Left Coast Cowboys

An English poet, other than the one referenced above, said “April is the cruelest month.” Not to argue with the inestimable Mr. Eliot (who riffed here on Mr. Chaucer), but I would suggest that February is crueler. Especially if you are a novice farmer. Certainly if you are one in California.

February is the month where everything is dormant. Unless you’ve planted a winter crop. Let me amend that: unless you’ve planted a winter crop that survived. Frequent readers of this blog have followed the heart-breaking results of my attempt to grow Brussels Sprouts. Our two heat waves in January, in addition to a concerted guerrilla effort by militant foxes (and I don’t mean Charlie’s Angels) have convinced me that you can’t grow Brussels Sprouts in Sonoma Valley. (For my travails with those Brussels Sprouts, check here and here.)

My delinquent Brussels Sprouts that, instead of tight tasty heads, were bitter, blowsy cabbages.

Fine. Lesson learned. Time to move on to the next round of chores. Not so easy. January and February have been spent alternately fretting that we are heading into a major drought and drowning in the torrential rains we’ve had since early February. While I don’t want to complain about the rain — we need it desperately — it has meant my whole schedule has been dictated by the few clear days between storms. I’ve been dropping everything at the first sign of the sun and rushing up to Sonoma to do chores before the next downpour. The disheartening aspect of all this is that state water officials are saying we are going to need rainstorms of Biblical proportions to get us away from rationing. Central Valley farmers are already scaling back their planting plans by a third. Our reservoirs and snowpack are still way below normal. Even a few weeks of torrential rains can’t do much against three years of drought. We’re now officially in a “drought emergency“.

In summation, my farming for February has been confined to evaluating and ordering composting equipment on the Internet. Well, as the San Francisco 49ers have been saying for ages now: “It’s a rebuilding year.”

It never fails. When I post up something that hits Google with keywords like “cowboy”, “country music”, “Indians” or “Wild West”, Eastern Europe goes wild — judging from my stats. After yesterday’s post about taking my mother to an Indian Casino, there was hardly a soul east of the Elbe who wasn’t tuning in. However much of that traffic could be attributed to the fact that I served up some choice pre-surgery Kenny Rogers. Better yet, he was singing with the Muppets. I imagine the Internet cafes were buzzing as Czechs, Slovaks, Bulgarians and others sang along to “The Gambler”.

So since I’m on a roll here, let’s kick it up a notch.

How about the greatest Country singer ever. Johnny Cash. With the Muppets! You may say Miss Piggy is no Patsy Cline, but she gives June Carter Cash a run for her money, at least in attitude.

Hey Bosnia and Herzegovina, this one’s for YOU!

Thanks to dailymail.co.uk for the image of the guys in traditional Bavarian dress.

By the way, after failing miserably with February’s NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), I’m making the commitment for March.

I went up to visit my mother this weekend in Lake County. It’s the next county over from Napa, but a world away. I won’t say she lives in a One Horse Town — her town probably has more horses than cars in it which is great. It’s real Cowboy Country. But it does only have one main street. Except for the paved highway and the Espresso shop, it probably doesn’t look much different from when Lily Langtry first showed up there in the 1800s determined to put her money into a winery that would make “the Best Claret in California”.

But now there is a very large addition: a shiny new Indian Casino and hotel. Well, there used to be a casino there, but it was in a large tent structure. Now the Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians have got themselves a new hotel, permanent gambling hall, two fancy new restaurants and an events center. So what are you going to do with your 75-year-old mother on a Saturday night in Cowboy Country but go gamble with the Indians?

The Pomo Indians are doing a bang up business at their new casino. A rainy Sunday afternoon and the lot was full.

Okay, full disclosure: this isn’t the first time I’ve brought my mother to an Indian Casino. I once booked tickets to Liza Minelli in a place that I thought was a “resort and spa”. After driving for hours through the wilderness, we arrived to discover that Cache Creek was a casino operated by the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians.

With time to kill before the show, I told my mother we should get some quarters and play the slots. Since my mother had never gambled before, she wanted to know how. I instructed her to find a machine she liked, preferably one she’d seen people feeding lots of quarters into without a win, then stake it out and only gamble what seemed like a reasonable amount for the “entertainment”. Like five dollars. I gave her a few bucks in quarters and said we’d split the takings if she won. My mother found a machine where three pinto horse heads in a row would guarantee you a win, inserted a dollar’s worth of quarters and BINGO! Big win, flashing lights and pounds of quarters come pouring out. A couple hundred dollars worth.

I still say the Indian Casino would be better with a Wild West theme. Then my mother could ride her horse Little Joe up into the saloon. Joe looks excited about the plan.

The real surprise was yet to come. After cashing in our chips, I started to divide the money between us. “No”, whispered my mother. “You never count your money while you’re sittin’ at the table. There’ll be time enough for counting when the dealin’ is done.”

Quickly recovering from the shock of hearing my mother quote Kenny Rogers to me, I pocketed our winnings. See, my mother “knows when to hold ‘em and knows when to fold ‘em.” So heading to the new Indian casino for dinner, I knew I was in practiced company.

