The Last Time

Yesterday I was working behind the tasting room bar at the winery, helping out during a very busy Harvest Weekend, when I had a poignant moment. It was crisp morning, very autumn-y, with a breeze coming through the door; the kind of morning when you want to pull your scarf a little closer to your neck and retreat into the shadows with some hot tea or something (maybe wine, although 10 am is a bit early for it, even if my world) because you know winter is coming.

And I flashed back to my first winter working at the winery. There were many cold winter weekdays when we'd be lucky to get five customers in a day. Of course I knew I'd make virtually nothing in tips that day, but it didn't matter. Those kinds of winter days were the best. Often Chef would make some off-menu item for us to nibble on, there was light cleaning to be done or just reading Wine Business Monthly and listening to some good music while the rain drummed down or the fog lingered, as I stood behind the bar simply enjoying both the ambiance and the quiet as the hours ticked by.

It really was heaven on earth.

And it will never happen again, for (mostly) good reasons.

In the four years since I've worked at the winery, it's been "discovered."  Our wines began winning some very deserved awards, and we also got a full restaurant license, enabling us to serve a full lunch menu for those passing through the countryside doing wine tastings. That's about when I morphed into being the Chef's Garden Manager, since at my age I just don't have either the desire, the stamina or the memory to wait tables. In the meantime, even more awards came in...word of mouth spread...and now our little winery is a definite hot star in the firmament of both wine tasting and food venues in the area.

And so my lovely little winter weekdays in the winery are no more, gone and never coming back. But it occurred to me that there has to have been ONE of those days in the past (probably sometime in Winter 2014) which was the LAST day the winery would be like that for me, and the last day I'd ever experience that particular slice of heaven. It was the moment before the change. And I simply had no idea. 

Big Ag and I are still contemplating, planning and attempting to execute some big changes in our life (good ones) and it occurs to me that I will never really know when a "last" will occur -- the last run-in with an old friend in town, the last perfect sunset on that particular stretch of coast -- and like the chiché goes, I really should live more like each experience of anything may be my last. 

The changes at my workplace are proof that it all can change. And in the larger world, this year we've certainly seen more disasters relating to climate change than I ever recall seeing before, which means there are people who literally had no idea that 2016 was the last Christmas they'd ever spend in that house, or October 6 was the last morning they'd ever walk the dog around that neighborhood. And don't even get me started on those who lost their lives, for whom there was a last time for every single thing they did.

It's just a reminder to all of us that no matter how tempting it is to focus on the future, we've got to stay in the present, especially the good parts of the present. Any moment could be the last one of its kind. And once it's gone, those moments, like the Passenger Pigeon or the Tasmanian Tiger, are gone forever, never to return. 

May we appreciate and acknowledge those things when they happen and live them to the fullest.

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. 

About a Hive

The hive's within.

So we now have a beehive...in the base of our backyard decorative fountain. This is the thing about living in the country -- you never know what you're going to get. You might have deer, a fox or even a mountain lion roaming your property. Or you might go outside one day and find a hive of bees has decided your yard is the address where they want to make their home.

Which I think is kind of an honor, actually. Talk about creating a bee-friendly habitat -- that moment when 500 or so of them arrive and let you know you've done it right is a great feeling.

Point of entry.

Our bees arrived en masse a few days ago, and unfortunately, set up shop in what (of course) is a totally inconvenient and unsafe place for them to stay. Being that it's inside the base of the fountain, it's highly susceptible to an ant invasion, and of course is impossible to manage the honey production safely.

But the thing is, I love these bees.  I'm also allergic to their sting, to the point where I keep an epi-pen on hand when I'm in the garden, so most of my bee enjoyment tends to be in small doses, and from a safe distance. I will never be a beekeeper for this reason, and the hive cannot remain where it is for that reason as well. But I'm still happy the bees chose us.

But what to do with them was a conundrum.

