan out in TV Land, I can see you through my Magic Mirror.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to say that these pictures are little avatars, but they are interestingly distinct.

This is one of my San Francisco visitors surfing my blog in the middle of Geary Boulevard. Kinda nerdy and techie looking.

And, hey, my visitor from Arkansas even has a mullet.

 My Florida visitor sports a killer tan and bleached blond hair.

This woman from the Ukraine seems to be a real fan. She’s logged on to my blog four times in the last day. She looks sort of like that annoying woman in the Progressive Insurance ads.

Michigan kind of threw me. I’ve got a good friend there, but he’s a former Navy SeAL. This doesn’t look like him. But he could be logging on from a friend’s computer in an attempt to confound my new super powers.

Likewise I have a typical blonde Swedish-looking friend in Minnesota and this isn’t her. Unless she’s decided to get a make-over with dreadlocks.

 This visitor is just plain scary looking. But at least I can see where he lives — down to street level — on Google maps. Thank goodness he’d have to drive hundreds of miles to get to me.

So how accurate are these avatars?

Here’s what TracemyIP.org says in their FAQs:

Q: I am curious, how are those visitor avatar images assigned to each visitor. Do you know my visitors’ gender and age?

A: Since everyone deserves privacy, we do not go as far as determining the gender and age of your visitors, however, their behavior and demographics are analyzed by our proprietary algorithms (while adding some random factors as well) to approximate the mood and the gender of each visitor. Thus, the incognito avatars are assigned to each IP address. On the other hand, no guarantees are made at any point as for the accuracy of the representation. The visitor identification algorithms are primarily established to help you to differentiate each visitor to simplify the navigation within your logs.

I’m reading that to mean, they’re peeking through the InterWebs and WE CAN SEE YOU! WE CAN SEE WHAT YOU ARE WEARING! MMMMMWWWWAAAAAHAAAAHAAAHAAA.

Just being able to see you in your jammies as you surf my site is only the beginning of my fun with this doo-dad. I’m starting to get a picture of why people come to my blog. And it’s not what I was thinking. You all are fascinated by our Green Acres adventure from City Slickerdom to established vineyard owners, right? Well, not exactly.

A shocking number of you are looking for Christmas Songs. Okay, I did once write an entry called The Greatest Christmas Songs You’ve Never Heard. Many of you are also searching for Country and Cowboy Songs and I wrote a blog for you about The Top Ten Cowboy Songs of All Time. Now that I know what my audience wants, expect a post on the Top Ten Cowboy Christmas Songs. Watch this space.

Not sure I can fulfill all requests. Three people landed on this blog after a google search for “where did cowboys get food and water”. Well, I can tell you where they got wine.

And all those visitors still landing here after googling “Ryan Lochte naked”: yes, I wrote about the Olympics during my Beijing trip in August, but I NEVER posted nude pictures. (Well, Michael Phelps’ Speedos were a 

little “low” when he leaped out of the pool after the qualifying heat we watched.)

And the rest of you, come back and set a spell. But before you surf, you might want to change out of that raggedy underwear.

I CAN TOTALLY SEE YOU! Romper, Stomper, Bomper, BOO!

I’m getting myself geared up for NaBloPoMo or National Blog Posting Month, where you commit to posting once a day, every day for a month. And no cheating and writing 5 advanced posts on Sunday!

This is my flight check week.

 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, sulfite and bin lifting work. These aren’t winemakers, they are “wine babysitters.” I are one.

Since one of us at Two Terrier Vineyards still has a day job, I’m the one who’s been living in a barn for six weeks babysitting the four varietals we’re trying to shepherd from harvest to crush through primary and secondary fermentation. With Mourvedre, Grenache and Cinsault now resting in oak barrels and only the Cabernet in primary fermentation, there’s more time to leisurely discuss the process. Or the process as it happens in my world.

First thing, you wake up a little before six AM because that’s when suddenly frantic terriers are pawing you and barking to go out.

It’s pretty dark out now at six, so I’m keeping the barn lit up, as my husband would say, “like Blackpool Illuminations.” I know it’s not very energy appropriate, but since we’re way out in the wilds, I need the light perimeter to keep the resident Mountain Lion at bay. So at six, we’re walking gingerly around the available pools of light where we (hopefully) can see large felines before they leap on us and sever our vertebra.

