Peeling off the wrap on the roshambus. It’s August now and I’m seeing the finality of the job. I see my reflection from the sun beating down upon my on my back. I can’t say I’m glad I’m doing this. My fingers hurt from pulling, stickiness from the plastic is under my nails. But it needs to be me. The party is now over and I need to wipe those images from my retinas.  For over 8 months now I’ve been daunted by this imposing task I guess I should feel something? But I don’t It’s just something that needs to get done.

It’s still cold here. Summer never really happened I Just hope somewhere in the States someone has nice weather.  Ate lunch in town today. Healdsburg is just a tourist town. Saw yet another sign today. “Notice of intent to sell alcoholic beverages” Another tasting room perhaps. I have nothing against tourist towns. But besides all of the small shitty boutiques of crap that you can get in San Francisco for ¾’s the price. There really is nothing to do here except get loaded on tastes of wine, and eat generic California cuisine.

Some drunken asshole in brown comfort sandals almost knocks me down on the sidewalk. He’s carrying a small bag with La Crema glazed upon its side.  His cohorts laugh loudly in cahoots and bumble into the next tasting room edifice. I feel a tinge of anger bloom. But I just hope they make it home all right.

Here is my question? Timothy’s mom is coming to town tomorrow. What should we do?

Justice doesn’t help out much on the farm either. I have been okay with it, but now as I’m sitting here at my desk still contemplating where I went wrong in raising him. I need him to want to help me more. It drives both Timothy and I crazy when he screams across the yard “Mom… Mom. MOMMMMMM.” We have been trying to train him to just come and find us, that he can step outside the house, and that we would never just leave him alone. It hasn’t worked yet.  And I wish it would because nothing will put you in a bad mood quicker than a kid crying because he thought he was abandoned while you were only at the chicken coop 40 feet away.

Just how do you get them to understand this? My friend Lisa has her 5 year old doing chores. Nothing too complicated, doing the dishes (sometimes), cleaning her own room. I’m going to have to try this soon. Doesn’t more responsibility mean you are growing up? My darling child isn’t so little anymore and summer vacation is almost over. I guess we both feel it. Mom is boring. She nags too much and I think she needs a vacation.

If I could just get Justice to go to bed before 10pm… Already we live in this summer vacation dream state where we wake way after the sun is up in the morning sky. But it’s not that we are not stirring in our beds. Justice always slips into my bedroom around 7am, I stretch out my arms and he cuddles in beside me. If Timothy is around, we talk about things that are on our minds. Timothy’s new taco bike, work, The NBA, what we’re going to eat for breakfast or dinner?  Everything but where we plan to go on this summers vacation… I guess farming is our summer vacation. We are outside every day.  Already my son is brown like burnt caramel. My own skin a slight shade lighter, Poor Timothy our whitey has the illusion of wearing a white tank top against his very very red freckled arms and neck.

We’re working.  Who said you couldn’t work outside during the heat of the day? With an ice filled Nalgene and an afternoon break underneath the giant oak it isn’t so bad. Working with your hands has it’s own rewards like squishing cucumber beetles til that faint pop and green mucus coats your garden gloves. Or sneaking that first small sweet cherry tomato, which we all believe we were the first to taste.

Timothy and Ian got it stuck in their heads that we needed pigs. Two 90-degree days later and we’re two days closer and two to go to having our own swine. At first I didn’t like the idea at all. We haven’t quite gotten the hang of growing vegetables yet.  But that’s the way it goes around here. An idea becomes a swift reality. We aren’t only dreamers; just please don’t give us too many ideas okay?

Timothy called on his way back to SF this afternoon to let me know that a swarm of bees was on the ranch. He thought it might be a good idea to take J, and go look at them. I got a better idea and went and got prepared to catch the swarm. Bees are not scary at all but 10,000 or so whizzing this way and that it can and is unnerving.  Luckily, these bees were amassed on the ground. Covering the ends of two large redwood tree branches making it look not unlike two oversized lit matchsticks glinting sparks with their buzzing crystalline wings.

Dressed in my beekeepers hat and gloves and some borrowed oversized sweats my first attempt I slowly outreached my hands and picked up as many bees as I could and let them fall from my fingers into the cardboard nuc box. I just knew it at the time that I didn’t get the queen bee. While reaching I didn’t take into account just how deep the bee swarm was, I only grazed its surface. As I did this bees flew out from all sides and inspected me and swarmed again. My gloves from other hive inspections had small traces of propolis and the bees enrobed my hands and started tasting me.

With Justice waiting right behind me wearing only shorts and short sleeve tee shirt and my jiggled nerves I decided I needed to regroup and take a break. We went home and I thought better of how I would accomplish my bee mission.

