Left Coast Cowboys

When we first bought this land, we had nothing but a tent cabin to sleep in. Every night we used to hear the coyotes howling. However, we only saw one once. He was large as a German Shepherd, glossy and completely unconcerned as the dogs jumped up and down on the tent cabin bed barking at him. He threw them a disdainful glance and loped past us down the path. We haven’t seen or heard one since. Until, John the Baptist and Louis told me recently that they’d seen two large adult coyotes and two, maybe three, younger ones playing in the brush around the barn. We laughed and dubbed them Wiley, Wilma and the Kids.

Now the large male seems to have staked out the barn and pasture as his territory. I’ve seen him twice in this past week. Which given the nature of coyotes, probably means he’s been lurking around here all the time. Both times he’s been strolling along the dirt road from our back gate up to the vineyards. I’ve had more time to observe him than you usually get with coyote. He’s not the scrawny coyotes that I used to see raiding garbage cans in LA. Or the skittery little coyotes you sometimes see in the southern deserts of California. And, believe me, this is no buffoonish Wile E. Coyote. From his glossy pelt, bushy tail and loose-limbed lope to his arrogant glances, it’s clear, this is Coyote, with a capital C, the Trickster God of Native American legend.

One depiction of Coyote as a Man-Animal-God. Source: Wikipedia.

Coyote features in a lot of Native American myths, sometimes as a man-coyote God and sometimes even as the Creator. The local tribes that would have lived around Sonoma, the Pomo and the Miwok, especially revered Coyote and had numerous legends about him as Creator. In Miwok tradition, Coyote Man comes into the West with his son, Red-Tailed Hawk, and makes the the Pomo people from mud and the Miwok people out of sticks. In other legends, Coyote and Silver Fox sing the world into being. Pomo mythology has Coyote and Lizard creating the tribe on the shores of Upper Lake (just up the Silverado Trail in Lake County) from  sticks. Another local tribe, the Ohlone, have Coyote fathering the tribe after Eagle carries him to Mount Diablo (the tallest mountain in the Bay Area). Probably most of us are familiar with the Coyote myth from the Navaho detective books of Tony Hillerman that mix tribal lore with modern day police work on the Navajo reservation. There Coyote plays his more traditional role as Trickster, who sometimes helps man by fooling monsters that would hurt the tribe and at other times shows up man’s own foolishness with his pranks.

Here's the road to the vineyards that Coyote has claimed as his own, now looking appropriately mythological.

The bottom line: Native Americans knew their coyotes. Coyotes weren’t the biggest predators on the block (especially back in the day when there were wolves, Grizzlies and a lot more Mountain Lions.) But you could easily argue that they were the smartest. One of the blogs in my blogroll is The Daily Coyote, the diary of a woman who has been raising Charlie, an orphaned coyote pup. She reports that Charlie, now a teenager, can open kitchen cabinets, walk as silently as a cat, and figure out any gate she puts in. Add to this native intelligence, the arrogance that our coyote seems to have. Other than our resident Mountain Lion (who only seems to make cameo appearances since he has a huge State Park to roam around in), coyotes would be the biggest predators around here.

And our coyote’s done what even Pitbulls in San Francisco have not been able to do: he’s intimidated Oscar, who like his namesake Oscar de la Hoya, is usually unaware that he is not the biggest dog on the block. This morning, as Coyote loped by, Oscar jumped up on the dining table (because standing on a table makes you look REALLY BIG) and barked furiously. But he certainly wasn’t going to run after Coyote, who never broke stride, even as he gave Oscar a contemptuous glance over his shoulder.

Here's a dramatic recreation of Oscar barking at Coyote through the window from the table.

Lucy, on the other hand, is petrified.

She's spending her indoor time hiding behind the bathtub.

And outdoors, she's still always seeking protective cover.

As for little Oscar, he’s been busy marking all the territory around the barn with his own special brand of Oscar essence. He’s not ready to take Coyote on. In fact, I think there is a bit of hero worship happening. After all, here’s a pointy faced, prick eared canine who is obviously in charge.

So here's Oscar, in a Native American patterned chair, practicing his best Coyote look.

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.

As John Denver would say, “Life on the farm is kinda laid back.” Which is not to say that it wasn’t an eventful weekend at Two Terrier Vineyards. It’s just, as warm Spring weekends tend to progress, this one’s activities unfolded in no particular order and leading up to no particular revelation or conclusion. So I’m not going to strain myself trying to find the kernel of wisdom, the deep inner meaning in this weekend. Stuff just happened. It was fun. Here’s a (mostly) pictorial review:

First event: Little Amelia May, who you will remember as the World’s Most Beautiful Baby and who I take (undue) credit for sort of helping to deliver, made her first visit to the farm. She was wearing the most adorable cowgirl outfit, specially purchased by her besotted Daddy.

