Unclenched

This is what "unclenched" feels like.

About six months ago I was talking to a friend about anxiety -- something we've both experienced on a chronic basis at different times in our lives -- and she described it as "clenching." As in she'd wake up and think of some task that needed accomplishing in her classroom that day and get a tightened-up feeling in her solar plexus that would radiate throughout her body and create a "fight or flight" reaction.

She was clenched. Clenched over bulletin boards and history papers. Like a fist, ready to strike out and get done what needed to get done. I've been clenched at various times in my life, for things both greater and less than those things. 

Those times in my life include, for some reason, the last few years or so, where I felt that way most of the time. Clenched describes it perfectly.

But not anymore. I noticed the other day I am definitely un-clenched. For some reason, I've relaxed, which I only realize when I compare myself to where I was before I came here. 

Our locations, to some extent, define us. And even if we hold ourselves apart from those places, they still rub off on us. We breathe them in, we bump up against them in the market, and we drive along their roads. We pay our taxes to them. It's as if we are water and our location is the rocks around us that we flow in response to. Whether we like it or not, our location shapes us and defines our boundaries.

Rocks that define us (in this case Proposal Rock)

These days, I'm honestly no longer bothered by the little voices that used to chide me always to do more, to be more, to drive faster, work faster, and keep up, keep up, keep up. Make no mistake, although people talk about how "laid back" California is, that's probably the greatest myth about my home state. Californians live hard, drive hard but, to their credit (or detriment, depending on your personal philosophy), they play even harder. Which is why the wine country regions of the state are such a rousing success. Work hard, play harder. 

And I think living in what became one of the "play harder" places in the state just did not agree with me. Hence, a very primal kind of clenching began, which was nothing more than a soul trying to tell its person that they both needed to be someplace else, not soon but rather, yesterday.

And while it's hard to see things that could be in places you are not, pondering/exploring those futures is something worth thinking about if you're less than totally happy where you are now. For years I thought my anxiety was purely biological, or a product of upbringing, or of age. But it turns out a good part of it was where I was living. Not only did I need to slow down, I needed to live in a place which gave me permission to do so. I also needed to live in a place with a more gentle climate in summer. Because most of us are, as it turns out, defined by our location. 

Chickens are clenched, but I think they like being that way.

At this point I'm not sure what this area is all about, but everyone doing their own thing and giving others space, respect, and kindness seems to be high on the list. For me, this made it OK to finally relax and draw inward a little bit more without feeling like I'm either missing out on something or slacking off. 

And so, from an unclenched place, I wish you a good mid- summer.

Neskowin Wildlife preserve is extremely unclenched. 

There...and here.

There

Here

Moving to another state is a huge change, even if that state is right next to the one you were living in. I think each of our 50 states has a distinct culture and personality. You would definitely feel a different vibe living in, say, Nevada versus Utah (as an example) even though they are close, geographically. And Oregon is very different from California in a lot of ways. Big Ag remarked the other day that he felt like he'd moved to another country sometimes, and he's not too far off in that assessment. 

So right now, after we've been here all of three weeks, it still feels like we're on kind of a strange, long vacation, albeit one with all our material possessions coming along with us on the ride. While things are vaguely familiar (plenty of wineries, the beach nearby, etc.) not one of them is truly familiar to us -- yet. And with being in a rental place, there's a tendency to not settle in anyway, because we know we'll be moving again in a few months (God willing) to a permanent home, once we find it. 

But this is a great time to look back and examine why we left. You can't really embrace the present until you reconcile the past. I've met a lot of former Californians in the last three weeks -- you actually would not believe how many Oregonians come from my old home state -- and hearing them talk about the "old country" made me see we are not alone in our reasons for fleeing our former home.

