T Tuesday with Circles

 I am way late to Elizabeth's T party today - and this will be a short one.

"Going round in circles" is the current challenge at Try it on Tuesday. I love circles, so this was a lovely opportunity for me to work in circles again. I created a spread in my art journal.

The background was created quite a while ago, it's a pink and purple spiral that I painted with acrylic colors. After it was done, I had no idea how to go on and so it sat for a few months - until this challenge came up. Suddenly I knew what to do with it. I journaled within the spiral and then added smaller circles that I cut out of the papers that I had created using the gelli plate. This became a fun project.

When I looked through my art journal and other sketchbooks I realized that I am using circles quite a lot. It is not always obvious at first sight. Years ago, when I was still scrapbooking, I loved to cut circles as well.

I created this layout 20 years ago, it is the right page of a two-page layout. And see - here is where the drink comes in. We had visited Fetzer Vineyards and had joined a tour through the garden. At the end of the tour there was some wine tasting. Of course my daughter, three years old at the time, did not get wine (what were you thinking???). She is drinking their grape juice - and you can see that she really liked it and loved drinking it out of a "grown up" glass.

These are such lovely memories. I miss her so much. 

Where the Wine Grapes Grow

Just like in 2017 I have a difficult time finding my "normalcy" again after our latest emergency. I struggled with that back then and I do it again right now. I've finally unpacked all the evacuation items, realizing that I packed less than last time. For example, I could leave behind all the scrapbooks because I had scanned them since the 2017 wildfire. Obviously I learned a lesson or two.

Anyway, I decided to get back to blogging, hoping to ease back into my "normal" life. I was thinking of the Alexander Valley north of town which was at the center of the Kincade Fire, our latest big wildfire. It is a beautiful valley with the Russian River lazily meandering through it. Vineyards stretch out to the foothills of the Mayacamas Mountains with majestic lone trees, mainly old oaks, standing either at the edge of the vineyards or right in the middle of them. Back roads pass the many wineries and restaurants that serve farm-to-table food.

The Wappo who with the Pomo used to live in the Alexander Valley prior to Spanish colonization call the valley "Unutsawaholmanoma"  which translates to "Toyon Bush Berry Place". Viticulture started back in 1843 when Cyrus Alexander began to establish vineyards in the area with vine cuttings collected from Fort Ross. The valley has become a renowned wine growing area, and AVA (American Viticulture Area) status was established in 1984.

The wine grown and produced here is truly delicious. The Cabernet-Sauvignons are top notch, but my personal favorite is the Zinfandel - for me it is THE California grape. It is a rich wine with a dark red color and flavors that explode on your tongue - I can't believe I'm writing this at 8:30 in the morning! I sure look forward to my glass of Zin tonight (probably from an Alexander Valley vineyard).

Despite the wineries that bring quite some tourism and therefore traffic to the area on a weekend, the valley has retained its sleepy agricultural character. It's a pleasure to trundle along Highway 128, a quiet back road, with a stop at Jimtown (a deli and a church) to grab a sandwich. The Mayacamas Mountains can be seen from anywhere in the valley with the peak of Mount St. Helena towering over them.

Today, Alexander Valley is the largest and most fully planted wine region in Sonoma County. It is also one of the warmest areas in Northern California during the day, but at night experiences a wide diurnal temperature variation (the variation between a high temperature and a low temperature that occurs during the same day) that offers cool climate conditions. This enables the Alexander Valley to grow a wide range of grape varieties. No wonder you can find so many wineries here.

Where the Mustard Grows

If you had to give February a color, which one would it be? Gray for rainy days? White for snow? Charcoal for stormy skies?

Here in wine country is has to be yellow. This is the month when the vineyards turn yellow - it's mustard season. It happens gradually, you almost don't notice it. And then suddenly one day you look around and the vineyards are a-glowing.

Doesn't it look almost like spring? Well... don't get me wrong, it sure is beautiful and you think it's warm and you can leave your comfy jacket at home, but then you turn around and you see this.

Sure, the snow doesn't reach down into the valley - and I'm grateful for this - but it does get cold. When we drove to one of my favorite wine valleys - the Dry Creek Valley where most of these photos were taken - we wore winter jackets and never stayed outside too long. Just long enough to take some pictures and capture this beautiful time. Otherwise - it's been freezing.