It didn't take me long to come up with a solution. Because you know who else loves bees, to a point where he actually has a beekeeper's outfit and beekeping equipment? My boss at the winery, that's who. He had a hive until last year, when the queen died and the minions deserted the bee box, and he's been looking for a replacement hive ever since.  And now he has one. Mine. 

Better Homes for bees.

It turns out this hive is an offshoot -- excess product if you will -- from a much larger hive which exists someplace on this property (I don't know where, but it's certainly not in the way of anything and therefore no danger to me). So this new hive can be moved and we will still have plenty of bees here.

So next week, we have an apiarist coming to remove the hive from the fountain and put it into the winery bee box. Then we will move it away from here, down the road to the winery, where they can hopefully live out their days and make lots of honey.

Ready for occupancy!

It's not a done deal yet, and it may be trickier than we've all imagined (isn't it always?) but I'll keep you up to date as we go and let you know what happens to these awesome little guys. They are a mellow bunch, not even minding when I get close to take pics of them, so I think they'll make a great addition to the winery. And, you know, if they ever do get a little grumpy, there's plenty of Cabernet on hand to settle them down again. Hey, it works for people.

But I have Flowers!

I am happy to report that once again, I kicked a cold virus in the ass due to my willingness to sacrifice all and take a day off to sit on the sofa and nap. This proves, once again, that laziness does in fact sometimes have an undeniable evolutionary advantage.

So today I thought I got under-paid on my timesheet and contacted the gal at work who takes care of such things. She, in turn, contacted the lady who actually cuts the checks. They looked everything over and decided....I was in error. Pay stub was correct. Which, once I looked closely enough at my pay stub, I totally saw, too. Oops.

I'm pretty hard on myself for such human mistakes. I hate that I put my friend and coworker out for nothing and sent her on a wild goose chase. But here's the thing....I have flowers. Lots and lots of flowers. Mason jars, too.

Apology.

So tomorrow I will take my kind and patient coworker these, as a humble request to forgive this lady who doesn't see well without her glasses anymore and never should have been looking at her pay stub without them.

I also currently have dried figs, cucumbers, apple pie filling and preserved relish to get me back into people's good graces if flowers don't work.

For all my bitching about how hard it is to maintain this place, there is no denying that sometimes it pays to live here, especially when you need to make nice to someone because you were a ditz.

Squash Baby

So I have a coworker who absolutely hates squash. We go around and around, with him coming up with pithy little statements designed to get on the squash-lovers' nerves (this includes our winery chefs and a couple of tasting room folks). Things like, "I have a great recipe for squash. Cut the squash into little pieces, throw it into the trash, and go find something else to eat." Ha ha.

Those of us who like squash are always in a difficult time at this point in the year anyway, because while we really like squash, we've also had enough of it to last us awhile (although I will never admit this to my squash-hating coworker). Luckily I work in a place that allows and encourages practical jokes. And so the idea of Squash Baby was born. Basically I nurtured one GIANT squash among my plants here at home until I had a 12 pound huge zucchini. Squash Baby got plenty of water and plenty of fertilizer, in order for him to reach his full potential.

 I went to the Goodwill and bought him some baby clothes (the onesie actually has a tractor and says, "homegrown!") and a hat. Then I pulled four more squash at roughly identical lengths to make two arms and legs.

And then I left Squash Baby in my coworker's office, so it greeted him in his chair on Monday morning. 

Haven't heard a bad comment about squash since then. I think Squash Baby now inhabits his nightmares. I know it does mine.

A few gratuitous work photos

The Office . My boss said he didn't want anymore flowers along this fence line, but if a couple of packets of sunflower seeds should just happen to be spilled around there, I will invoke culpable deniability/willing suspension of disbelief -- whichever one will work best.

So I'm finally at the point when the big, planting phase of the summer garden at work is finished, and the chefs are busy harvesting what I've grown for use in the menus for the weddings we host as well as in our café. This has been immensely satisfying for me and I'm proud of how the garden looks, as well as the poundage it's producing in terms of food. Of course it wasn't all about my skill -- I just got very lucky/blessed in terms of weather and the fact that we had an early El Nino spring. 