When it’s finally light enough that we feel we can defend ourselves against large predatory cats, we begin the 1/2 mile walk from barn to crush pad. But first we have to stop at Lake Charles and bark at the water.

As we stroll through the vineyards, we pass many beautiful flowers in the Insectary. This is a dense planting of natives featuring year-round color and bloom to keep the beneficial birds and insects working to maintain pest-free grapes.

Here's an example of one of the plants in the Insectary.

It's crucial at this point to check under EVERY BUSH for lizards.

Finally we round the corner to the Crush Pad. Lucy leads the way.

Here's our pitiful Cabernet harvest in these small grey containers. Behind are the white bins that hold one ton of grapes and where we fermented our other varietals. Our Cab harvest was so small, we'll be lucky to get a few case out of it.

Still, the grapes are really foaming and bubbling as I punch them down. Fermentation is GO!

Then we do all the science stuff like checking temperature and specific gravity.

Everything is noted down in an extremely scientific manner.

Now we go into the wine cave to check on the other varietals that are aging in oak. Quick, check for lizards!

Then the half mile walk back to the barn through the vineyards. That's the Insectary on the right.

We notice that the Toyon and Madrone trees are putting out berries.

That brings out the foxes. Lots of them judging by the amount of poo. Some of us taste this just to be sure it is fox poo.

So you know that old term “Lather. Rinse. Repeat.” We basically do this whole routine two more times. Then it’s dark and the critters and scary things are coming out. So we barricade ourselves in the barn.

We're so tired at this point, we collapse and listen to country music. This is Oscar enjoying the Bakersfield Sound of Buck Owens.

That’s the drill. No romance. Lots of walking. Some scientific stuff. And lots of fox poo. Sante!

I’m getting myself geared up for NaBloPoMo or National Blog Posting Month, where you commit to posting once a day, every day for a month. And no cheating and writing 5 advanced posts on Sunday!

This is my flight check week.

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 with them. Living alone in the country in the loft of a barn with two terriers will do that to you.

Andy just left early this morning and now at 9PM, I’m already needing meds.

Okay, I’m sane enough to know that I can’t REALLY have a conversation with the stag I’ve taken to calling Chuck the Buck. But we do have a relationship.

Let me explain about Chuck the Buck (pictured above). While there are dozens of deer that traverse our property on their way to and from the state preserve that bounds our land, Chuck the Buck is by far the biggest. He also may be Mormon. At least he seems to have about seven wives. Most mornings I see him walking calmly up our road toward Lake Charles, our little man-made pond, with a gaggle of cute does.

Lately though, his marital status is seeming not so blissful. I haven’t actually talked to Chuck about this (see I’m not THAT crazy yet.) But he’s acting like he needs some time alone. If he had opposable thumbs, he’d probably be down on Sonoma Square at Steiner’s knocking back Jack Daniels shots.

Like clockwork every night for the past two weekends, he’s taken up a stance under a Coastal Live Oak at the end of the driveway to our barn and stood there for hours. Alone. We drive in late from dinner or grocery shopping and he’s standing there. And he’s not going to move for anything. Well, I wouldn’t expect

him to move for a Prius. From his size and the size of his antlers, I’m guessing my Prius would come out the worse in an altercation with him. But now, he’s starting to disrespect Andy’s Range Rover. We’ve gotten so we can drive in about ten yards from him, with the windows down and talking to him all the way and he doesn’t bat an eyelash. Only if we blink the lights off and on does he decide that he will move, slowly and disdainfully off a little bit to the side of the pasture.

Chuck's view of the barn from his special spot.

Tonight, knowing that he’d be there, I thought I’d walk out with my camera and catch a close-up picture of him. You can see how close I got to him in the ATV with the photo I caught of him above. However, armed with my camera and my new hotshoe light, I didn’t reckon on the one thing that apparently strikes terror into the hearts of wildlife. I opened the door to the barn letting out a blast of bluegrass fiddle music. (Yes, it’s all classic country all the time here at Two Terrier Vineyards. The terriers demand it.)

Chuck was on the alert and not ready to take anything for granted. He only let me get about 50 feet from him. And he certainly didn’t appreciate the blinding glare of my camera light.

Then Bill Monroe tuned up his fiddle and Chuck was off.

Obviously, Chuck is a Cold Play fan.

Note to Self: Even your fancy new hot-shoe camera light will NOT illuminate all of Sonoma. This was supposed to be a picture of Chuck at night under his tree.