Left Coast Cowboys

A new project here is to photograph and catalog all the Native California and Sonoma wildflowers that are growing around our little slice of heaven. John the Baptist and Louis are leading the charge by bringing me examples of flowers they find in their trailbuilding work. For now,these bouquets will have to serve as my educational pieces as I’m finding it a lot easier to get good photographs in the wild than when the flowers are picked. I believe I’ve also made my position clear on using common names instead of the Latin. A California Native don’t need no steenkin’ Latin. (Sharp eyes might notice the yellow flower outside the vase that has been chewed and stomped by terriers. It’s one of our despised mustard plants. Decidedly NOT native.)

Here’s a selection of flowers I’ll be searching for this weekend to photograph in the wild:

The white showy flower is Star Lily. I'll give its Latin name since it's named after John C. Fremont, pioneer and relentless booster of California statehood: Zigadenus fremontii.

The orange flower is one of my personal favorites, Sticky Monkey Flower. The red brushy one is Indian Warrior.

Here's a beauty: Checker Lily or Mission Bells.

The name for this one seems to have gone right out of my head. According to my flower book, it looks like Blue Dick or Dichelostemma capitatum.

This poor orange guy is getting a bit crushed, but he's an Indian Paintbrush.

This weekend, we’re going on a Wildflower Safari.

The first tour will be along the banks of The World's Most Beautiful Drainage Ditch.

Addendum: Let me know, Informed Readers, if I’ve misidentified anything.

Kermit the Frog had it right. It’s not easy being Green. It’s even harder being Native. Tell it to Sitting Bull. That doesn’t stop us from fighting the good fight here at Two Terrier Vineyards. We are blessed with a unique piece of land. Unique mostly because it was neglected for probably hundreds of years. While we have evidence — grinding stones and arrowheads — to proved that Miwok and other local Indians used this as thruway, it seems most later inhabitants left it alone. There is some ancient barbed wire on the outer perimeter of our land that would indicate the sometime presence of cattle, but the oldest Sonoma residents I’ve spoken with all say this particular plot was always “the back of beyond”. What is truly unique about our little 40 acres of Heaven is that it seems to be a bit of an ecological anomaly. We’re too far East for Giant Pacific Salamanders and too hot for Redwoods, but we seem to have both in abundance. John the Baptist was telling me that naturalists say the Giant Pacific Salamander is so reclusive that it’s a coup to find one after a week of searching. John and Louis have seen up to fifteen in a day in our creek. I’ve even found one at the exact moment that I actually had a camera handy with the right lens attached. I can’t tell you what a “blue moon” moment that is. So we must have a unique Giant Pacific Salamander refuge going on here.

A Pacific Giant Salamander caught swimming in our seasonal creek. Apparently, one of many.

A few of our Redwoods. Or perhaps Ents from Lord of the Rings.

Those Redwoods, of course, frequent visitors to this site will know are special treasures here. They shouldn’t actually be this far into the hot climes of Sonoma County. Yet here they are in a little gully leading to our seasonal creek. Several good stands of them that are estimated to be over 500 years old.

Which is what brings me to the subject of mustard. When you have a unique environment such as ours, you can’t imagine how hard it is to keep it pure. Our “landscaping” efforts (and the quotation marks around landscaping are meant to be completely ironic) have been confined to restoring native habitat. With a few notable misteps.

Here's the offending Mustard. (Terrier shown for scale.)

That would be the Mustard. It’s everywhere. It’s the look of off-season wine country. A plant that fixes nitrogen in fallow vineyards, then gets plowed in  as green manure. It was actually brought here by the Spanish Conquistadors in the 1500s. But it’s not Native.

And that makes it beneath contempt for our Native Storm Troopers, John the Baptist and Louis. Think of them as the Native Americans who took over Alcatraz in the late 60s.

I try to talk to them about the heritage of mustard in California Wine Country and they are having none of it. They are Ghost Dancers. Bring back the old ways. When I pass John and Louis on the property I can hear the hiss through clenched teeth: “Mustard. SSS. Damn. Mustard.” See, what we should have planted are Lupines. Apparently, they fix nitrogen just as efficiently. But they are Native. And Natives are as vulnerable as the Sioux were to Smallpox and Measles. You let those infected interlopers in and it’s all over.

Baby Lupines. John the Baptist and Louis say that's what I should have planted in the vineyards.

So it doesn’t matter how traditional Mustard has become. Your protestations that it’s pretty will never drown out the hissing of John and Louis, “Mustard! Damn Mustard!”