First and foremost, we left because all the "livable" parts of the state (relatively temperate, lower crime, etc) had become too expensive for us, especially as we contemplate retirement. Sure, you can cut back on your expenses, but when you live in a "lifestyle destination" like the one Paso Robles became, you're then going to feel the pinch no matter how much you cut back. To drive this home, I got a hair cut last week. The same $60 cut-and-blow dry I used to get in Paso Robles, California set me back all of $39 here in Corvallis, Oregon. A $2,000 air conditioning system overhaul cost $900 here. And just for fun, we attended the "Cinco De Micro" microbrewery festival in Salem, the first weekend we arrived here. A VIP ticket cost us $25 each. In Paso, attending a similar event (The Firestone Walker "beerfest") would have set us back $200 for a VIP ticket, and $85 for a regular, no perks ticket. So whether you're grabbing breakfast, getting a quote on fixing something on your house, or attending a special event, if you decide to live in Paso Robles, you'd better be prepared to bring a fat wallet.

We also left because all those expenses mean only those with a certain level of income are moving into the area, and they are mostly Bay Area and Los Angeles refugees who bring their cities with them -- rude and aggressive driving being first and foremost on that list. As a former LA driver, I know it when I see it, believe me. When scenic Hwy 101 (built at a time when cars went an average of 50 miles per hour) becomes populated by crazy drivers who take it at 75 - 85 mph, weaving in and out of lanes and cutting people off, it's time to go. With age comes slower reflexes, and so it makes sense that defensive driving becomes more difficult with age. And don't even get me started on the fact that many of those "mad" drivers are my age or older, on who knows how many medications (or wine). Slower reflexes/crazy driving is not a good equation, in any case.

And there's also the ugly specter of climate change on the horizon. With longer droughts becoming more the norm, that brings challenges to the water table, along with increased fire risk. How much risk? How much challenge?  I have no idea. But we lived in an area surrounded by dry brush and dying oak trees, where the wineries are using more and more water every year. So we erred on the conservative side and decided to move our biggest nest egg -- our nest! -- someplace greener and with abundant water. Since geologic changes tend to take place over many lifetimes, the area may be fine for the foreseeable future. But we didn't wait around to gamble on that. 

So now there's nothing left to do but look back with some affection, some regrets, and move on into the future. Life is a lot like playing "21," with the trick being to add one more card, getting as close to perfection as you can, without going over the magic number. While I can't tell you for sure yet, right now it seems like we've managed to get really close to perfect here. A full year will tell us more, but we're hopeful we can finally "hold" and be happy with our hand. Having abundant water and greenery and economic health helps a whole lot, I can tell you that already.

Another California transplant -- this Giant Sequoia seems happy here at the Peavy Arboretum in Corvallis. 

Another day, another drunk, another drill

The star of the show this morning.

The stars of the show last night.

So last night yet another drunk hit yet another power pole in our neighborhood. That's one thing that's predictable about wine country: When you live in an area that produces something alcoholic as its primary crop, you will attract people who like to consume alcohol as their primary nutritional crop. With expected results: Knock down a power pole. Flee the scene. Rinse and repeat.

But these 10 - 14 hour power outages provide a great opportunity to see how my disaster relief skills work, especially if I'm on my own. Big Ag was on a business trip yesterday in Oregon, so when the drunk hit the power pole, it was about 7:30 pm and I was here by myself. 

And I soon realized that I did not have enough familiarity with 1) manually opening the automatic garage door while also (more importantly) re-engaging it so it was locked afterwards, so I could 2) drag the generator out and start it with no light and no one to hold a flashlight for me so I could see.  And let's not even start with trying to find all the flashlights, candles, hurricane lamps and lighters after the power had already left me in darkness. 

It turns out, the battery-operated candles I keep next to my bathtub for ambient lighting were my best friend in the first few minutes after the outage, since they just needed just the flick of a switch to light up and were out in the open and easy to find. They allowed me to search for and find all my other emergency equipment. 

And did I mention they are vanilla scented candles? No reason to ride out the apocalypse without aromatherapy.

So looking back on the 14 hours with no power, I got some things right and some things definitely need improving.

First, props to me for:

1) having enough oil in the hurricane lamps, and having them in an easy-to-locate space, plus knowing exactly where the battery-operated candles were.

2) I had all the wax candles in one area.

3)  I easily found the lighters.

4)  I knew enough about the generator that I could at least start it once daylight came around.

5) I was also able to bring in numerous solar lights from outside, as well as having tea lights, to light up the less important areas of the home.

So all that was good. But a scowl and wag of the finger at me for:

1) not being familiar enough with the generator to start it in the darkness.