Twin Pine Casino is a nice facility as these things go. I think the Pomo Indians missed a real opportunity. They should have gone for a real Wild West saloon look with swinging doors, dance hall girls and spittoons. Then my mother and her friends could have ridden their horses into the gambling hall, six guns blazing and thrown down their winning hands. Hey, her friends are real cowgirls. They could do it!

Instead, we donned high heels and opted for dinner at their fancy new restaurant, Manzanita. I’ll tell you, for a hunter-gatherer tribe that originally subsisted on acorn flour, the Pomos cook a mean filet mignon. They are also pushing some pretty good signature cocktails.

Come to find out, the Pomos have pretty much got a lock on the booze franchise in that town. They run the local brewpub, the Mount Saint Helena Brewing Company. They’re raising grapes and doing a deal with Langtry’s old winery to produce a full line of wines. Now they’ve got two restaurants and a food court in their casino. Remember, this is a town with one main street. Basically, if you want a drink in this town, you’ll be buying it from the Indians.

My mother is a graduate of the Kenny Rogers School of Gambling. Don't laugh, she wins big!

And that has a supreme irony to it. Apparently the gentle Pomo Indians were subjected to some of the worst campaigns of planned genocide of any of America’s Natives. First the Spanish showed up, enslaved them and forced them to build the Missions. Then the Russian fur traders appeared on the coast, kidnapping their women as sex slaves. Finally, Gold Rush happened and the few Indians who survived were disenfranchised and left on land poisoned by the toxic byproducts of mining. After these misadventures, the Pomo were reduced in number by two-thirds after less than a hundred years. Even today, the Pomo are fighting mining companies and corporations like Boise Cascade that are polluting water feeding into their lands. (If you think you can stomach it, read more here and here.)

So if you find yourself in Lake County, stop by and see the Pomos. Hey, and order doubles and lose big at the tables. We owe them.

Note: Thinking of taking up gambling? Take lessons from Kenny Rogers and the Muppets!

I may be the last person in America or maybe in the English speaking world who has just discovered the huge steaming pile of sanctimonious, arrogant ego that is Stephen Fowler. But that’s because I don’t watch reality TV. (And hey, don’t accuse me of being elitist. I love my TV. I’m just watching too many episodes of Law & Order to fit in non-crime-oriented programming!)

So for the three other people in the Western world who don’t know who Stephen Fowler is, let me recap. He was the husband in a recent episode of “Wife Swap”, the reality show that takes two completely different families, swaps the wives for a week or so and films the culture clash that results.

Actually, it doesn’t need to be a culture clash. One reality show that I watched on DVD was by Morgan Spurlock (of “Super-Size Me” fame), an FX series called 30 Days. Operating on a similar premise, Spurlock had diametrically opposed people switch places for a month (An NRA gun nut went to a Quaker family. A Fundamentalist Christian went to live with a gay San Francisco couple.) What was fascinating about the series was how much both parties were changed for the better by the experience. For instance, the homophobe realized he liked and respected the gay couple, even though he still had difficulty reconciling his religious beliefs with their orientation. And the gay couple started to understand how someone they learned was basically a good person could come to have such views about them. Each participant left after the 30 days, not always in perfect agreement, but profoundly changed — mostly because all participants had the wisdom to open themselves to the possibility of learning something from someone different. 

Stephen Fowler did not go into his Wife Swap experience with the same openness. Even before he met his “swapped wife”, Gayla, a woman from a small town in Missouri, both he and his wife sneered at the fact that “she probably didn’t have an education” and indicated that they expected her to be stupid, undereducated and “without a clue”.

I want you to be as shocked as I am about the behavior of both Stephen Fowler and his wife. So I won’t catalog the rudeness, arrogance and abuse Fowler heaped upon his poor swapped wife. I’ll let you view it here.

Both the Fowlers have issued apologies of a sort via her website (which someone seems to have hacked by superimposing a giant slab of bacon over it!) Why am I left thinking their apology is more about damage control than a real change of heart?

In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you what really makes me so mad about the Fowlers. They are from San Francisco AND FROM MY NEIGHBORHOOD. In fact literally two streets over. He’s a Brit, she’s a Yank just as Andy and I are — a combination I usually think combines the best of two worlds. Therefore, I feel I owe Gayla, Midwesterners, Military families, high school graduates and everyone else the Fowlers offended a personal apology from our house to your houses. And I’ve got plenty to say to all the players. Here goes

Gayla: Yes, you are “only” a high school graduate from Missouri. But your common sense, innate decency and compassion puts me in mind of someone else from Missouri who had only a high school education and initially worked low-paying jobs. His name was Harry Truman. He did all right. You will, too.

Stephen Fowler: There isn’t a blog post long enough to catalog your transgressions. Although the many entries on the site StephenFowlerSucks.com — and outpouring of disgust toward you in the blogosphere — certainly make a good start.

