That escalated quickly

So I'm the direct opposite of a fighting kind of person, but when I do go to the mat, it's usually when someone is trying to spread lies or take advantage of people. I just read a facebook post from a winery trying to sell its wine by scaring people away from other wines. They claimed their wines have no sugar and therefore no hangover (most wines do not have sugar, the sugar converts to alcohol in the fermentation process and THAT'S what gives you the hangover). They claimed most other wineries are actually, secretly owned by three large corporations (again, not true) and finally, claimed other wineries regularly add things like fish bladders, corn syrup and purple dye to their wines (nope).

Anyway, I fired off a snappy retort and then wondered if I should have gotten so riled up. Injustice is a big deal to me, and either presenting yourself as something you're not or presenting someone else as something they are not will usually get my blood boiling.

So to calm down, I'm going to come here and post some lovely pics of the late Oregon summer. We've been walking in the evenings, and a good walk in the vineyard, a park, or by the ocean will soothe even the strongest urge to sort someone out online.

I should probably go for walks more often -- for many reasons -- soothing the savage beast of injustice being just one of them.

Golden fields of harvested grasses.

These Pinot grapes are coming along nicely!

A little early fall color.

Sunset in the vineyard.

The Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad in Tillamook.

 

Tillamook Bay.

Rockaway Beach, Oregon.

Watch the skies, people.

Here for now

Allow me to introduce you to our temporary digs, Mouse Turd Manor. The garden and brick walkway actually look scarier than the house in this pic, but I've worked on it since then. 

The last two weeks have passed in a kind of haze. Isn't that always the way it is with huge life events? We may hang onto a moment or two from high-stress times, but a lot of it passes in a blur.

Every week here seems to feature a new form of help for the house, which is good because it needs it. I feel bad for this house. Someone obviously loved it a long time ago, but being a manufactured/modular home which stood vacant for almost two years caused it to fall into disrepair. If it was a person, it would currently be in the Emergency Room with a saline IV drip line, antibiotics, and full x-rays and a blood panel being done. It might even be feeling a little better at this point. At least the many fixes are happening, and at no cost to us.

But we are making sure we get out and have at least one day a week of fun, and one weeknight in town. Last week we went into Independence for dinner, and its simple beauty and friendliness made me feel like I was walking through a Hallmark movie.

Hanging flower baskets on the streetlights -- so pretty.

That sweet, small town feeling!

The Willamette

And last weekend we went to the famous Pelican Brewery in Pacific Beach for lunch and beach walking. Sometimes you need the familiar in your life, and the beach and ocean are that for me. It's still the Pacific, after all. 

A day at the beach!

Say yes to stress eating lol.

But this place is beginning to feel more like home as well. Next week I begin painting over these miserable colors and half-painted walls in a more neutral palate. This house is proof that some people watch way too much HGTV, and/or believe you can successfully replicate what the professionals do there in regards to paint. A 2,000 square foot home painted in 12 different colors is a little like a gypsy wedding (sorry, gypsies): Something old, something new, something red, something blue, something yellow, something gray, something turquoise, something orange, something black, something green, etc.....Yes, friends, it IS possible to love color too much. It works for The Property Brothers, most of the time. But don't try it at home, no matter what the Valspar commercial tells you.

Can you count the colors? Dark grey, gatorade yellow, and turquoise. Ick.

I've also decided the vegetable garden is beyond saving, but the flower garden in front is not. So I'm weeding the flower beds but won't be planting any vegetables this summer. I'm not really sad about it, except when I need some onions or parsley for a recipe and realize I have none outside.

And so it goes...a little at a time, in the garden and inside. Making sure I stop and take in the greenery on a regular basis. Because while you can have too much color, too much greenery is something I just can't get enough of right now.

Beach Day

High Tide.

Today Big Ag and I took a day off the homestead to go and see the big tides at the coast. We've had some storms recently, plus this time of year we can get very high tides, which can combine with the storm action to make some absolutely huge waves. We were not disappointed. It was a typical perfect beach day, but with a lot more excitement off-shore than we normally see.

Against the wind.

I probably should not be telling you this (because I am inherently selfish and want to keep all this beauty and gorgeousness for myself), but if you live elsewhere and ever decide to come and visit our lovely Central California Coast, this is the time to come --  winter. No crowds, nice weather, and the ocean never looks more beautiful than when the sun rides low in the sky. It actually makes the water appear to sparkle even more than it does in summer. Plus usually there's a good chance you'll see some kind of sea life, either dolphins, seals or whales migrating. Except on a day like today of course, when the ocean itself is the star of the show.