2) not knowing how to re-secure the automatic garage door after opening it manually.

3)  not having candles, lighters, lamps and oil in ONE place, so there was only one place I needed to go in the house to find everything I needed. And also for not having lighters with the candles, and another with the hurricane lamps.

4) not knowing where the gas can was for the generator (luckily it had a fair amount of fuel already in it so I did not need to add more).

5) not keeping my devices fully charged. A 100 percent charge on my phone and Kindle would have been nice, not just for emergency calls and messages, but also for entertainment while I waited for the power to come back on. I DID have a mobile charger, which was great, but instead of having to use it on 50 percent charged devices it would have saved power on that to have everything on a full charge to begin with.

6) not having other things I'd need in a real emergency, like tools, conveniently located and close by. A true disaster is no time to have to head to the barn to look for the right wrench to shut the gas off.

On sale at Walmart, this looks like a good idea....

But these might be symbolically more correct. Wine Light, anyone?

My biggest plan for the future going forward is to invest in things that will light up the house immediately -- namely, battery-operated, "flick of a switch" lighting like small lamps, plus more good, LED flashlights, placed in EVERY ROOM of the house, including spare bedrooms and bathrooms.  And better organization so that all those things are close to each other and easy to find. But the lighting especially needs to be present and easily located in the first few minutes of any emergency so you can then see what you're doing, whether it's placing candles around the house, shutting off water or gas (in a true emergency) or starting the generator! 

Obviously, if disaster hits in the daytime, you hopefully have several hours before darkness comes. But I've noticed that disasters, like drunks, tend to want to show up at night, so it's best to be ready for that probability.

I learned a lot from this little preparatory drill and will be making some improvements in the next few days. 

How ready are you for a real disaster?

Life and Lifestyle

The great thing about a blog is that you can write about anything you want. In the town we used to live in, I wrote a opinion/local talk newspaper column for nine years, and thankfully was granted that same privilege -- within limits. I got into trouble once for writing a negative column on the city turning our local farmers' market into "Thursday Night Marketplace," complete with drinking, loud music and flea market style booths.

That piece, I took flak for. Not from my editors, but from the readers and the organization who had come up with or agreed to the concept of a Farmers Market where you could get drunk, urinate on the side streets and get arrested for disorderly conduct on the asphalt, all when it's 115 degrees on Main Street in July.

To each his own, I guess.  The Thursday Night Marketplace still exists, I'd bet, but we're here, in the midst of a better life. Yet we won't be retiring here. And what I'm about to say could provoke the ire of people in this town the way my Farmers' Market piece once did in the old town, if I published it in the paper. It's the dirty little secret about living here no one talks about.

We are going to retire elsewhere because of the exorbitant, ridiculous cost of living here. If you're making this town a weekend destination -- a treat for you and your significant person -- it's a great place to come. There are exciting restaurants to be dined in, a couple of hundred tasting rooms, boutiques, and everything else you'd want to fulfill your "weekend destination lifestyle."

But pay attention to what I just said. It's perfect for lifestyle. And a lifestyle is very different than a life. 

Lifestyle towns are the places you go to on vacation and dream of living in someday ... Catalina Island. Banff. Provence. Key West. You see yourself in some imaginary future, meandering through scenic vistas to your favorite quaint little breakfast place each morning, where they know your name and where you'll linger over coffee as the colorful storefronts open up to sell their wares. In the evenings, you will sit out on your patio with a night sky full of stars and a glass of wine in your hand as gentle breezes caress you. 

After having these  visions, you will pick up the real estate section, and begin your quest for what you think will be a better life than the one you're living. And yes, all those lovely images will happen for you if you move here. They really will. But they come at a price. Literally.

Everything costs more -- a lot more -- when you live in a destination versus just a place.  Whether it's groceries, the services of a plumber, a contractor, or a nanny, you're going to pay a huge premium.

Shopping for cute, touristy gifts is a breeze here, but staples are often hard to come by. And don't even start on medical care. The best doctor in town is a boutique doc who charges $1,800/year for his services, on top of your regular co-pay. The other choices are frankly, frightening, and I've heard more than one story of bad medical care that borders on malpractice from other, nameless docs around. I am guessing this is because doctors don't move here to publish, do research, or advance their names in the medical industry. They move here for the same reasons most do...to go wine tasting and maybe buy a boat or something.

