FULL MOON HARVEST

We're in the middle of harvest.  There are tons of grapes along the drive.  When I woke up before daybreak a thick fog sat low on the yellowing vines that weave past my window and up the hill.   I don't like the smell from the first fermentation, but it was comforting mixed with the dense fog.  The full moon was about to set, the rooster began to crow.  I stepped into my kitchen for a fresh cup of jo and looked out my window to catch a ginormous fox fleeting through the wood.  Likely caught the jack rabbit racing through the dry creek.

I sat near the window to watch the stockmarket and the sunrise.   

ALIVE ON DECEMBER 22nd AFTER THUNDEROUS NIGHT

Last night we had one of those rare thunderstorms.  In the wine country we don't get the big lightening, thunder, roaring, pounding rain very often.  But last night won, if you're the type that loves storms.

It was also the big night, December 21, 2012.  The end of the Mayan calendar.  Every year we get the end of the world story.  But this night was special.  We had a specific date, carved in stone by highly intelligent people thousands of years ago.  Not just another Nostradamus prophecy re-worked to fit today's events.  We also had a celestial event, as we moved across the milky way, and aligned with the greatest planets in our solar system.

In this prophetic moment, back here in my little domain, safe for the moment, I awoke from a dream.  The roof of my vineyard cottage is made of european ceramic tiles.  The cottage built of blocks and covered in stucco.  Surrounded by old redwood and pine trees.  The typically dry creek behind my house roared with water.  Then it happened again, the thunder roared, the house shook.  The sky clapped, several times, so loudly I had to wonder, was this it?  Was something big about to happen?  My room lit up.  It was so bright I could see the flash through my closed eye lids.  Was the axis of the planet about to shift?  Was a solar flare causing a thunderstorm that would flood the planet?  Would this clap pop a hole in the ozone layer?

The clap and boom of thunder permeated the quiet night with a sound so loud my ceramic tiles played back an echo to each clap from the storm that rolled through the walls of my home.  The big old trees thrashing their long limbs, reaching 100ft. into the night sky, made for a spooky sky.

I dug deeper into my bed.  My ears on high alert.  Then a deep sleep as the rain fell thickly, dense but translucent like a vail, dampening the growing distant sounds of thunder.

Just after dawn, I awoke to the rushing sound of a full creek.  As I sipped a cup of thick black Jo I  watched deer head for dry ground just outside my kitchen window.  Check it out in the video attached.  Listen to the sounds of the creek, bone dry the night before.  I really appreciate these moments.  I live for them.  My creek is one of those things that only brings me happiness.  So I'll share it with you.

I'm really excited about 2013, I love the number.  Happy Holidays.

SUGARLOAF BOBCAT

Every now and again I see a Bobcat near my creek.  I was thinking about him/her this morning.  Magically it appeared today.  Following the deer I wrote about earlier.  I tried to video tape it slowly sauntering along, following their scent and heading straight toward them.   I was filming through a screen window.  The Bobcat was striped in soft muted colors and completely invisible through the mesh!  I had just let my fluffy white persian cat out the door, she burst back in.  The deers ... how do I warn them?  You have a Bobcat following you and you are trapped inside a fenced vineyard - Run!!

THE VINEYARD COTTAGE

I live on a beautiful vineyard in the wine country.

The last couple of years the weather just hasn't been as supportive as it should given the pleasure wine brings to so many of us.  Too cold, too wet, too sunny too late.  Because wine grapes like to struggle.  That's what gives them their depth.  The vines love the heat and require very little moisture.  If it's a cold summer, they don't grow.  If it's too wet, the grape swells up and it dilutes the dense crystalized flavors you've been waiting all year to harvest.

This year (2012) was the perfect year.  The harvest spectacular.  I was watching the harvest through the beveled glass of my front door.  Why you say?  Because the beveled glass refracts light and it sprays the colors outside all over my space, I can't help it.  Ton after ton of grape bins arrived.  I had never seen the vintner so happy.  As each week passed his smile lasted longer as he wheeled about on his forklift carrying full bins of grapes and later barrels full of freshly fermenting wine.  The weather held, and the grapes ripened perfectly.   This harvest lasted a couple of months, and the vintner never stopped smiling even though he and his team were working 18 hour days.

The wine is fermenting now in large tanks sitting under the olive trees that line the lane.  The fruit flies have arrived thrilled by the scent of freshly pressed grapes and thick yeast spicing the morning air.  So smart they are.  Did you know scientists actually trained fruit flies to play computer games.  They love the repetition and play tirelessly.  Well now they are in my kitchen.  They perch nearby looking at me, all over the walls, the rims of my glasses, the handle to my refrigerator just waiting for me to open it.  They come every year toward the end of harvest.  When the stems and vines lay off on the vineyard slopes, resting and melting back into the soil.  The fruit flies thrilled to find such a pile claim it as their rightful treasure.

I've seen fruit flies at harvest cover entire walls of people's homes and cellars.  The walls black, crawling with these little buggers.  Not in my home, not anymore.  What do you do when you just can't take it anymore?  Vacuuum!  Trap in a little hand vacuum and release back into the wild...if you are so inclined :)  Cuz you cannot catch them otherwise.

Can't wait to taste the new wine.  I'll tell ya about it as soon as I get my first taste.

THERE ARE DEER IN THE VINEYARD

I live on a vineyard that slopes up into the protected woods of Sugarloaf Ridge.  We've had phenomenal rain the last few days and the creek behind my cottage is celebrating with rushing water at an all time high.  It is really loud, but not as loud as the frogs!  It sounds like frogs are covering every inch of property beyond the creek.  What a crowd!

I had gotten up at dawn to give my daughter a ride to work.  When I returned home along a beautiful wooded lane I spotted three young deer.  They stopped trotting along, afraid of my car.  I waited, we checked each other out and I slowly moved pass them.

I got back into my cottage to let the vineyard owners know.  Unfortunately deer aren't the vineyard's friend.  They love grapes - no duh.  And in the winter they love the vines - yikes.  So they can't stay.  I grabbed another cup of really strong joe from my automatic brewer and noticed the same group hanging out in my creek just behind the trees.  Not more than 20ft from me.  Perhaps I had been a bit too welcoming.

I started talking to them, in a soft voice and asked them what they were doing?  I continued to talk to them, asking them ridiculous questions they couldn't answer.  Their ears are long and stood perked up at an angle, like an old T.V. antenna.  They were all watching me, listening to every word.  I told them they needed to leave and I moved slowly back to give them space.

They tip-toed out of the creek and ran up the path through the vineyard toward the slopes of the Sugarloaf Ridge.