That means an emergency call to our Vineyard Manager. If there is anything that should be in ironic quotation marks, it’s Vineyard Manager. Disabuse yourself of any notion of an effete guy in a a beret. Our Vineyard Manager is named Clarence. He wears overalls and a cowboy hat. He’s a farmer. But he’s Old Skool Sonoma. And that means a guy who plants Mustard in the fallow season. So I’ve got to call him up and tell him Crazy Horse’s Love Children have told me that Mustard must die. Or at least be cut down and plowed under before it can seed.

I can imagine how Clarence is going to laugh at this one. It’s  going to be like the second war on the frontier. But my money’s on John and Louis.

I think we are looking at revisionist history here. This will be the stand-off where the Native Americans win.

Addendum: Don’t know a California Native from a hole in the ground? John the Baptist is recommending this book:

John and his wife, who know the author, swear by this book.

Best thing about it? It categorizes plants by something we amateurs can all get behind: color!

Why don't horticulturists realize that this is the easiest way for us amateurs to spot plants?

What a difference a month makes. Especially in Sonoma. Especially if that month is January. Especially, especially if it’s an El Nino January. Buckets of rain have been coming down for what seems like weeks. But Saturday offered a rare sunny break and a chance to corral the terriers and walk the back 40 to see how everything was holding up. The first thing we encountered was a lovely little sylan stream, complete with Hobbit-sized waterfalls, running along the back fence. Since this area is usually filled with trash that idiots throw over our fence and into our property, this change was a nice surprise. I got very excited and immediately went into naming mode — as every rock and wide spot in the road has a name here. I’d settled on Danthonia Creek, naming it after Danthonia californica or California Oatgrass, which happens to be one of the few natives I can reliably identify. Then John the Baptist came by to disabuse me of the notion that I’ve got a new creek. Yes, he and Louis cleaned it up and made it what it is, but apparently they can’t make it spring-fed, which he is insisting is the definition of a creek. What I’ve got, apparently, is a drainage ditch. But Danthonia Ditch just doesn’t have the same ring.

Well, no sense getting stuck in semantics. There was so much else to see.

The Goat Rocks are covered by this great multi-colored lichen. Perfect for Terrier King of the Hill posing..

Why are they called Goat Rocks? Because at one time we thought some goats that we might get would enjoy them. Then we changed our minds and decided to get burros. But by then the rocks were named.

Moving right along: ’shrooms were popping up everywhere.

You won't catch us harvesting these. As bad as I am identifying flowers, I'm taking no chances with a plant that might kill me.

Also blooming were these great little flowers.

Which someone will probably tell me is a weed. Flowers I like are always turning out to be weeds.

In the vineyards, the buds aren't yet ready to break on the trimmed grape vines.

But the mustard is as high as a terriers eye.

Dead and dying branches have been trimmed from our Manzanita grove. And piled neatly as living space for small critters.

The coyotes had thoughtfully left some deer legs for Oscar to munch on.

Which it looked as if he might have to fight vultures to keep.

So our perambulations done, Oscar retired by the woodstove with an even better chewie.

His George Bush stuffed toy, which he's not giving up no matter how many administrations come and go.

All the pictures from our foray, here.

Earlier this week, I braved a rare break in our winter storms to get up to Sonoma and check the progress that John the Baptist and Louis have made in our trails and vulnerable flood areas. After last year’s storms, the rains that filled our seasonal creek, in addition to a number of felled trees, caused massive erosion. John and Louis swore it wouldn’t happen again. They’ve been busy for weeks with straw bales and logs and rocks to shore up banks, build run-off channels and divert rainwater from flood-prone areas. After bushwhacking down our most vulnerable trail, I have to say, there’s nothing Mother Nature can throw at us that John and Louis haven’t built defenses against. Not that Mother Nature would want to thwart John and Louis. She’s never looked this good in our neck of the woods. And every lady of a certain age certainly appreciates a little cosmetic help.

For instance, look at this lovely sylvan scene. Untouched Nature at its best, no? NO. This area has had more work by experts than Cher’s face. But the results are equally impressive.

Artful arranging of rocks, wire-screened underwater breakwaters and felled trees have resulted in this beautifully channeled waterway.

C'mon. This is like a Hollywood set. Don't you just expect Jeremiah Johnson to ride through here?

Last year, this whole bank eroded. This year, a John and Louis waterfall is channeling the runoff.

As always, I learned tons of things on a John and Louis Nature Walk. For instance, did you know that this foam is perfectly natural? Some sort of protein stirred up when the water is running quickly.

And here I was worried someone was polluting my creek with Joy dishwashing detergent.

John even located a piece of petrified Redwood.

Which I was so excited to see that I couldn't properly focus my camera. Note to self: rephotograph this at a later date.

And let's give Mother Nature a little credit for dressing things up with lovely mosses and ferns.