But the saddest thing is that for native residents, they can no longer offer their children a place in the city's future, because their kids will probably never be able to afford a home or even rent a place on their own here.  

So it comes down to two things: Are you awake enough to see this, or have you willed yourself into a sort of dream consciousness, where you accept the gouging, the inflation and the growth as the cost of living here -- the necessary price for the scenic vistas, quaint breakfast place and night sky full of stars? 

I will be honest with you. We moved here for a life -- cleaner air, lower unemployment, better weather -- but instead have found lifestyle, which we always thought was just a small part of living here as a resident. It turns out Lifestyle has taken the wheel and is driving this town towards whatever its ultimate destination is.

With less water to go around, more development going in at every turn, and the weekend visitors believing this is the place to be more than ever, I'm guessing that destination is a dead end. For us, anyway. 

Turns out, all we wanted was a life. Which sounds easy enough, until you have to contend with the fact that a life is a very different thing than a lifestyle.

You know what they say about lifestyle destinations: a nice place to visit, but...

Day in the Life

As most of my long-time readers know, this is my favorite time of year at work. The days are short, so when we leave work it's dark. Things have slowed down both inside the tasting room and in the vineyard and Chef's Garden, and it's the time of year when you can plan projects, catch up with that to-do list you made in August, and just hang out. Pretty much an ideal work day for me.

I decided to try a winter chef's garden at work this year, and so far the results are mixed. Beets, carrots and turnips have sprouted from seed...slowly... but the parsnip seeds I put in (twice!) yielded bupkis....also known as Nothing, Zip or Nada, depending on your cultural leanings. The transplants of broccoli, cauliflower, chard, kale, and brussel sprouts are doing fairly well except for the ones being murdered by a mystery insect or mammal. But as it's an experiment, I'm keeping my hands off, mostly, and watching to see what happens. Sometimes science and inattention intersect and when they do it's a beautiful thing. Especially in December.

What I love most about working this time of year is that it's such a pleasure being outside. It's cold enough that you can work hard without breaking much of a sweat,  and there's usually a cold breeze to make things feel brisk -- pleasantly so. Ever since I took an Alaskan cruise to the glaciers and stood on the sundeck in a sleeveless dress, sipping an iced tea while everyone else was in parkas and drinking hot chocolate, I've realized that between my father's Middle Eastern heritage and my mother's northern European background, Mom's DNA dominates, the older I get. Cold weather agrees with me more and more as time goes by. 

But the other thing that agrees with me is having a job with a lot of physical activity. I absolutely love coming home from work tired -- muscles complaining slightly, cheeks stinging a little from being outdoors all day, and a most pleasant feeling of fatigue taking over as I sit down and put my feet up. Really, what point is there in working if you don't feel like you've worked by the end of the day? I spent a good portion of time in my 20's living the office cubicle life, and finally get why that was so depressing. We were never meant to spend eight hours a day inside. 

Yet sometimes the nicest part about working outside is, in fact, returning inside once your chores are complete. The other day I headed into the tasting room at about 2:30, famished after working in the chef's garden for several hours, and asked the chefs in the kitchen to make me up a special vegetarian burger with horseradish aoli, pickled onions and bacon (yes, a veggie burger pattie, but one with real, oink-oink bacon on it. I'm an freaking iconoclast, aren't I?).  I absolutely devoured it, knowing it's totally acceptable to gorge yourself once you've already burned off enough calories earlier to balance it out. And I spent a little time behind the bar chatting with folks and generally just watching the day fade and the sun go down.  Finished up my shift with a little red wine and some good conversation. How many people end their work day like this?

Of all the days in our life, one of the things that matters most is how you spend your ordinary days. I'm happy to spend mine the way I do. 

If you lived here, you'd be....home?

When I'm working at the winery, I'm often asked by customers what it's like to live here, amidst the vine-covered hillsides, the wineries and the tasting rooms. Mostly the question comes from folks visiting on weekend jaunts from Los Angeles or the Bay Area. They find a winery, sit under an oak tree surrounded by colorful vines and just take a breath and relax. They talk about how they long to get out of the city and find a slower and more peaceful existence.