But what I find the most unforgivable aspect of your behavior is that you foisted your prejudice, rudeness and social ineptitude onto your own children. The lessons you should be teaching your children are those of compassion, respect and understanding. Or, since you state you are in the 99.99th percentile of human intelligence, are those values the top .01% don’t need to bother with?

Renee Fowler: Shame on you as well. You had the sense to be humiliated at your husband’s behavior when he was insulting Gayla to her face, but you, in a less flamboyant way, were just as rude, closed-minded and nasty.

You style yourself “A Certified Life Coach”? I don’t know much about that racket, but I would assume it requires some degree of understanding your clients’ lifestyles and gently and enthusiastically encouraging them to make positive changes. I guess I missed you working on that part. Your professional credentials are very much in question as we watch how you initially “coached” Alan and the boys to make diet and lifestyle changes by acting arrogant and sneering. Is that how you, as you say, “redirect your clients’ energy”? Thank goodness you eventually modified your approach and, luckily, were able, with their increased openness, to make some positive changes in their lives. 

But maybe you should forget the clients for awhile and focus on your husband. And your kids! As Gayla deduced within hours of meeting them, they are overscheduled little robots who don’t seem to have any ability to socialize. Plus you’ve got a lot of deprogramming work ahead of you undoing the cruelty, arrogance and disregard for fellow humans that your husband so ably taught them. Get to work. Hint: you might call up Gayla for some tips.

"Wife Swap" left a bad taste in your mouth? Morgan Spurlock shows you swaps that really change lives.

Gayla’s husband, Alan, and the boys: Alan, first let me congratulate you on being your small town’s mayor. Clearly, you show by action that you care more about America than Stephen does with all his posturing. You are more sinned against than sinning here. I know you didn’t get the most positive “life coaching”. But since it was just for a week, couldn’t you have been a little more open to hearing about another way of eating or pursuing recreation? But I’m nitpicking. Eventually you and the boys did allow yourselves to learn a little about nutrition from Renee and even embraced French lessons. If the value of an education is not a head full of facts but an openness to new ideas, new ways of doing things and other cultures, well, you guys are more “educated” than that pompous twit and his judgmental wife. Keep up the good work. (By the way, I’m pretty opposed to burning fossil fuels needlessly, so I’m not sure I like all the ATVing you do. But, I applaud your core goal, to embrace activities that the whole family, from youngest to oldest, can enjoy together. Guess that’s a lesson you can teach all of us.)

The sentence I impose on all: watch Morgan Spurlock’s 30 Days series and see a “swap” that brings disparate people — and you, the viewer — to new levels of understanding. It’s what the Sioux used to call “walking a mile in another man’s moccasins.” Try it.

And ABC, I want Fowler and his wife to undergo a rematch swap. Can we send them to a family in Mongolia? And keep them there? Oh, and let that poor Fowler boy go to Missouri for a visit and play some fun paintball games with the Longs instead of being forced by his father to fence(!) which he obviously hates.

Taking advantage of a rare break between our back to back storms, I rushed up to Sonoma to finally deal with those rogue Brussels Sprouts. You’ll remember, these are the sprouts that went feral after our two heat waves in January and blowsed out into fist size cabbages instead of tight little heads. (Note to self: outside of the coastally cooled areas, you cannot grow Brussels Sprouts in California.) So up they came and into the compost pile. Then I added to the fava beans I’m already growing as cover crops in some of my raised beds.

Plus I think I’ve found a way to foil the foxes that are sneaking under the gates of the raised beds and snacking on tender fava roots.

Let's see those little varmints try to get under this netting I've got protecting my young seeds.

Much as I love fava beans, I’m not sure if I’ll be harvesting these. I may plow them back into the soil as green mulch after I’ve determined that they’ve “fixed” nitrogen into the soil. And my latest reading tells me exactly how to determine that. Apparently, I yank them up just before they fruit and check the nodules on the roots. If they are pink, nitrogen is fixed. This is a dangerous bit of knowledge for a rank amateur such as myself. I can imagine I’ll be digging up and replanting favas repeatedly as I’ll be wondering every week if they are working.

Fava beans are so sweet. They even have little smiley faces.

In other notes from Two Terrier Vineyards:

We’ve sighted a coyote, so I guess they are returning to the area. Hopefully, they’ll start cleaning out those gophers and crowding out the foxes.

Our extensive drain and culvert system has held up well during our two week drenching. Except for this walled oak. Hopefully, it will drain out before the poor guy drowns.

This poor Oak cluster is now moated.

This "seasonal creek" is a trickle in summer. In fact, it was a trickle just two weeks ago. Now it's an Olympic sized swimming pool.

With several good sized waterfalls.

Finally, I’ve seeded our small meadow with California native wildflowers. Well, “seeded” makes it sound like I did some active planting, which I didn’t. Plants under my tender care are subjected to Darwinian stress tests. Only the fittest survive. So I strewed seeds out randomly like Johnny Appleseed. We’ll see how that works out.

How tough are these Natives? We'll see if they survive my Darwinian planting method.