Left Coast Cowboys

• Another Stephen Fowler/Wife Swap Pile-On
  Posted on Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 in blogging – Comments: (20)
  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!
• MoMo, The Red Sox, My Dad and God
  Posted on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 in history – Comments: (17)
  One thing I’ve learned from facing the slow, lingering death of a loved one is that no one can give you a roadmap for that journey. Even people who’ve been through it can only offer you limited advice because everyone faces death in their own way. What brought comfort to one person’s dying relative might not work in your situation. You’ve got to play it by ear.
• More Musings on Weird Crap Brits Eat
  Posted on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 in British husband – Comments: (8)
  After more than 20 years married to a Brit, I’m still amazed at their eating habits. Not only do they eat strange stuff like Marmite and Lucozade, but they give it bizarre names. Like Spotted Dick, Toad in the Hole, Rumbledy-Thump and the the ever amusing Drowned Baby. Add to the confusion, the tendency they have to call every dessert, whether it’s cake or ice cream or a fruit tart, a “pudding”.
• Disrespected by Foxes and Brussels Sprouts
  Posted on Friday, February 13th, 2009 in farming – Comments: (6)
  Remember how just a few weeks ago, I was complaining about the drought we’ve been having here in California? I’m not sure I would say it’s over, but we’ve had two weeks of back-to-back storms that have done a lot to alleviate things. Good news! Except that it’s keeping me from burying the evidence of one of my most glaring failures at Two Terrier Ranch.
• A Walk with John the Baptist
  Posted on Sunday, February 15th, 2009 in artisans – Comments: (4)
   One of the best decisions we made when we first got our land in Sonoma, was to throw up just a tent cabin and spend the next few years developing the land rather than buildings. Even the word “developing” has to be qualified. What we aimed to do was work with what was there, just making it a little bit tidier and a little more accessible.
• Selling Firewater to the White Man
  Posted on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 in musings – Comments: (4)
  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”.
• Shamelessly Pandering to My Eastern European Fanbase
  Posted on Friday, February 27th, 2009 in blogging – Comments: (4)
  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.
• Now is the Winter of My Discontent
  Posted on Saturday, February 28th, 2009 in farming – Comments: (4)
  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.
• Winemaking Solution: Throw a Little Brit at the Problem
  Posted on Monday, February 16th, 2009 in guns – Comments: (3)
  Last week, Two Terrier Vineyards hosted a prestigious group: The McNabb Family of England. Old friends from way back, the McNabbs are also very knowledgeable about wine. Knowledgeable as in lifelong oenophiles with two members (Paul and John) being graduates of a prestigious and difficult wine course in France which I understand is aimed at training top level sommeliers.You may ask if we were nervous having such distinguished palates at Two Terrier Vineyards.
• The Sprouts are Dead, Long Live the Fava Beans
  Posted on Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 in farming – Comments: (3)
  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.

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.”

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.

Remember how just a few weeks ago, I was complaining about the drought we’ve been having here in California? I’m not sure I would say it’s over, but we’ve had two weeks of back-to-back storms that have done a lot to alleviate things. Good news! Except that it’s keeping me from burying the evidence of one of my most glaring failures at Two Terrier Ranch.

Yes, I’m talking about those Brussels Sprouts. The Sprouts that I was sure I could grow as a winter crop until two heat waves determined that we would have no real winter this year in California. As steamy hot weather often does in inner city areas, our heat waves turned my Brussels Sprouts into juvenile delinquents. Instead of staying polite tight heads, they sprawled out into big blowsy untidy monsters. They were the Sharks and Jets of the vegetable kingdom. If they had been ambulatory, they would have been down in Sonoma Square throwing bricks through shop windows. Instead, they just blowsed out into horrible “Little Shop of Horrors” plants that constantly thumbed their little Brusselly noses at me. Just when I decided I had to chop them down and feed them to the compost pile, the skies opened and we had buckets of rain.

So for the last two weeks, I’ve had to look out into my raised beds and confront my first gardening failure. They really stood out since I’ve let the rest of the beds go fallow while I grow Fava Beans as “green manure”. It was only today, contemplating my Fava Beans that I noticed something else that was wrong.

I laid these Fava Beans out in neat rows. Why are they looking all random?

Why indeed? The answer appeared when I left the deck and went down on the soggy ground next to the beds.

Seems someone has been digging up my planted beans, chewing off the tender shoots and throwing them outside the beds.

Yes, we mistakenly thought the deer would be the big threat to our vegetable garden. We never thought of the foxes.

The deer-proof fence has plenty of room for foxes to slip under.

I knew the foxes could get under the deer-proof fence, but since they left the tomatoes and corn alone and only took the occasional melon, I thought we had a sort of detente going. Apparently not. It seems to be war.

How do I know the foxes are the culprits? Because, I happen to own the Big Bumper Book of Poo and I can identify the tracks and scat of any North American mammal.

Busted! By the poo and the tracks, I know the foxes are the culprits.

So I’m getting out the heavy artillery. Can you guess what this is:

Ten points if you guessed that this is a British Army issue sniper's glove. Yes, I'm ready to bring out the big guns.