Mexican tarragon

Herbs, nasturtiums, zinnias and alyssum

One thing that I'm happy I did is intercrop some ornamentals-beneficials and ornamental-edibles in and around the food crops. We've put nasturtium blossoms on all the cheese plates and in salads and the alyssum and marigolds seem to be attracting the good bugs and repelling the bad.

Squash bed is very squashy.

My Master Gardener classes are also drawing to a close and it will be a huge relief to not have to drive an hour south every week to attend class, although I've learned a tremendous amount and am so grateful for that opportunity to have done so. But clearly July is going to be a slower month for me than I've had in the last five months or so, and I'm grateful for that.

I have a few projects I'll be working on....one is refurbishing two Adirondack chairs I bought for $15 at a garage sale (pics to come). Another is working on some kind of dining room table for our back patio. These are all great things to occupy oneself with in the mornings before the heat sets in.

Mmm, who doesn't love Genovese Basil in summertime!

But until I start those projects, for now this is the time to gaze and savor all that has come out of spring's labors, which were many. What delicious results for the eyes and palate!

Monday Funday

Yoshi is ready for his Monday Funday...as soon as he recovers from the weekend.

So I must admit that one thing the winery job spoiled me for is Mondays. For three years I worked most Saturdays, and so at some point I just decided that Sunday and Monday were going to be what I considered my "weekend" days off.

In a way, it's nice to create your own weekend (if your job allows). One of the best things about having  your week-end on a weekday is that you get at least one day off during the week while the rest of the world works. Most folks I know who work in the tasting rooms around here have that option. For many, it's Tuesday/Wednesday.

But if working weekends and being off on traditional weekdays sounds difficult, consider this: If you need to shop on your "weekend," the stores are uncrowded. If you want to catch a movie, you'll get in without waiting in line. The beach is almost deserted. And let's not even start on how easy it is to get a table if you're going out to dinner in the evening. 

Mondays are definitely fun days for me, even when I'm busy catching up on house chores.

Most Mondays I do work here, just like most people do in their homes on their weekends. Mondays are a day of no paid work, but it's the day I clean house, because I know that way it will look pretty good until next weekend. Luckily I don't mind cleaning, so it's not a burdensome activity. 

One of the main problems I had back when we had our housekeeper was that she could only come on Fridays (with the idea that this way we'd have a beautiful, clean house for the weekend). She did a great job, but with Big Ag home on normal weekends (tracking half the dirt and grass from the property inside) and me home all day on Sunday after working a long Saturday shift (where I'd cleaned all day, meaning I didn't want to do any cleaning at home), guess how the house looked Sunday night? Right. Like it needed a good housecleaning. Or a small nuclear bomb, detonated in the general vicinity of the kitchen.

And so I've learned that it's better to clean it right before we're gone to our day jobs for several days, because that's what it takes to keep things clean around here...us not being around. Turns out, we are the reason we can't have nice things...or a clean house.

This morning it's chilly and foggy outside and so I'm enjoying the fire and the quiet of the house. Now that I have a more flexible schedule with my new job, I do have the option of going down to the winery garden and working on a Monday if I want or need to, and I don't even have to work Saturdays to make up for it. But I've decided I am going to keep at least some of these Mondays for myself, as I've just come to enjoy having a weekday "weekend."

How about your schedule? Are you a Saturday/Sunday kind of weekend person, or is your weekend a time period of your own creation?

The View from The Other Side

Another day at the office.

These last couple of days I've felt an immense sense of satisfaction with my life. My surgery is over and the hip/back problem I went into hospital to have fixed does, in fact, appear to be repaired. My scheduled tasting room shifts are done with and I am pretty much setting my own schedule at the garden at the winery, planting squash, herbs and tomatoes and enjoying the cool mornings down there where the California quail, jackrabbits and lizards are my company in the quiet of the early day.