After dinner I had my plan. I would pick up one of the branches and dump the bees into the box. With Justice as my cheerleader we drove back and I made my second attempt. Bop, thunk… Maybe half the contents of the branch of bees fell into the box. Quickly I closed the top and stood a step away and watched. From both branches of bees, you could see them move towards and into the box.  “You did it mom.” Justice whispered. Like a parade the bees marched in orchestration.  Now sitting safely inside the truck. We watched “bee TV” and thought how clever we were to get the bees.

Of course they are not ours yet and may never bee. But tomorrow we will see.

Checking something on my phone at the Hotel Oregon in McMinnville.

Portland Oregon has gotten so foodie that I feel like San Francisco has lost it’s cool. Not only does every lad above the age of 22 have a mustache, he has a fantastically crafted waxed gravity-defying plume of hair extruding from below his nostrils. Sometimes it even coexists with other dandy hairs from his face or neck.

It’s just so damned hip it hurts.

I feel full too. In Portland everyone is eating good food. Good cheap food. Of course there are those restaurants where you pay for white shirt and tie service, but when you see the pile of food on your arriving plate you have to sigh with disbelief that they expect you to eat this much!  Timothy’s cassoulet was as big as a Pyrex pie plate. NO kidding.

We went up North for Timothy’s birthday. We drove around the Willamette Valley and tasted the wares from small family owned wineries. It was definitely NOT the Napa, or even Sonoma experience that is had 600 miles south nearer to my house. Sure we visited the faux chateaux and paid $15 a sip for the opportunity to taste a fine Oregon pinot noir. But you look around the green countryside and you realize that although there are so many new wineries on Oregon’s horizon there will always be lot’s of other crops growing amongst the grape vines, and I hope this never ceases to be the case.

Maybe I’m just being nostalgic? I moved from PDX to start the family winery. Ten years later my family no longer speaks to each other. I gave up something of myself to keep the family farm. And all I got of note was loneliness, a divorce, and a ruptured family with no relationship. But I bring to this a stronger feeling of what I am now. What it means to me to work with my hands and feet. That doing something for others does not mean that it’s wanted or that it is always wasted.

Outside my window as I type this the wind howls through the tall trees that I’m lucky to live amongst. My home is solid. It’s what we make of it: my cats, my son, Timothy, and those whom I call friends.

Thanks for the experience.

Meat is good.

8:56pm I’m sitting here in our SF condo waiting for Timothy to get out of work. We’re driving back to Healdsburg tonight. I’ve been here three nights and it’s time to go back to the farm. City life is sleeping in time.  Walking the Mission District, spying interesting fashion and eating loads of ethic foods not available back in the “burg” where every restaurant serves thin crust pizza or other Cali-Italian fare. I always go back home sated and hungry to come back to my home in the Mission.

We have guests for Memorial weekend. My deck raising party has been postponed but we have more important tasks to take care of. Thirty-nine teenage chickens need a bigger roost to call home.  It’s not necessary but I would feel like a factory farmer if my girls didn’t get more room to roam and dirt to scratch.

My two best friends from college are coming up tomorrow with their boyfriends. It was their idea to make Memorial weekend a work weekend. It’s funny however that last minute they all decided to pack tubes and bathing suits and tennis rackets. I had to remind them that work gloves and gardening gear were in order. It was their idea anyway!

They won’t be disappointed though. Today Timothy and I loaded up on MEAT. Between what we hope to be 10 guests  throughout the weekend we have 55+ pounds of meat. That means from tomorrow afternoon till Monday afternoon we each need to eat the equivalent of a small dog? We got 30 lbs of pork ribs, 10 lbs of ground beef (for our working man hamburger lunch Sunday) 20 Cajun sausages (also lunch?) 17 lbs of boneless rib eye steaks, 3 lbs of soppressata which I’ve seen timothy eat a half pound in one sitting, and lastly 5 dozen oysters.

I think my colon is going to hurt next week. But at least I can share that with my friends?

Death is fascinating.

Ha. I am at that point where it’s been so long since writing that I have nothing that seems important enough to put here. I’ve been feeling depressed. It always hits me once and again and I just can’t smile or respond to jokes or hugs or kisses. I am detached and cool like a china doll in its glass display case. My eyes stare straight ahead; I am alive, but barely breathing.  A thick humming grey cloud of nothing bandages me from emotion. I am certain that I’m difficult to be around when this happens. I am not able to just snap out of it.

My chicks are no longer little. They are now lumbering beastly teenagers shedding tufts of baby down, now there are sharp feathers growing like dinosaur teeth from their pale pink skin.  It must be itchy they take great pleasure in preening themselves and taking showers in the wood shavings. Just learning to fly they love to perch on everything including the lip of their waterer, which they constantly poop in, so I must dutifully clean it daily.