The outfit included these so-sweet-they-give-you-insulin-shock calico bloomers with fringe.

The top was made of darling retro cowboy fabric.

And the front had a little sheriff's badge. Just in case you didn't know who was in charge.

Uncle Andy didn't want to let go of this cute little critter.

Which made another little critter very jealous. Terriers need cuddles, too!

Unrelated to this event, we took an early morning walk down by the seasonal creek. And marveled that we actually have a stand of old growth Redwoods on our property.

I'm still trying to figure out the angle that can show how tall these trees are.

As are most creeks in Sonoma County, ours was an ancient pathway for migratory Indian tribes.

Here's an old grinding stone that would have been used by Pomos or Miwoks to crush acorns into flour.

We walked back up the hill through forest glades.

These delicate flowers were all around in shaded areas. Our man, John the Baptist, says they are Checker Lilies.

We ended our walk at the top of the cliff Old Timers around here call “Indian Leap”. Legend says an Indian maiden leaped off the cliff when her father wouldn’t let her marry a boy from another tribe.

Nowadays, only terriers are leaping around here. And not from the cliff but on and off this rock.

In the final unrelated event, Andy has a new project for me. He wanted me to pick out one particular Cabernet vine from the vineyards and photograph it from the same angle every week from early growth through harvest. Sort of  ”A Year in the Life of a Wine Grape Vine”.

Here's the star of that show.

Here's a close-up of one of the emerging leaves.

And finally, the moles and gophers seem to have scaled back on their destructive activities. Could be related to the fact that a Red Tailed Hawk has recently been swooping around the vineyards.

Snuffle-op-agus was also doing her bit to control burrowing critters.

I’ve signed up for the “Gophers and Moles” Seminar at the wonderful Sonoma Master Gardeners Lecture Series. But perhaps, between Mr. Hawk and Lucy, the problem will be solved by April 18th.

 From reading my posts in the last six weeks, you probably think it’s all Cincault, Grenache, crushpads and winemaking here at Two Terrier Vineyards. Actually the winemaking section of TTV — in fact the whole “inhabited by humans” part of the property — is relatively small. You can’t landscape 40 acres. And why would you want to? We’re trying to keep as much natural as possible. The fact that our property butts up on a State protected wilderness area makes it that much easier. The critters are already here. In fact, it’s pretty much their world. We just live in it.

Since the torrential rains of the past few days have cleared. Let’s take a walk through some of the wilder parts of the place.

Ready to go? Oscar and Lucy are.

The trail leads down to a seasonal creek. The trails were cut from existing deer trails. Deer make pretty good trails.

Existing fallen logs were used to mark the trail boundary. You must examine these carefully as small furry critters may be hiding in them.

Speaking of furry critters, this cave is where we think a Mountain Lion lives.

Time out here to explain: We had an incredibly talented guy in to cut our trails. The crews working on the barn called him John the Baptist because he always wore sandals and had waist length blond dreadlocks that were full of twigs and leaves. We called him Tom Bombadil after the forest guardian in The Hobbit. John is a master at rearranging nature in a sensitive way so that you have a trail that looks as if it had always been there. Actually it had, because John tries always to make trails on existing deer trails.

John is also fearless. After stumbling over a few steaming, fresh-killed deer carcasses and seeing tracks, he decided a Mountain Lion had taken up residency. And he went to look for it. He thought this cave in the cliff overhanging the trail might be a good place to look, so he climbed up here and found more bones and cat prints. Suspicions confirmed.

Since the Mountain Lion’s preferred way of killing is to leap on you from a great height, I’m not sure how we feel about is lair being over the trail. Luckily, Mountain Lions have a range of about 100 miles so they don’t live in one place all the time. So, just in case he’s in residency, I always send small children and terriers down the trail first. Call it an insurance policy.

Now back to the tour.

This seasonal creek was a trickle last week. Now it's well on its way to being the roaring river it will be in late Spring.

It's a great swimming hole for terriers.

Further on is an old Indian grinding stone. We've found arrowheads down here. It may have been a Miwok migration route.

Further down is a stand of 500 year old redwoods. Andy was obviously dressed for safari.

Manzanitas look even more sculptural in the rain. There are hundreds of them down here.

The Toyons are in berry, along with the Madrones.

After the long climb up Terrier Mountain, you can see out to the Mayacamas. Well, you could if it were clear.

At this point, you might want to dry off on the grass, because we're ready to head back to civilization.

We'll be walking over the Hobbit Bridge that spans the small waterfall that feeds Lake Charles.

Here's Lake Charles, named after our founding terrier. (Sadly, no longer with us.)

Now we're back overlooking the Estonian wagon and the "new" 50-year old olive tree.

Thanks for joining us. And, if you are a horse, you'll enter the barn here.

Postscript: To find the saga of the 50 year old olive tree, read this.