When the mustard starts to bloom the work in the vineyards also starts again. Everywhere we saw activity in vineyards, workers cutting back and trimming the vines, getting ready for the breaking of the buds in a few weeks. Other vineyards still lay dormant, but certainly not for long anymore. There is a lot of work to do.

The California Quails were busy, too. I'm sure they enjoyed the first warming rays of sunshine after the big storms we had. Some vineyards were completely flooded from the past heavy rains.

I love the patterns that the vines make. You can see in the image below that these vines are waiting to be trimmed and cut back so that we will get our next year's fill of delicious wine. Yes, it's a lot of work. Tending a vineyard is definitely not my idea of spending my time (but drinking the result certainly is!).

The mustard season doesn't last too long, but long enough to enjoy it for a few weeks. When it's over the buds will soon break and the cycle starts again.

I love the gnarled base of the vine against the fresh and luminous yellow of the delicate mustard flowers.

By the way, mustard doesn't grow in every vineyard. There are winter vineyards completely free of any mustard or only a sprinkle of them. They are beautiful as well.

An Image and Its Story - November 2018

When it comes to taking photos, November pretty much didn't happen. For almost two weeks I couldn't get out of the house (except for short grocery shopping trips and driving to work) because of the bad air quality, and when I did I certainly wasn't in the mood spending much time taking photos (try holding a camera in front of your eyes without pushing the filtered mask you're wearing deeper into your face all the time...). On top of that I was very busy in both my jobs and my small business that everything that was not somehow connected to these was simply left undone.

But then it was Thanksgiving and that meant driving to Davis to pick up Kaefer (and dropping her off again a few days later). That's when the photos happened! The drive to Davis was during the first rain when the air finally started to improve. I couldn't resist stopping my car and getting out to photograph those fog covered vineyards in the Napa Valley; and on the Sunday, it was sunny and clear and again, I stopped in Napa Valley to capture the vineyard right before the sunset.

The grapes in the foreground were already in the shade of the mountains, but the colors were so beautiful and vibrant. Whenever I passed this particular vineyard I always loved the look of the rows of grapes with the wind machines in between. Quite handily there's a small bay by the road where I could stop safely without blocking other traffic. The wind machines are used to blow warmer air from above into the grapes when there is frost - yes, we do have frost here. Frost for grapes is bad - that's why there are so many wind machines in our vineyards. I find them quite picturesque.

We may not have the spectacular autumn colors of trees like in New England, but our vineyards make up for that big time. Depending on the grape you can find all shades from light yellow to a deep burgundy red. It is a brilliant show that I enjoy every year.

When the Family Goes on a Hike

Last year REI for the first time didn't open their shops for Black Friday, but encouraged their employees and customers to "opt outside" instead and experience the great outdoors. We loved the idea and spent a wonderful afternoon hiking Sugarloaf Ridge State Park. This year we opted outside again on Black Friday, and we chose to hike in Jack London State Historic Park, the only park close to us that by some kind of miracle has been completely untouched by the October fires.

The vineyards in the park - with the original terraced planting by Jack London - were brilliant at this time of year.

We hiked up to the "lake" - it's not really a lake anymore since it is full of algae. This was our first view of it - that green thing in the back is the lake. I don't think anybody in their right mind would want to dive in there.

But when you walk further up there are some gorgeous redwoods.

I stepped right in the middle of the trees and just took a photo looking up.

When my family saw that, they wanted to do the same thing - and we ended up with this:

This was the first time that I broke in my new hiking boots - my old ones did break in Yellowstone during a hike and the Geek, resourceful as always, had hold them together using duct tape. It was a fine for that particular hike, but certainly not a permanent solution.

But then, of course, everybody wanted to take boot pictures!

And it just went on with taking silly family photos.

Kaefer was sitting on the wall at the edge of the "lake", but she didn't stay on her own for long, not in this family.

The Geek saw this tree and asked us whether we can see the seal in it - can you?

Even the hike back wasn't done in a "civilized" way - there is always room for silliness in this family. I think we thrive on it. Life is so much more adventurous upside down between the poison oak and the mountain lion warnings.

And the vineyards kept on being stunning.

We spent several hours in this beautiful park. Since it is the only park unharmed by the fire, the entrance into it is free until the end of the year. What a gift to anyone who loves to be in nature.