The garden is still there, but with the chaotic weather of recent; downpours of freezing spring showers just aren’t helping to welcome them to the now sporadic sunshine. I have to stop looking so often, its not happening fast enough. A day is still 24 hours. A year no longer takes forever, when you’re not in a hurry to grow up.

Bees are fine. They didn’t notice our prying hands awkwardly tumbling their hive frames. We searched for the queen but she was hiding in the humming mass of zzzzing yellow fuzzy black shiny worker bees. Already there was little rice grain sized eggs, pupa, and a frame of capped cells. Such luck. Our friend reports he’s been stung 6 times so far. Our bees must like us.

It’s spring. But it’s supposed to rain again on Monday.

Building Bird Condos

This morning Timothy looked me in the eyes and said “it’s already almost May” He didn’t say anything else, and we both thought the same thing. What happens to our time and days and nights? Does it go faster with age? Are our memories erased each night to save room in our ever over stimulated overworked brains? The month of May means that it’s time… It’s time we get on track! It’s time we put out our seeds. Its official it’s spring despite the blustery winds and showers that seem to happen every weekend so far.

I think we’re on a pretty good track. We’re a bit slow, but what can you expect with just the two of us working on this undertaking. The field is tilled, the irrigation is set, we’ve started planting and we anticipate if it doesn’t rain again this weekend, we’ll get a bit more done as well. We don’t mind at least we will see our own accomplishments. We’ll be enjoying what we sow, what we reap, and the feeling of satisfaction that only comes when you do it yourself.

We have bees again on the ranch. When I was a girl I remember my grandfather handing us fresh honeycomb from his hives. If I had known just how easy it is to get bees, I would have done this a long time ago. It is the best of a symbiotic relationship, I give the bees a warm and welcome home, plant flowers for them, and let them live alongside me.  They then feed themselves and their queen, pollinate the flowers and they share with us a little bit of their bounty.  I cannot wait to hand Justice his first taste of something so succulent, so overwhelming. Honey, which is the flavor of every day on the farm.

Taking care of the cats, chickens, chicks, bees, and vegetables, I feel almost too worried when I leave that something might happen to them. How am I going to live in two places? My goal after the winery was to always maintain a city me and a country me. Here in the country, I enjoy its quiet spaciousness; I rarely see the need to drive into my quaint touristy town. When I’m in the city of San Francisco, I feel the buzz of the Mission where I live. I partake in the buzz of the new and noteworthy. I eat foods of the world and I put on a little bit of makeup.

Last night while in SF I dreamt all night of my starving babies. 20 minutes then twitch… oh no what if one of the chicks drowned in the water dish?  My worrying was wasted however. When I got back to the ranch. The cats didn’t come in to greet me. The chickens were happy to see me, but only to get the chance to get out of their coop. The chicks luckily were visited by my dad who stopped by with a large bag of green lettuce. The bees didn’t notice I left, and the starts were fine and unchanged from just the day before.

When I came into the kitchen something was different. I did a double take as I looked out my window. The hazy mass obstructing my outward view was something close to 200 or so baby praying mantises who were upset that they couldn’t get to the green outdoors. Previously on a trip to the hardware store a couple of months ago. Justice and I bought a package of egg cases to raise and put into the garden. For seriously over 2 months the egg cases sat there on my kitchen counter. On my first trip to SF since Easter, they all hatched the day I was gone! For at least 20 minutes I was herding them into Tupperware so I could taxi them outdoors to my garden.

This I knew was going to be an expensive fix. Toilet paper was strewn not upon my tree branches like when I was a 9^th grade pubescent and the TP’ing that happened to the “other” kids. Toilet paper and other %&**# brackish water oozed from the shrubbery. My god! I can’t even explain what I saw! And Smelled!

I had to suspect the worst! The 300 year old giant oak tree in my backyard finally did in my plumbing.  One of its massive roots must have corkscrewed itself right through the septic pipe. No wonder the smell was ever lurking even on a windy day?  On Easter we all believed that it was the rainy day, our stinky socks, and/or our first ever deviled egg off competition. Let me just say that I’m not going to be the person who tells them all that no! It was the smell of my rotting sewage…

An 80’s repair job on a 90 year old septic pipe meant that some dubious plumber did a shitty half assed job with a rod and a coffee can. Luckily with a bit of competence and a couple of hours. Job completed and Timothy and I were now shoveling our own black water into a wheelbarrow to take far far away. The best part… Except for the slight fragrance. I think my yard looks better. The plumber even said that my flowers might be shocked at first but would most likely enjoy the extra fertilizer.

These are not marshmallow or chocolate centered.

I really did get 44 fuzzy peepers on Easter Sunday. I knew I would! And everyone told me fat chance that there is no mail on Sunday and or any holiday which the post office always takes off. The sad part was I was hoping that they would arrive while I had 40 guests for Brunch. I got the chicken call at 5:20 pm. The box of cheeps landed at the Petaluma post office and they were giving me a courtesy plea call to come and get them. Why would they deliver them to Petaluma and not to the Healdsburg post office 30 miles closer to my house?