(And the grapevines of course, which are budded out and growing happily. I have nothing if not a beautiful "office" to work in.)

And last weekend, for the first time in I don't know how long, I took a Sabbath day and rested. Well, what passes as rest for me, anyway. I hung a couple of loads of laundry out on the line in the sunshine, puttered in the garden, and observed some God time in study and conversation. But I enjoyed it all -- my pace was slow, the work was easy, and there was lots of down time in between what little work I did.

Plus the house was quiet. The television was not going on all day, the computer did not beckon, and we received no invitations which took us out of the house. 

I guess that's one good thing about recovering from surgery...folks assume you're down for the count and leave you off the guest list. 

My garden sent me this beautiful get well bouquet. Thanks Mother Nature!

And the result is peace and quiet. I think there's an emotional dividend that pays off big when we prioritize our life where we put peace first. For me, it's a sweet spot I can feel -- putting the things that give me peace at the top of the priority list and removing things that distract/stress/hyper-activate me. You can't do it forever, those bills need paying, those phone calls need to be made and decisions need to happen -- but maybe for just one day, sundown to sundown, we can leave those things be.

Why do I only do this when something takes me out of the game enough that I have to call a time out? Why did it take a surgery for me to unhook myself from the yoke of scheduled socializing and work and just sit still for awhile?

Today I was back to work, and when I went into the winery my favorite chef was there, experimenting and making fruit chutneys with our late harvest wine. Since the chef's garden I manage is not a customer-service oriented position where I need to be johnny-on-the-spot, I can now be in a position to spend a few moments in the kitchen or behind the bar talking to the coworkers I love to be around. Anyway, Chef let me sample the chutney and it was absolutely divine. So this afternoon I'm making a small batch here at the house, which I'll use as a sauce for some barbecued meat I'm grilling for dinner.   

Steak with grilled fruit chutney -- yum.

Cooking is a signpost for me, I have noticed; if it's happening, life is proceeding at a decent pace -- when it stops, I've become too busy. I think for many of us, we stop cooking when we lack the time and  motivation to create good food.  It's kind of like being in a rowboat in a survival situation...it's interesting to see what gets thrown overboard when we're just paddling to save ourselves. Hobbies, rest, household chores, or even family? Interesting to think about what we get rid of and what we keep "on board."

And so, with the craziness of traveling out of town for surgery behind me, healing in the works, and a job change in progress, I've decided this is a great time to do some rearranging; perhaps pulling some things back into the lifeboat that I left to dog-paddle in the water for awhile.  

Peace will come first, followed by work of course. But peace first.

It occurs to me that if you place peace and quiet last on your priority list, by the time you get to enjoy it you will probably be asleep. Work will always be there (in some form or another) but peace is fleeting and best captured through planning and foresight. 

So my advice is this: Take a look in your lifeboat and pull those things you threw into the water back into the boat with you while they're still floating beside you, whether that's time to converse with people you enjoy, cooking, prayer time, or even just hanging some wash in the sunshine. 

What good is a lifeboat if your life isn't even in it? 

Turn the steering wheel.

I'll be finishing my last two shifts behind the bar at the winery in the next couple of weeks, and it's causing me to reflect on my experiences as a tasting room attendant. 

The best (and coincidentally, also worst) part of my job has been the people -- the best, my coworkers, all of whom I enjoy and most of whom I'm friends with outside of work. And the great customers I meet -- people I'd love to invite over for dinner or to my home for the weekend. Honestly, I've met people I'd be honored to call my honorary relatives. Pouring wine allows you to interact with cultured, funny, intelligent and wonderful people who all have one thing in common: they love wine. I've met NASA astrophysicists, POTUS advisors, current and ex-movie stars, you name it. But also just retired couples, newlyweds, "just-turned-21" youngsters (to me) who are anxious to really learn about how to taste wine, and oenophiles of every social class and occupation.