There's certainly some good geographic public relations that goes on in the longing for wine country, since some of the most beautiful places on earth are also ones where wine is grown. And it's been that way for at least a couple of thousand years.  Wine culture is rooted in the histories of some of the most sublime, temperate places on the planet. And I'm not sure people would be dreaming of being here quite as much if kumquats were our chief product. Something about being around all this wine makes people think their lives will be just one long pour, smooth on the palate with a lovely finish.

They're kind of right in most of their assumptions. It is amazing living here. There is wine everywhere, and even the most backwater resident, with no interest in wine whatsoever, generally still manages to acquire some wine knowledge and usually more bottles of it than they know what to do with. It's currency here. 

Business meetings generally feature wine. Grocery stores offer wine tasting. And most public events, like concerts in the park, allow -- no, expect -- you to be bringing wine to them. You could walk down the street with a bottle of wine (open or not) and no one would interfere with you, because we see it every day.

But because of the wine industry, we are also a tourist town, and there are negatives that come with that.

We have traffic, for instance. Traffic made worse by wine tasters clearing out the tasting rooms (all 250 of them) late in the afternoons, especially on weekends. My dad was a cop, and always told me that you can tell drunk drivers not by their speed, but by the fact that they drive badly at very slow speeds. Dad was right. I've seen the most bone-headed driving decisions in my life since living here. Probably made by people who were either drunk or hung over.

Being a tourist town also means we cater to, curry favor with and try and impress the outsider -- not the resident. So we have incredible restaurants but horrible, understocked and overcrowded grocery stores. We have charming boutiques, but the nearest Macy's is over an hour from home. Large furniture store? Forget it. And if you want your roof fixed, better get on a four month waiting list, because the few contractors who work in this area are loathe to take on small jobs. It's just too expensive to live here to make charging less than a fortune a worthwhile thing. Why patch a residential roof when you can help put one on a new tasting room?

The roads around town also reflect this attitude. Since I've lived here (we arrived in 2012) they have re-done all the roads around the downtown City Park twice (for tourism) but the road in front of the local baseball fields (for residents) is so pothole-filled and old I figure damage must have come from wagon wheels back in the 1800s.

In other words, we put our best face on for those coming to see us from elsewhere. And once you decide to live here, that's when you see the other side.

It just goes to show that everything, and I mean everything, has problems.  Trade spouses, careers, homes or locales and you will find positives and negatives. Most of the time, unless things are really bad, the trick is to learn to live with the good and accept the bad. Or take a risk and change things up, move, break out of a relationship or start a new job and basically turn your Scrabble letters in for a whole new set.

It's a personal decision, and one which is not to be made lightly. Because, just like the Scrabble game, while life's problematic "z's" and the "q's" are hard to manage, there is always a chance that in turning in your letters you'll end up with far worse --  maybe five vowels, an "x" and a "w." 

And you can't do much with that once it happens.

A Little Color in the Vineyard

Was driving around the vineyard at work this afternoon and grabbed a couple of shots of the color. Other vineyards around town are much more spectacular, hopefully I can get some pics of them in the next week or two.

Until then, enjoy the Supermoon, the holiday today and the rest of the weekend.

Hot summer days..and nights.

Hello, sunshine.

It absolutely amazes me that my plants can handle being outside when it's like this. The month of June here on the Central Coast has had three weeks with significantly above average temperatures..meaning in the 100-degree range. 110 yesterday, 109 the day before; you get the idea.

And yet, here are my lovely plants in all their greenery. While they are not exactly thriving in the heat, they are definitely surviving. The plants at the winery are doing similarly well. Which is more than I can say for myself. How do they do it?

Growing strong.

For humans, there's a completely different time schedule when days are like this. You must finish your chores by about 9 a.m., when the temperatures hit 90 degrees. You must close all the curtains and blinds in the house to keep out the heat. Running the air conditioning is not optional at this point, it's mandatory. Our house thermostat is generally set at about 78 degrees and the a/c comes on by about 4 pm. (A testimony to what good insulation can do for you). 