“Hello maa’m, your chicks have arrived at the Petaluma USPS”

“Great, so what am I supposed to do?”

“We’re open 24 hours…”

“And… am I supposed to pick them up?”

“Well, we can deliver them tomorrow during normal postal hours”

“And if I don’t come get them, will they even be alive tomorrow?”

“I sure hope so…”

It was settled. Luckily along with a few sated stragglers Timothy, Sadao, and Mohana were there. Before I had to time to panic, they were in the car driving south.

They are sooooo cute. Seriously if you’ve never had the chance to hold a day old chicken, you’d better get down to the nearest farm supply store with a chick brooder and feel for yourself. Unlike small human babies, day old chicks are already miniature chickens in waiting. Fantastically fuzzy and cute, they pick little fights with each other, they scratch at the wood shavings on the floor, and they come a running when they see you to beat the others out for small food handouts. Their cries are just as cute- peeep peeep peep. No sugar crusted marshmallow will ever stand in for the real deal.

It is now Thursday, and they are still sooooo cute. 3 casualties though. The first, Nash played with to death. And I can’t believe the cat figured out how to get in so quick! Not even a day and I open up the cage door to see him crouched, eyes bulging in anticipation. I was so startled to see him in there but the chicks didn’t seem fazed in front of him, I pet the cat and hugged him before I saw the lone chick lying quiet and still beside the brooder box. I immediately relinquished my love for the cat and threw him 10 feet from the door, for good measure scolded him and threw a rock at him. In hindsight I think I hurt Nash’s feelings, He didn’t know not to kill those varmints, everything else he kills I reward him with a fancy feast can, not a rock to the side. My punishment… I haven’t seen him and he hasn’t been back home to let me pet and love him.

I knew I’d lose the second. She came with a crooked beak it was her damnation. The third; I don’t get that one. I was limp for no reason; I took her out of the box and tried to resuscitate her. She just stopped breathing. And I hope this doesn’t mean darker things to come. I’ve owned chickens most of my life. My last batch of chicks, I have none left. If you get 12 of them, by the next spring, you’re lucky to have 3. With 44 new chicks, how many will make it till next Easter?  I’m down to 41 and it hasn’t even been a week.

Cocks who've seen better days.

An unscrupulous attack was witnessed today. Unfortunately it was my own eyes and body to witness. The owner of the building where Weird Fish is located effectively locked Timothy out. Not as in, you can’t come into your own business and DO business… more sinister and without warning. They locked him out of the basement, which he’s had access to as a part of his restaurant lease thus effectively taking away the ability to do the napkin laundry, and wash hands without going upstairs to the kitchen sink while doing prep in the basements dark caverns.

It wasn’t just a one-way lock on “their” side of the door between the two restaurants on the block. It was a bar across the door with a fireproof lock and key as those who saw the actual device tell me. I was stone cold stunned… I saw the “disrespect-repairmen” shove, WF’s washing machine through the oddly short doorway, then a few of the rest of the “fish” personal effects, they then quickly stole a smile and slammed the door.  I heard the Makita drills drill, the bolt go up, and in. Then the Lock down. Chink.

My stomach then started aching, my head spun. And in case of a fire upstairs and I’m down. I’m dead. Not unlike the NYC Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 when the garment factory workers were locked in to keep them from cigarette breaks… Don’t you remember, a fire broke out and… And…And… They all burned up. Dead.  All because some asshole was saving the company’s copper pennies.  A serious travesty. Do they want to kill us! Most unjust, is the simple fact the restaurant next door is a restaurant where Timothy is/was supposedly a partner until something happened? It is an assassination tragedy in which we haven’t disentangled the savvy conspiracy yet.

Something is fishy. I’ve also had to bear witness to the drama unfolding between two guys who were friends. A person whom Timothy called a friend until today… A person who was until today paid as a chef for both of Timothy’s restaurants. A devious cretin who is now in the middle of a business divorce who as I’ve suspected for many months now, was creating a docu-drama worthy of a small time poorly acted daytime TV soap opera.

My belief… This person is weaseling his way between the owners/partners. His talk is big, his actions shrewd and deceitful. One minute you would think this guy is likeable. But then I know more people than my fingers and toes combined in his wake. Friendships have been torn and damaged because of his dragons.  Staff and loved ones broken and dismissed.

The moral point of this unfolding narrative from my perspective? Don’t trust people who don’t have any true real friends. Who don’t invite anyone over to their “luxury” condo, who buy things on your dime, drive range rovers and listen to Bell Biv DeVoe (even if in kitsch), or have a name of any dead president?