Okay, I’m not yet ready to kill anything. Although I do have a seventeen year old with an air rifle on stand-by. 

And about those Brussels Sprouts? Rain or no rain tomorrow, out comes the machete and THEY ARE GOING DOWN!

It’s a war zone out here and you’ve gotta be Rambo.

As we do on the first of every month, here’s a roundup of the most popular posts from last month. Below you’ll find an excerpt of each. Click on the title to read the full post.

• Woman Gives Birth to World’s Most Beautiful Baby
  Posted on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 in learnin’ – Comments: (17)
  At 8AM the call came in and I sprang into action. I was Plan B. My friends Rob and Susi were having a baby. Plan A was “Dad assists in the delivery room”. But after several shaky childbirth classes, it was decided there should be a Plan B, also known as “Sixties Dad Plan”. That’s the plan where the woman does the work with trained professionals and the dad paces the waiting room, maybe nipping out for a quick Scotch and a smoke.
• Of Brussels Sprouts and Blog Awards
  Posted on Sunday, January 11th, 2009 in blogging – Comments: (13)
  So yesterday I was shamelessly pimping for votes for the Ninth Annual Weblog Awards, The 2009 Bloggies. Today, I’ve sunk even further. I found out the Blogger’s Choice Awards were accepting nominations. Having no shame at this point, I nominated myself. Went out for the day and came back to dozens of hits on my site directly from the Blogger’s Choice site.
• Resolute with Resolutions: First the Diet One
  Posted on Friday, January 2nd, 2009 in British husband – Comments: (10)
  Aw, yes. Resolutions. I have to make them this year and, of course, the old “lose weight and get in shape” one is topping the list. We all know it’s much easier to accomplish when you have a partner. But it doesn’t work very well in a house with an Englishman.Me: We need to get in shape this year.Andy: Great, I’m right there with you.
• When CyberSpace Becomes All Too Real
  Posted on Saturday, January 24th, 2009 in blogging – Comments: (10)
  Last week I lost a friend. Between the time that I wrote that first line and when I was able to resume was about half an hour. I spent the time staring at my screen and wondering how to write this post. In fact, it’s taken me more than a week to attempt it.You see, my friend was someone I’d never met in person.
• My Friend Who Died
  Posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 in learnin’ – Comments: (9)
  A friend of mine died last week. I should clarify that this was someone who used to be the closest of friends. That friendship ended long before his life did. And that’s been troubling me all this week. How do you honor and acknowledge the death of a friend when the friendship died years ago?The short-form version of the story: this friend, who I’ll call B, was someone my husband and I knew and were close to for nearly twenty years.
• And Now For Something Completely Different
  Posted on Monday, January 26th, 2009 in British husband – Comments: (9)
   I’ve had some pretty heavy posts recently. Let’s lighten it up. And there’s nothing funnier than the weird shit I’m now pulling out of my kitchen. You see, we’ve lived in our San Francisco house for more than 20 years and I’m doing the once-every-few-decades complete clean-out. This weekend was the kitchen, a project that threatens to continue throughout the week. Or maybe never end.
• When Cyber Friends Get Real
  Posted on Sunday, January 4th, 2009 in blogging – Comments: (8)
  Over a year ago, just when I started blogging, I got involved with a Flickr group called Project365. It’s a collection of users of the on-line photo posting group, from all over the world and of all different photographic skill levels, who commit to taking and posting one picture a day for a full calendar year. Now, heading into my second year of the project (you can start at any time), I have to say the project was transformative in more ways than I could have imagined.
• So You Are All Complaining About the Snow. Well, The Flip Side Ain’t Pretty Either.
  Posted on Friday, January 30th, 2009 in farming – Comments: (8)
  Our weather in Northern California is possibly even scarier. We’re now in our second extended period of record high, sunny weather since mid-December. It wasn’t much different than sunny and dry last month either. The Sierra snowpack that is our water lifeline is barely 60% of normal. This has been a long time coming. I remember when I moved here over 20 years ago, it was routine to ski over Thanksgiving break.
• Terrier Dancing At The Gate
  Posted on Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 in dogs – Comments: (7)
  Even after more than twenty years living in San Francisco, I’m still astounded at the great beauty of all the natural and open spaces we have just in this City (not to mention the many more just outside City limits.) I was struck anew when I took two stir-crazy dogs out today to Crissey Field on the Bay side of the Golden Gate for some much needed exercise.
• Your Vote Can Change the World
  Posted on Saturday, January 10th, 2009 in blogging – Comments: (7)
  The last election already proved that voting can shake things up and change the status quo. Now, I’m calling on you to do it again.Yes, the Ninth Annual Weblog Awards, The 2009 Bloggies, are now accepting nominations. You know you’ve been coming to this site for a glimpse of the World’s Most Beautiful Baby, to follow the antics of the Wonder Terriers, to find obscure Christmas tunes and, in general, to learn what not to do when attempting organic farming, bio-dynamic wine making and Green Acres style “city slicker to country bumpkin” type life changes.