And of course, you must content yourself with sitting inside throughout most of the day with a good book, and using the "chore and hide" method of being outside, where you pop out the door for about five minutes to complete some task (which you no doubt forgot to do before 9 am) and then run back inside to the cool house before you begin melting onto the sidewalk.

Big Ag says that the summer heat is something you acclimate to, but he's a native of Arizona so no acclimation necessary on his part. For me, summer is my season of discontent. It's when I check weather.com and look at how other places (like Spokane, which we just visited in May) are faring in the high days of summer. I dream of autumn, of sweaters, and most of all, I dream of rain. Lots and lots of rain.

But there are a few advantages to this kind of heat, believe it or not: The outside clothesline dries clothes much faster than a clothes dryer can. It doesn't matter whether you hang it out at 9 am or at 6 pm. It will be dry in about an hour. You also have a built-in excuse for not tackling any large outside task. And the term "summer reading" jumps to a whole new level when it's pretty much all you can do on a burnt-to-a-crisp 110 degree afternoon.

Not amused.

You could also amuse yourself (if that's even the right word) by watching coverage of the state burning up in various wildfires, some close, some farther away. But it's just too heartbreaking to see the toll in terms of human and wildlife loss. So instead I'm watching the first two seasons of "Vicious," a PBS show about two elderly gay men living in Britain. It's absolutely hilarious. Sometimes you have to laugh, or you'll never stop crying.

Our evenings also cool off nicely most of the time. Last night we went to an Industry Night being held downtown and stopped in at our favorite winery, Bodegas, to taste and buy.  Then we took ourselves out to dinner (too hot to cook -- another great excuse in summer). And by the time we got home, we were able to open the windows and let in a little nighttime breeze.

While it's true that I'm still counting the days until autumn, I will accept summer's compensations and enjoy them. They'll be here for at least another four months, so I'd better!

Four-bottle box of Spanish-varietal deliciousness from Bodegas Winery. Yum!

January spring

It's early spring here on the homestead. Around the central coast, we generally get a long spring and long summer, and late January is generally when we start seeing our first hints of spring. Fall and winter are both extremely brief, which people either love or hate, depending on their general temperament. I'm in between, loving the long spring but hating the long summers. And missing a good fall every year. Someday we will retire and do something about that, but for now, there is plenty here to love. And it seems appropriate to have a lot of green inside, too, to match what's outside.

Anyway, even though the first almond blossoms are starting to appear and the hills are turning emerald green, you don't dare plant anything yet, as frosts and even freezes are still probable.

If summer is the time to be inside in the air conditioning (while all you midwesterners and easterners are outside loving the sunshine and your garden) then late January and February is the time of year for us to be out and about outdoors. It's cool enough to work (65 degrees F this week as a high temperature), sunny enough to be pleasant, and a great time to get things done before the heat comes. Because it's coming. Of that there is no doubt.

Today I pondered what's going to go into my big raised stone flowerbed, other than irises and milkweed. Such endless possibilities! Building this wall was very easy. Now we just have to add the back and fill it up with good soil.

I added some beach pebbles to the metal agave plants and their colorful pots. Decided the gazing ball belonged with its similarly colored siblings, the pots. So now I have some color and interest where I needed some but did not want to add any more plants.

Found this Enrico Coveri scarf at Goodwill for $1.75. Score. Wore it to work last week at the winery and got tons of compliments on it.

We have salads galore and have been using a dressing of Mandarin Orange Oil and Fig White Balsamic to go on them from our local olive oil company, Olivas de Oro. So delicious and refreshing. I planted some more lettuce and spinach this week to keep the greens coming.

All in all, it's been a lovely January spring so far.

Tales from Wine Country, Episode #996

Photo courtesy CNN.

So last night, on the way to a party at the winery (as guests -- not pouring!) we saw this amazing sight in the western sky. Having worked in both the aviation and astronomy fields when I was younger, my point of reference was that it looked not unlike the tail of a comet.

Big Ag and I discussed, seriously, the possibility of it being either a comet or asteroid which came in rapidly and was heading towards Earth as we were motoring along.