But in my time behind the bar I've also met people who I was less than thrilled to meet, but who I had to smile and serve wine to, nonetheless:  There was The Russian, a repeat customer who constantly asked for re-visits on the wine, complained about the portions he was poured, claimed he was owed discounts and freebies no one promised him, and who treated service staff like serfs. There were the parents who brought their children with them when they went to winery after winery and didn't look after them. There were drunks who broke things, caused scenes, tried to crash weddings going on on-site, or attempted public sex in some pretty public places. 

But thankfully, those bad experiences were very, very much in the minority and were mostly things we could all laugh about once the doors closed and it was just staff and a half-finished bottle of Cabernet going around as we swapped tales of the day.

One of the things about providing great service though is to always ensure your smile is genuine; in other words you should never burn out, and after three years and increasingly busy customer counts, it's time for me to hand over the bottle to someone else before I do, in fact, burn out. It would happen. I've always believed it was a smart person in life who knew when to change lanes or get off the damn freeway completely when it was time to do so, and who turned the steering wheel without fear. Before someone asks you to, or you are desperate to change. Make the change before you hit that point, if you can, I say.

My new office.

My new job has several distinct advantages: I can set my own hours, including during summer when I'll try and be home before the heat sets in. I can take breaks when needed, or just stop and visit with a coworker without fear of neglecting a customer awaiting their next pour of wine. I still get to work in a happy work place with happy coworkers. And I'm outdoors on the best days -- the cool, sunny, breezy ones, and at home with a good book when it rains or when it's 105 degrees.

My shifts will also be a bit shorter, but more often, which will allow me to dovetail my own homesteading activities with work a lot more, which will help around here a lot.

But of course there will be the challenge of growing a beautiful and also a productive garden, meeting the needs of our kitchen staff and chef while also making the garden a place that beckons you to walk around and visit. 

At this point, I'm just turning the wheel and hoping for the best.

A New Chapter

So yesterday afternoon I found myself among friends at the winery on a purely social visit, sitting beneath the veranda as the sun set with a glass of Cabernet and catching up with everyone. One friend is going through a difficult divorce and was passing her phone around so we could see pictures the new house she just purchased, which she'll be working on to make totally hers, reflecting her new life.

I will be starting a new life of my own soon, in a wonderful way. I will be moving on from the tasting room in order to manage our Chef's Garden at the winery. Oh, I'll still probably jump in behind the bar on special occasions like festival weekends, but my energy and work hours will now be focused on making our winery garden both productive and a lovely place to look at as customers enjoy our wine and stroll the property.

There comes a time when everyone needs a bit of a change-up; in the three years I've worked at the winery it's been "discovered,"  we've have won numerous (well-deserved) awards, and the restaurant has also recieved numerous write-ups and high praise (also well-deserved). These are all great things to be sure, but the result is that my workplace has become twice as busy as when I started, and unfortunately I'm not half as young to go along with that. 

While everyone has been pleased as punch with my job performance as a tasting room attendant, I knew that I would not last through another hot summer (most our our work takes place outside in summer, in the heat of the afternoons) out pouring wine, schlepping plates and helping serve food, and I had all but determined that my last day would be the end of June, regardless of whether or not I had another job to go to.

But that made me very sad, as I love my bosses, coworkers and customers, I count good friends among them all and it would have broken my heart to leave.

But providence threw down a blessing this week in the form of this job offer, and so beginning in April I will be out in the garden at the winery in the cool mornings, making it a place you want to be -- to stand in, to walk around, and of course enjoy the products of in your lunchtime meal.

So here's to moving out -- out into a new life, and in my case, out into the garden, a place I seem destined to inhabit in one form or another. And now there will be double posts on growing and wine country life,  both from home and work. I really think I'm going to enjoy this new view from my "office," just a few yards from the tasting room, but where the breezes blow and the seedlings grow.

Can you tell I can't wait to get started?