A little ocean spray for ya.

We usually enjoy strolling along the sand when we visit this area, but today we stuck to the boardwalk as there was, literally, no sand to be seen along the coast -- it was all underwater!

Yes, we still have fences to fix, chicken coops to clean and leaves to rake, but just for this morning....we didn't. And I'm glad.

Meet my new boardwalk friend.

New Year's Day

I am much more a New Year's Day person than a New Year's Eve person.  Sure, New Year's Eve is as good a day as any to party, but spending the first day of the new year with an ice pack on your head and ibuprofen by your bedside does not bode well for a healthy and prosperous next 364 days, in my opinion.

I love watching the ball drop on television with Anderson and Kathy in Times Square, but when that's over (and I mean real-time, which is 9 p.m. Pacific Standard Time) I'm ready to pack it in for bed, sleeping through my own local midnight and the ensuing madness and excess that comes with it.

Since moving to the coast, we've established some nice New Year's traditions that fit my own beliefs about the holiday nicely.  For New Year's Eve, for instance, we go to a very nice Italian restaurant in town and have an early 6 p.m. dinner.  This year it was angel hair pasta with olive oil and tomatoes, paired with a lovely August Ridge Sangiovese.  I like the idea of knowing (as much as anyone really can I guess) that next year, I will hopefully be sitting in the same restaurant having a lovely  and romantic meal with Big Ag, just like we always do.

 Italian Varietals. Mmm, Mmm, Good!

New Year's Day has its own traditions. The dawn usually breaks very cold and we get up early, clear-headed and chipper (mostly), and head to the beach for the Cayucos Polar Bear Plunge.  This year we had our sons Groceries and TrainMan with us, which made it a family affair, although only Groceries and I were bad-ass enough to brave the cold Pacific waters when they counted down at noon and everyone made a run for the surf. 

Next year both Train Man and Big Ag say they're in for the plunge; I would guess there is a moment of regret (and, dare I say -- envy) amongst those left on land once the countdown is done and there is much celebrating and frolicking in the waves, giving the participants a year's worth of bragging rights for having successfully made the plunge.

I am a bit philosophical about it: Life is like the New Year's Polar Bear Plunge.  You can sit on the safety and comfort of dry land and watch, or run into the surf, for better or worse.  And every minute of every year, you make a choice about which you are going to do. Sometimes it is better to stay on the safety of land, no question....but when the sun is shining and the beach is warm and the water is clean and beckoning, then to stay on land seems a mistake.  But that's just me.

And so, we begin anew.  And like my elegant New Year's Eve Italian dinner, I like to think that next year will offer my family the opportunity to repeat our New Year's Day tradition -- to start the fresh new year by taking a cleansing, invigorating plunge into Mother Sea to wash away the sins of the past year and emerge shivering and happy into the new one.

Happy 2015, everyone! 

Post-plunge thumbs-up!

Off-farm Day

In order to keep your sanity in rural life, I think everyone needs a few off-farm days a month.  Not too many, heaven knows this lifestyle requires we be on-site to water crops and tend to animals pretty regularly, but the occasional vacation, weekend trip, or just a day away is important.  You need to realize your farm is not the center of the universe, and mingle and mix with all sorts of different types of people.

That's because rural life can be isolating, and if the only voices you hear are the ones from television or the ones you read on the internet, and the only sights you see are the ones within a few miles of home, it seems like your perspective on life and other people will grow smaller as well.  Sure, living in the country brings you peace and quiet, but I'm convinced there are times you need to get out there and see how the rest of the world is doing.

Yesterday Big Ag and I did a road trip to the coast (about 20 minutes west of us, as the crow flies) and took a four mile hike along the headlands.

It certainly puts things into perspective, walking along the edge of the continent, along the ocean which was here before you showed up and will be here long after you're gone.  

The four-mile hike worked up an appetite, plus it was kind of chilly up on the headlands, so we stopped at our favorite beach hang-out and ate outdoors, in the warm sunshine.  If there is not a place in Heaven that looks kind of like this one, I am not sure I want to go lol.

And, as if my Gardenburger and fries were not enough to replace the calories we'd burned hiking, our next stop was for pie.