We decided that some pre-apocalypse sparkling wine and a nice dinner couldn't hurt and were, in fact, probably a good idea if, in fact the end was near.

You discover your priorities in times of crisis, people.

We later heard on the news that the strange sight in the sky was an unarmed Trident missile shot from a submarine and going airborne in the sky off the coast of Southern California. But, hey, better to be proactive in the case of something serious, right? 

In case of emergency, break out the bubbly. Plenty of time to load the weapons after dinner.

One A Year

I was at a party last night where one of the hosts was extremely late. Since he works as a winemaker at a neighboring winery, no one was really worried because it's harvest and everyone works long hours at harvest. Sure enough, he showed up a couple of hours into the party....purple as could be. Yes, you are reading correctly -- HE was purple. From head to toe purple.

He explained that he'd fallen into a vat of Petit Syrah while they were doing punch-downs (when grapes first begin to be processed, they go through two processes called punch-downs and pump-overs in order to keep the wine and skins stirred and mixed up as they're being processed). He was punching down of a thick vat of wine (probably 10 feet tall) when he slipped on the edge of the vat and fell in.

Death by Syrah? Could happen!

After we got done giggling and teasing him as he peeled grapes off his ankles and arms and shook them out from the inside of his shirt, he explained that although he was absolutely fine and found the whole thing kind of funny himself, in California one cellar worker a year actually dies from falling into vats during punch down. Depending on how you fall, apparently once you are under enough of the grape skin/wine mixture (which can be extremely thick early on the process) it's hard to "swim" back up to the surface. So people sink to the bottom before they can be saved.  That's why at most wineries, cellar work is done with the buddy system, where one person will always watch another if they are punching down, for safety reasons. Which was proven to work last night, as my friend was able to be pulled back out of the vat after falling in.

At times my job in the tasting room is challenging, but I can honestly say it's never been life threatening. And up until last night, I would have said the same for winemakers and cellar workers. So the next time you hoist a glass of wine, remember that someone possibly risked their life "punching down" those grapes so they could be juiced, fermented and bottled for you to enjoy! Another "strange but true" tale from wine country: Death by Syrah -- and not from drinking too much of it. Who knew?

The Long Goodbye

"Late Summer" painting by Bev Bunker

The end of summer is always the same -- like a loud party guest who has overstayed their welcome and is the last person present, summer is the equivalent of that person -- sitting on the host's sofa at 2 a.m. relaying long stories about their trip to Europe last summer while asking if that vodka bottle they saw in the kitchen is empty yet. This is what late summer boils (literally) down to here in wine country. Summer has no dignity, and no clue when it's no longer wanted.

Summer, you were so much fun back in May. Now, if I may state things bluntly, you suck. Go home.

Harvest is in full swing out in the vineyards, and the 105-degree temperatures mess with the work schedules of all involved, since that's just too warm for anything to really do well out in the fields -- both the humans as well as the grapes themselves. And to have this kind of late-summer heatwave (a regular, normal occurrence around here) hitting when pumpkin spice everything is clogging up the shelves in the shops, and when the grocery aisles have featured products staged on clumps of fake fall leaves and hay bales, well, it's just depressing. For me anyway. It's like the best event is going on someplace, but not where you are, and you know you're missing out.

But at least there's a partial remedy for the frustration. And that is for me to take down the summer garden.  Because if I've had it with triple digit temps, it's a pretty good bet the squash plants I put in last spring agree with me. Oh, they're still producing squash, I'll be honest. I'm guessing squash plants will keep on producing after the last nuclear holocaust happens on Earth. The Bible is wrong -- it's not really the meek who will inherit the earth -- my bets are on the squash. 

But right now if I see another dish with squash in it I'll scream. Ditto for eggplant. Tomatoes are not high on my list of favorite foods right now either. They, like the party guest I mentioned in the first paragraph, have just spent too much time here and need to go elsewhere to continue their show.

 I hear spring is just getting started in New Zealand, so may I suggest there?

But as far as taking down the garden goes, some rituals are held not because of a season, but in anticipation of it. So although it feels nothing like fall here right now, I will take out the garden because I know, sure as the sun rises, that fall is coming (someday, hear oh Lord my prayer). 