Winter's rest

These next couple of weeks I'm completing the chore list I made when I decided to take an extended vacation from working at the winery back in November. The break turned out to be a great idea, and I've gotten more done in the last six weeks than I did the entire year before that. I plan on doing the same thing at this time next year. It just wraps up the year's end nicely to be able to make a significant dent on the list, giving space and room for whatever shows up in 2016.

But of course the items still left on my list are the ones I least enjoy doing, which is how they ended up at the bottom of the list -- isn't that always the way? If you hate sweeping, you'll do almost anything to avoid it, including a bunch of other chores you tell yourself need to get done more. 

Anyway, one of those bottom-of-the-list things which I'm finally getting to today is taking Sputnik into the vet's office for his rabies shot. The last time he got one he developed an allergic reaction in the form of a HUGE knot on his back, so this time I'm making sure the shot is done by the vet in a medical environment, where he can receive immediate treatment if he has a reaction. But as Sputnik does not ride in the car very frequently, a trip to the vet is stressful for both of us.

I have a few more things on my list before I return to work about mid-month, but when you have property, the list never really gets completed. New things and seasonal chores show up on the horizon just as old chores get marked off. 

But the break has been good for me in other ways as well, more than just getting stuff done. It's allowed me to return to living a little more in the moment -- to have several days in a row when there's nothing mandatory on the schedule to be done that day, which seems to be something necessary to really get stuff done around here. Creativity flows when time is in abundance, there's a creativity in scheduling things as well, so you can flow well from A to B to C, etc.

They only thing around the homestead that's new is that we are getting two Yuzu trees in a few weeks; they were my Christmas present from Big Ag and I couldn't be more thrilled. The Yuzu is a Chinese citrus which tastes like a cross between a tangerine and a lemon, which is quite cold-hardy and therefore a possibility for us to grow here, where temps regularly dip into the 20s in winter. 

I've picked out the most temperate place in our yard -- the south side by the house -- to place them, and will look forward to seeing how they do once they show up. They also love poor soil, so the rocky dirt that makes up our hilltop may be perfect for them.

I'm hopeful, anyway. And I start my Master Gardener classes in a few more weeks, too, so now the trick will be to not end up over-scheduled and burned out again, but to still leave myself enough time to work, enjoy life and get things done around the property. 

Same thing everyone else is probably striving for, right?

Please just stop talking now (or, tales from Wine Country, episode #7765)

Occasionally at my job I run into a person who I wish I could tap on the shoulder and say, "please just stop talking now" to.

Yesterday was a busy day at the winery, and I spent a pleasant few moments getting to know a party of four well-dressed, cultured, slightly European-looking men having a "guy's day out," while their wives had a Ladies Day. They were relatives to each other, one local and the others visiting from out of state.

There was a lady across the aisle at another table, who I was also serving, and who was one of those people who liked to be thought of as "in the know." After several numerous attempts to impress me with her knowledge of wine lingo, she turned to the four men sitting at the table across from her.

"You know, we just went to (name of a new, swanky restaurant in San Francisco) Have you been there yet?"

The men looked a little confused, and then one of them responded by saying that if they were ever in the Bay Area, they'd try it out.

"Oh, I figured you were from San Francisco! You mean you're not from San Francisco? I just assumed you were from San Francisco!" she said.

From this exchange you can read two things:

1. She (wrongly) assumed the four men having lunch together must be two gay couples because to her, they looked gay. (Straight people's gay-dar should generally not be relied on.)

2.  She (wrongly) assumed all gay people in California live in San Francisco, therefore since they were obviously gay they MUST be from San Francisco and would therefore be impressed by the swanky restaurant her and her husband had just dined at. 

Because as you know, it's mandated (ooo, a pun!) that all gays live in San Francisco, and all gays know the hip places to be seen at. Oh, and it's also a rule that all even-numbered groups of well-dressed men hanging around together must be gay couples.

I always feel sorry for these kinds of people, those who expend so much energy to project an image to the outside world, but that sympathy is also usually tempered with the strong urge to tap them on the shoulder and say, "please just stop talking now." Or hit them with something heavy, depending on how stressful my day has been.