Mmmm.  Pie. Perspective restored. Back to farm life.

A Mid-Week Sabbath

I'm one of those people who believes that taking a breather from our regular responsibilities is one of the best things we can do to increase our productivity.  There's a basic rhythm to all of life, if we care to listen; the heart rests briefly between beats (the only break it takes during our entire life), the ocean rests briefly between waves, and even the wind blows in gusts, seemingly resting in between them.

Human beings are no different, being an integral part of this world.  We also need a rest from our activities.  Today I'm taking a sabbath from the crazy to-do list that dominates my life 99 percent of the time.  I will putter, I will read, I will do no thing that feels like work, and I will ponder.

This morning the coffee was brewed up on the stove minus the help of an automatic coffee maker, and other than the clink-clink of the pellet stove keeping the house warm, it's a quiet, unplugged kind of morning.  I love it.  I used to call this kind of sabbath-keeping going "deep house," because usually it involved several hours of just being at home, opening the windows and sitting quietly with a book.  But I've discovered a few hours at the beach is also a good sabbath activity, and leaves me just as rejuvenated and refreshed as a good night's sleep, or a quiet afternoon here.

So I don't know whether it will be here or at the beach, but either way, I am claiming today for myself.  Today I will strive to be as unplugged from the artificial world as possible, while being as plugged into the natural one as I can be.  It may be by walking along the beach on the last warm day we'll have for awhile, or it may be sitting by a sunny window reading a book.

But today I step back from my life momentarily, to just be.  To rest between beats, and thereby rejuvenate myself so I can work better when I return to my regularly scheduled life...which will probably pick back up sometime later today, if things go like they usually do around here.

Tsunami seed

Our local coastline is currently being littered with debris which was carried across the Pacific ocean from the 2011 tsunami that devastated parts of Japan's coast.  The other day I was walking along the beach and, in an area where debris has been washing up, found a piece of fruit that looked like nothing I'd ever seen.

Loquat pit/seed

Always the adventurer, I put my tongue to it in order to help identify it by its taste, but at that point it had been in the water too long and it was too salty to tell.  But I did make a mental note of what the fruit looked like (it was in fairly good shape) and removed the pit and brought it home.  Later that evening I went on the internet, searching for exotic fruits, and found out what it was:  A Japanese Loquat.

Since it was found in the area of tsunami debris, I'm wondering if this Japanese Loquat actually made it all the way from Japan to the California coastline.  If it was packaged until recently, or was just lucky enough to hitch a ride in something which kept it shielded from the elements, I suppose it's certainly possible.  

So today I planted it in a pot with some good soil and we'll see what, if anything, comes up.  The salt water may have damaged the pit, but I figure it's worth a try.  After all, fruit trees have spread throughout many tropical island chains by fruit and seeds being carried via the ocean and washing up elsewhere.  

So in a few weeks, perhaps I'll have a living souvenir of an earth-changing event.  It won't make up in any way for the awful things that happened that day and the subsequent environmental disaster which followed, but it might be nice to think that new life follows death; that renewal comes from the rubble and debris of disaster.  Maybe a little Japanese Loquat seedling will be one way that new start can be observed, and appreciated.

Polar Bears

Today was New Year's Day, kind of a blah holiday in many ways.  After all, there are no really traditional things you do on New Year's Day.  New Year's Eve?  Certainly.  But not the day after.  

So I was sitting around the house with Big Ag this morning, reading the morning paper and watching what seemed to be the most boring Rose Parade in history, when I spied the little calendar on Page Two of the paper, which lists all the events for the week.  First up was the annual Polar Bear Plunge, held in Cayucos, later that morning.  At which point, I looked up at my husband and said, "let's be polar bears today."  Actually the conversation went something like this:

Me:  Let's go to Cayucos today and do the Polar Bear Plunge.

Him:  Are you nuts?

I am thankful that he is a good enough sport that I was able to convince him to take the plunge with me.  Which we did. And it was delightful....cool but not cold, refreshing, exhilarating....and just plain fun.  The crowd counted down to one, and when we were done we all ran headlong, like a pack of oddly dressed lemmings, into the surf.   We wore silly clothes (Big Ag put on full Giants regalia, I donned some cute pajamas, an evening hat and a scarf) and met the first day of the year in the surf and sand, in probably the oddest way possible.

No better method, in my opinion, of welcoming in 2013.

Into the surf, pajamas and all