John and Louis also pointed out some really cool plants that are starting to sprout. But it was too wet to take out my notebook, so I promptly forgot what they are. But I’m assured they are very special.

Hopefully John or another reader will leave a comment identifying this plant. Update: as you can see from the comments, John the Baptist weighed in identifying this as Golden back fern (Pityrogramma).

And this plant, too. Update: Reader Maybelline correctly identified this as a Maidenhair fern. John the Baptist confirms it.

I’d planned to start a Two Terrier Nature Series on this blog, identifying and showcasing our many native plants. But I realize I’m going to have to do a lot better than this. Note to self: carry pens and notebook at all times.

In the meantime, bring on the rain! We’re ready.

Today we faced the final and most daunting physical task of our winemaking, getting the Cabernet picked, crushed and into primary fermentation. We have four varietals, but we’ve planted more Cabernet than the other three put together. So we knew, whatever we’d gone through with the Mourvedre, Grenache and Cinsault, we’d need at least to double that for the Cabernet harvest. Luckily, Cousin John came to the rescue. And Cousin John is definitely someone you want on your side in a pinch. He’s sort of the Indiana Jones of California as he works with archeology teams uncovering Indian burial grounds as well as performing half a dozen other varied careers. In addition, he spent his formative years in Sonoma, so he knows where all the bodies are buried. Especially when they are Native American bodies. Stuff like that always comes in handy.

Another of Cousin John’s identities — he’s a forager. He runs around Sonoma picking things and making foodstuffs out of them. Or more often making alcoholic beverages from them. Sometimes he hits (his Walnut cordial), sometimes he misses (we’re not talking about that strawberry wine fiasco). But he’s a guy who could live off the land if he needed to. He’s also the kind of guy who will work for grapes. So we just had to set aside some crushed grapes for his own little fermentation and he was happy to help. More on that later because Cousin John’s idea of winemaking is a little more radical than ours.

Anyway, another great thing about Cousin John showing up was that I could finally take pictures of our process, such as it is.

Here's Cousin John dumping a bin of grapes off the top of the crush pad into the crusher/destemmer. Usually I do this. But I get more grapes in Andy's hair.

Speaking of grapes. We had loads this year.

Here are two vats of picked grapes. We had FOUR total. That's what is known in the industry as a "sh*tload of grapes." (Actually this would be nothing in the real winemaking world, but it's a lot for amateurs.)

So hours and hours of grape processing later, we finally came to the end of the last vat.

Wait! Here's Cousin John dumping the last grapes into the hopper. That means Harvest 2009 DONE!

Remember I told you Cousin John has a different philosophy of winemaking than we do? Well, let me put it this way. Remember this dude, Mr. Natural?

Let's just say Cousin John is his spiritual son.

When I say Cousin John is Mr. Natural Junior, I mean he ferments the way the Sumerians would. He don’t need no steenkin’ UC Davis yeast, he don’t need no steenkin’ sulfite, he don’t worry about no steenkin’ clean practices. Actually, I couldn’t bear to take pictures of Cousin John crouched in front of his bin of Cabernet combing through the grapes and crushing it with his bare (and unwashed) hands. Given how Andy makes me practically do a surgical scrub up before I even contemplate looking at our fermenting grapes. Well, let’s just say Cousin John’s method is painful to my eyes. But Cousin’s John’s Cab will be fermenting on the our crush pad, so we’ll see who makes the better wine in the end.

Hey, Cousin John’s Cab. That sounds like a Grateful Dead song!

Come drink Cousin John’s Cab

As natural as the tide

Drink it plain or with a scone

Cousin John’s Cabernet stands alone.

Okay, digression. But it’s not out of context to think of counterculture figures when you are around Cousin John. Here’s another example: we went for a walk down our redwood creekside trail to show Cousin John the Miwok or Pomo grinding stone we’d found. The Native tribes around here traditionally subsisted on a flour they ground from acorns. So wherever you find a seasonal creek and oak trees in Sonoma, you often find a grinding stone. Well, Cousin John put on his Indiana Jones hat, started rooting around in the moss and found half a dozen more on the same site!

Here's our grinding rock. Think of a gigantic mortar and pestle.

Here's Cousin John lifting back the moss and finding six more!

And here he explains the geological and cultural significance of the grinding rock.

Actually, there is technical term for these things that isn’t “grinding stone”. (John says that would be something portable.) These would have been grinding spots developed on migration routes and used over centuries by numerous tribes.

After this adventure, we ended the day with a cassoulet I’d been slow cooking all day.

Cousin John had three helpings and pronounced it "restaurant quality".

Did I mention how much I like Cousin John?

Note in the interest of full disclosure: Cousin John is not my cousin, but the cousin of my eccentric friend Julian. But after today, we’re adopting him.