 Instead I just came inside and died of a combination of laughter and extreme embarassment for all involved. Some days behind the bar in wine country are like that. 

Greens, reds and rainbows

One thing I'm fond of doing (as I'm sure most of you are as well if you have any kind of edible plants growing on your property) is snacking as you walk through the garden.  Right now the pineapple guavas are ripened and falling off the bushes -- what wonderful treasure to find under the trees!  I am sure I get a good part of my body's micronutrients from these and the pomegranates that are also ripe this time of year.

Sometimes I lament when it's too late in the day to get outside and pick some lettuce for an evening's salad, but with some of these fruits sitting in a bowl on the counter, there's no reason I can't boost my "fruit and vegetable" servings just a bit by snacking on them in the evening after work, instead of something more processed and unhealthy.

And while those short days do make me feel like I don't always get enough time out in the garden, the winery has its own set of pleasures, like this late-afternoon rainbow we saw over the vineyard a few days ago.

Red's Near-Death Experience

The thing about animals is that they live totally in the present, meaning what happened to them today, yesterday, or what's going to happen to them tomorrow is of no concern for them.  A few days ago, Red, our Rhode Island Red hen (and my best layer) went too far with me, and it nearly cost her her life.

She's always been prone to attacking Big Ag, Groceries and myself, rooster-style, meaning she gets all puffy and indignant and strikes out at us as we're passing by.  She has drawn blood on shins, ankles, bare toes and arms.  She is truly one of the most miserable creatures I've ever met, and for no apparent reason.  She was held and treated gently as a chick the same as our other chicks were, but whereas they ended up docile and sweet, she's ended up possessed.

But the other day I brought in the two new chicks, Cleo and Chloe, to introduce them slowly to the flock.  While my Buff Orpingtons provided warning pecks when the two little ones got too curious, Red actually made one of her rooster-style runs at Chloe, our sweet and very docile new Barred Rock.

She did this right before I was going into the winery, and so I put the little hens back into their separate enclosure, drove to work and immediately had a heart-to-heart talk with our chef Ben, who is also a homesteader and butcher.

The verdict was unanimous.  Red would meet her end via Ben at the end of the day.  There would be a chicken killing and dressing, followed by some wine and fellowship. I would be sad to see Red's life end, but be happy that she couldn't threaten Chloe's since aggressive hens have been known to kill young chickens, and Red is the very definition of an aggressive hen.

Red's day had come.  Or so I thought. 

As we were discussing it, Ben said something that bothered me.  When I mentioned she was my best layer, he explained to me that she would probably have an egg inside her, which we would find after butchering her.  And that bothered me.  Because although Red is a despicable creature, she is a very good producer of eggs.  And I hate to put a good food source out of business.

So I "hatched" another plan.  When the owner of the winery came in, I asked him if he'd be willing to try her out in his flock.  There's very little human interaction there, and with the distraction of many more hens than we have, I thought Red might be better suited alive and laying, but with the other winery chickens instead of ours.  She has never shown aggressions towards other grown hens, so I know his flock is safe.  And I even think that without so much human interaction, she will settle down a bit.

But if she doesn't, Ben and his ax will be waiting.  Red lives in the present, so she doesn't know this.  She also doesn't know that the people she's been attacking have been willing to go to a Plan B to save her life, nor that she will be moving to a new home as a last ditch effort to keep her in this world.

I don't expect a thank you from her, or even a reprieve from her terrible behavior over her very narrowly missed appointment with death.  That would be asking too much from a chicken. 

 But if she could just behave herself in her new home, I'd consider us even-steven.

Sustainability and employment

So a couple of weeks ago I saw a classified ad, looking for a person to run the local college's sustainability resource office.  The job description was a bit vague as the center just received a grant to get it started, but the job qualifications -- teaching experience, a passion about sustainability, sounded like me.

The best part is that it was only 10 hours a week, which would mean I would not have to stop working at the winery.