All the photos in this post were taken with my cell phone.

A German-American-Turkish Weekend

Imagine our surprise when a few weeks ago we received a message from Hubertus, a cousin of the Geek. He was wondering whether we could see each other when he and his girlfriend were spending some time in California. The last time we had seen him was in the late 1990s when he was 13 or 14 years old and living with his parents on a horse ranch in the northeast of Germany. Now he is a pilot with Turkish Airlines and lives in Istanbul. His girlfriend Burçin is Turkish and works as a flight attendant for the same airline.

It turned out that the weekend they wanted to come and see us was the long Presidents Day weekend - the same weekend that Kaefer had planned to spend with us. What a wonderful coincidence!

We had a full house last weekend - and we had an absolutely wonderful time. Yes, it was cold and rainy, bu that didn't keep us from having fun and showing them a tiny little bit of our beautiful county.

So on Saturday, despite the occasional rain and overall gray skies we took them out to the coast. It was windy and chilly, but the ocean is breath taking no matter what the weather is like.

There was a lot of foam on the beach that the wind quickly blew all over.

Kaefer was the center of the attraction - isn't it funny how we're all taking pictures of her being goofy?

And did I mention that it was a very windy day?

Further up the coast to the north on famous California State Highway 1 we visited Fort Ross. From 1812 to 1841 Fort Ross was a thriving Russian-American Company settlement. This commercial company chartered by Russia's tsarist government controlled all Russian exploration, trade and settlement in the North Pacific, and established permanent settlements in Alaska and California. Fort Ross was the southernmost settlement in the Russian colonization of the North American continent, and was established as an agricultural base to supply Alaska.

Only one building is a true original building; all other buildings have new parts and have been restored. However, the entire place gives a good idea what it must have been like "back in the day".

I loved all the little details we saw - barrels and big bundles of - what? Food supplies?

This old Russian bell was gorgeous and it had a very melodious, rich and deep sound.

We were able to go into every building, look around, look out and look back.

There was a real fire in the big oven. The storeroom was full with stuff - a feast for the eyes.

Look at those windows! I loved the view outside, but I also liked to see what was inside and on the windowsills. I would love to have one of those bottles, especially the teal one.

Beside the windows the doors were fascinating, too. What do you think?

After all this touring we had become hungry. We went down to Bodega Bay where we treated ourselves to a nice seafood dinner in The Tides Wharf - I had clam strips and fries and it was delicious.

On Sunday it was raining and we couldn't do any decent sightseeing. So, what can you do in Sonoma County on a rainy Sunday when you have family or friends over? Wine tasting, of course.

I love the Dry Creek Valley, so this is where we took Hubertus and Burçin. The valley has the size and approximate shape of Manhattan, but instead of skyscrapers and crowded streets it has country roads leading through vineyards and passing wineries with more or less nice tasting rooms. The tasting always costs money, but you can taste some truly delicious wines.

We first went to Quivira Winery which has excellent wines and a rather plain tasting room with the only decoration of these old vines high up on the wall.

Then on to Dry Creek Vineyard which makes my favorite Zinfandel and we ended our tour at Francis Ford Coppola Winery. This winery has developed in a center of fun for the entire family especially in the warmer seasons since it has a big pool, lots of entertainment for the kids, an excellent restaurant, shops - and, of course, wine. Many of the bottles have artful labels which you can also buy as big posters.

We actually didn't want to taste the wine here - we were hungry and wanted something to eat. We had to wait about 30 minutes for a table, but waiting in a place like this doesn't get boring.

(The top picture was actually taken in the Dry Creek Vineyard tasting room)

I was so happy that Kaefer and Burçin got along so well. They had a lot of fun together and it didn't matter at all that there were 10 years age difference between them.

The food in the restaurant was excellent - I had a Moroccan dish which still makes my mouth water just thinking of it - and so was the wine. We rounded the meal out with chocolate mousse, espresso and cappuccino.

When we finally left it was dark, still raining, but the lights outside were beautiful.

Hubertus and Burçin left the next morning and Kaefer left in the early afternoon. Suddenly it became very quiet in our home again with just the Geek and I. The weekend felt like a mini vacation that provided us with lots of beautiful memories.