But I will tell you that although I know the change in the seasons is most assuredly coming, it does nothing to decrease the resentment and restlessness I feel every late summer when I see all those hay bales and pumpkin-spice flavored crap in the stores everywhere. Because fall is my favorite season, and I know its happening somewhere. Just not here.

For now though, here in wine country we'll keep our shorts and tank tops on, harvest the grapes, and just dream of a place where pumpkin-spiced stuff seems right for the time of year. And maybe drink some wine to console ourselves. 

A land -- and time -- of extremes

Vineyard Wedding!

The last 10 days or so have been a time of extremes, hence my sparse posting. There have been no horrible events, (in case that first sentence sounded dire) just a lot of difficulty working the land due to the incredible heat and at the same time, a bunch of wine country related events, which gave us a great excuse to shrug off some chores at the end of the day in favor of dancing in the vineyards and eating fine food.

This is about all we got.

My olallieberry crop was a total bust this season; I think the heat withered the berries on the vine quicker than they were able to ripen properly. At the other end of that extreme however, the canes for next year look extremely promising, so hopefully summer '16 can make up for the berries we didn't get this summer. I still have plenty of berries frozen from summer '14, so we will have pies. (this is our homestead's unofficial motto/anthem, by the way: We will have pies. So very important.) My cucumbers also seem to be a bust, never quite taking hold, while my zucchini squash crop is, as usual, leaving us buried in excess zucchini. So it looks like I'll be buying cukes to make relish this year and leaving squash on the passenger seats of coworkers' unlocked vehicles -- a typical thing.

An afternoon Industry party getting wild, and then wilder (see below).

The events and parties we've been to have been just wonderful. We had a coworker's wedding to attend last weekend, along with a birthday party plus an Industry Night that turned out more like a combination of Pride celebration and/or giant rave in the vineyards, and we danced until we dropped. The great thing about dancing is that you can pretty much eat all the food you want, drink what you like, and are guaranteed to burn it off on the dance floor. Sometimes it seems strange to be doing that at my age, but as long as there are people older than I am doing the same thing, I feel safe in participating.  Who knows, someday (probably sooner rather than later) I may not be able to, so I'd better enjoy it while I can.

So while we bake in the daytime triple-digits and hide from the sun after about 11 a.m., at night everything is warm and magical and people come out to have some wine, see their friends, and dance until the cows come home, or in our area, until the grapes ripen. Which, at the rate this heat is going, should start in a couple of weeks.

The good with the bad

We've had our first official wildfire of the season, which started about a half-hour's drive from where we live, moving away from us, so no worries there.  But several folks have lost their homes, which is always tragic, and so, to some extent, we worry for them -- for all the homesteads and farms in the line of the burn.

In the drawer of my coffee table, I have a list of things to grab if we are ever evacuated in case of a fire.  I have a five-minute list and an hour list, depending on how much notice we have.  On the five minute list are our animals, my computer, our memory boxes for the kids and our fire safe, where we keep pink slips for the car and mortgage documents. On the hour list is a few more things -- our antique sideboard, our clothing, and other items I'd be hard-pressed to replace.  And so we prepare, we hope, and we do everything we can (including keeping the brush on our own property trimmed down) to dodge the fire bullet. But really, it's anyone's guess where it's going to happen.  The entire state is crisp, dry, and ready to burn.

So within this summer season, there is most certainly that bad.  But there also good. The vegetable garden is currently yielding its summer bounty and everything is green and growing.  The skies are clear (the fire is burning away from us so the smoke is moving away from us too) and the evenings are warm and inviting. All over the vineyard at work there are cottontail rabbits, California Quail, and even some wild boar. There are lots of parties in and among the vineyards for industry types, and it's a time when everyone gets together and makes their best guess whether this year will be a vintage for the ages, or one to forget. (it's too soon to tell, really, but it's looking good right now.)

Like everyone else, here in Wine Country we take the good with the bad and hope for the best in all things. It's going to be a long, dry fire season, but also a lovely season for ripe tomatoes, squash, eggplant and onions, so we'll take it all and say a prayer that the rain comes before anymore folks have to check off their evacuation lists and drive away from their homes and ranches, hoping and praying for the best.