Sounds perfect right?  Well, cutting a long story into a short one in the spirit of word conservation, I got offered the job after interviewing for it on Tuesday and said I'd think on it.  But on Friday, I sent an email thanking them, but turning them down.

And why, you ask?  Because the sustainability job was simply not sustainable -- for me and my life, anyway.

My homesteading job offers pleasant co-workers

For me, this is progress, because when choosing not to take the job, I did something I never used to do when I was younger -- I looked down the road at the long-range scenario, fitting my life in with the job.  The job, done right, would expand, as more and more schools were served under the program.  Right now it might be 10 hours and less than a 100 miles of driving a week, but if I did my job well, within a year or two it would expand -- to 20 or 30 hours a week, and a lot more driving to various cities each week (most of which I would not be compensated for).

In other words, for me, my job would basically be this: to be successful enough that I could no longer work all the hours the job required, unless my ultimate goal was seeking regular, almost full-time employment.

An office with a view

In our family, Big Ag already has the Big Career/full-time job in the family.  His job provides our benefits, the truck he drives and the gas it takes to drive it.  He's well compensated.  And because of that, we are able to have me here, taking care of our own crops, our own livestock, and running things on the home front.  Remember, we homestead, which means I make a lot of what others buy in the supermarket like soap, laundry detergent, etc. It all takes time.

I was blessed to find my job at the winery, which has completely flexible hours, great pay (actually more than what the other job was offering) and is just a couple of miles down the road, meaning I spend almost nothing on gas. That, to me is sustainability. In my own life.

And a decent compensation package.

So while I was flattered to have been offered the job, for me it was a little like being proposed to by the wrong guy ... a man who will make someone a great husband, but not me.

I guess what it comes down to is whether I want to teach about sustainability, or live it myself.  Sometimes you have to choose.  

This is my choice.

Add and Subtract

The homesteader's dilemma

One of the basic tenants of homesteading is to turn one's home from a zone of consumption into a zone of production.  But it also means that if you use x amount of energy, you try to either reduce or at least maintain that amount as you go along in life.  Meaning you don't add appliances without thinking about their impact on your household bills and the environment.

Sometimes this is a challenge.  Right now, for instance, I have realized I am accumulating a pretty nice collection of wines, some of which are new and could do with a nice laying down for several years.

A laying down, you ask?  Yes.  If you know wines, you already know that this means.  Get a bottle of, say, 2010 Cabernet, and while its drinkable now, it will be even better in a few more years.  Laying it down means just that:  Setting it aside and, just as important, storing it properly, so you can hang onto it until it comes to the peak of its deliciousness, when it's truly ready to be opened and enjoyed.

Laying down on the job

The other day at the winery, for example, the staff sampled a 2009 Cabernet, which everyone thought was delicious, until the manager opened a bottle of the 2005 Cabernet, which had been stored in the temperature controlled wine library to age for four years longer than the 2009.  The change was remarkable; the "laying down" truly took a good wine and made it great.

Wine is an investment.  I have a coworker who collects new wines, allows them to age, then checks on a wine brokers website to see when it's selling for the most money. That's when the wine is at its peak, so that's when he opens his bottle.  He said usually a good wine will double in price by the time it reaches its peak, and some become more expensive even after that.  

So as I'm working for wine now and amassing a pretty nice collection of wines, I need something to store them properly in, i.e., a decent wine refrigerator (rather than the 8 bottle one we currently have), so I can do the same thing as my coworker and open no wine before its time.

Investment receptacle

But we're homesteaders, and so begins the homesteading thing of adding and subtracting  as far as our power usage goes.  When we get rid of the inefficient 8-bottle cooler we have now, that will save some wattage.  Moving the chest freezer indoors has saved us a lot of wattage also.  So now I can justify buying the wine fridge as we've created energy savings elsewhere.

These are not hard and fast rules; we're not energy-use zealots, but we do believe in not wasting finite resources, like those that bring us our power.  So we check and we balance, and we find a way to preserve our new and delicious investments.