Meeting the Trickster God

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...

Crushing Cab with Cousin John

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...

Out with the Truckers and the Kickers an...

  The last day of our roadtrip started with a near fight. See Mom was born during the Depression, she knows the value of a dollar and she doesn’t waste food. So I indulged her when she carted the remains of her chicken fried steak out of Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace. I figured there was plenty of time to talk her out of taking it in the car. But Saturday morning when she...

In Which the Indians Take Back the Missi...

I was hoping the St. Joseph’s Day festivities at San Juan Capistrano would be more local festival than slickly produced event, and luckily it was. To celebrate the return of the swallows to the Mission, I think the town had corralled every school kid from 5 to 18 to be in the ceremonies. You had First Graders dressed as monks, parades of Kindergardeners in sparrow costumes, and...

It’s Native American Heritage Mont...

I bet that one slipped right by you. Some of my Black friends used to joke that, when they finally got a Black History Month, it was February, the shortest one. Now it seems, we’ve designated a month for Native Americans. And it might as well be February what with Thanksgiving and the fact that we check out and start thinking Christmas thoughts immediately after the turkey. In...