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We left the Anderson Valley on Friday the 3rd at 5am. We drove for about 13 hours that day, including stops for gas, bathrooms and food. We got to Kingman, AZ, at around 6:30pm California time. The drive was easy and uneventful - just how you like it. We found a steakhouse for dinner in Kingman - bad choice. My ribs were quite good, but the atmosphere and service weren't great. After dinner we drove around old Kingman and found it was "First Friday" - which in Kingman apparently is one gallery and one wine bar. The art in the gallery was predominantly nudes of the female form, except for the jewelery. We kinda chuckled at that - a theme, perhaps? The wine bar was packed - what else to do on a Friday night in Kingman? We spoke to a nice young woman who told us that First Friday started with a number of galleries and businesses participating but was now down to just the two. We found a nice bottle of Malmsey (some of which I sip now as I write) and settled in for a bit to enjoy the local scenery. We noted almost immediately that there were a lot of pretty young women - but where were the boys?? After a while a few trickled in - but the girls were dressed for a night out and the boys were in ball caps. Hmmm. The next morning we ate a quick breakfast and headed for the Grand Canyon. We arrived around 1pm and headed for the dining room at the El Tovar for a nice lunch and a bottle of Louis Roederer champagne. Once our room was ready, we deposited our luggage and headed out for a short walk along the rim trail. We had enough of walking down in to the steep canyon on the last trip - this time we just wanted to admire the views. Also, this year is much snowier and icier than last year, if we needed another excuse to stay on top. We had dinner again at the hotel - we'd booked a "romance package" which included the meal and a souvenir bottle of Grand Canyon wine (what turned out to be a not bad bottle of very light cabernet). Our room was one of the few with views of the canyon, so with the moon full, we headed out to our deck after dinner to enjoy the view some more. We left the Grand Canyon mid-morning and headed through Navajo country down to Flagstaff and then on to Sedona. We arrived a bit earlier in the day this year, so we were able to get a quick grocery run in before all of the superbowl was over. There is a great natural foods grocery here that we love - we picked up king salmon and lamb chops for at least two dinners. We have a fantastic room this year - a separate bedroom, living room and full kitchen, as well as a small laundry closet. A big improvement over last year where we had a bedroom/living room/kitchen set up in one space. I had some business to attend to the first morning here, but we headed out for a short hike this afternoon and got to enjoy the gorgeous area that is Sedona. The rest of this week will be filled with hikes around Sedona, good meals cooked in our kitchen (and on the grills the resort provides) and maybe a movie or two in town. By the time I write again we will be in Pagosa Springs, CO. Until then, cheers!
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Last year at this time, my beau and I took a wonderful road trip to the southwest. This year we are doing it again, with a couple of twists. Last year we spent a couple of days at the Grand Canyon, a week in Sedona, AZ, then a few days in Death Valley. This year we are going to spend just one night in the Grand Canyon; we've booked a nice room with a view (there are only a few, we got lucky) and will just spend the afternoon and part of the next day there. Then we will again drive down to Sedona where we will spend another week. We like to hike and will be exploring more of the area, testing out trails we didn't have time for last year. We found a nice market and were able to cook most of our meals and we look forward to that as well. This year we also booked a nicer room, one with a larger kitchen and a fireplace, which will be so nice to come home to after a day of hiking. We have another week booked in Pagosa Springs, CO. I have never been to Colorado, so I'm very excited. This is in southern Colorado, just east of Durango, in the Indian country made famous by Tony Hillerman. Of course, there's a hot springs there as well and, hopefully, some snow so we can do some skiing (I'm not a big skier, but my beau is). We plan to drive home across Utah and Nevada, stopping at a couple of national parks, Capitol Reefs in Utah and Great Basin in Nevada. We plan to take 50, the loneliest highway, home. In all, we'll be gone about three weeks. I'll be writing from the road and keeping you posted on our travels. We'll miss the crab feed and the Roadhouse Romancin' dance, so I hope you all attend those for us!
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2011 was not a big year for sales in Anderson Valley. There were ten residential sales and six land sales. One of the residential sales was "distressed" meaning it was either a short sale or an REO (bank owned sale). In 2010, there were 12 residential sales and 10 land sales. For a little comparison, in both 2000 and in 2004, there were 25 residential sales. In 2000 prices were closer to what they are today; in 2004 they were, of course, significantly higher. At the end of 2011 the median price for a home in the Valley was around $300,000. There were no residential sales in the first quarter of last
year, but from April to October, 2011, prices dropped 13.1%. I left off November and December because there was one large sale for over $3,000,000 that would throw off any meaningful statistics; of course, given the small number of sales, these stats are limited as well. This information is based on sales reported in Bay Area Real Estate Information Services, Inc. (BAREIS) and is not verified and is subject to change. Listings represented may not have been listed or sold by myself, Anne Fashauer, or by North Country Real Estate. Despite the low number of sales in the area, I personally felt busy throughout the year. I had a couple of sales and a couple of escrows - one that never went through and one that is still ongoing. I felt I had a good number of people contacting me about real estate and looking at properties. I think the interest in real estate is still out there but there are a lot of factors keeping people from "pulling the trigger." I feel this year is starting out well; I've had offers on a couple of properties and several people are looking - and we're just over two weeks in to the new year. I'll check those statistics again mid-year and we'll see how things are playing out. In the meantime, enjoy the rain that we're finally going to get!
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We've been home from Cabo for about two and a half weeks now and it seems worlds away. We came home just before Christmas to a bit of madness - last minute shopping, a few delayed meetings and decorating the Christmas tree. We did that last on Christmas eve itself! We had family here for the holiday which was really nice, spending time catching up and cooking a delicious Christmas dinner. My beau hit the ground running right after the holiday and was back in Hyampom the day after Christmas. He came back in time for New Year's Eve, which we spent on the coast dancing to Be Bop Deluxe with the coast swing dancers. It was fun to be out dancing again as it has been a while. New Year's Day was spent doing chores, but we ended it with a nice dinner with my brother and his family and a couple of games of Farkle (that is a lot of fun). Just before Christmas I got a new horse, Fred. He joins my other two geldings, Jac and Barney. Fred and Barney have really hit it off and are hardly separable. We just call them the Flinstones. Unfortunately, Fred has been diagnosed with a serious illness; he's treatable, but it will be a long course - and expensive, too, of course. I'll keep you posted, but he's getting the best care right now - special supplements for his immune system, along with acupuncture and cranial-sacral work to help him along. I found myself surprisingly busy with real estate over the past couple of weeks; usually it is a very quiet time of the year, but people are out and about and looking. The beautiful weather, while indicating a dry summer, is undoubtedly helping with this situation. I'll send out some info on the past year in real estate in my next column. Until then, happy new year!
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Today is my last full day in Cabo for this trip; we fly home tomorrow. We were here last year, but in November. The two trips have been quite different. Last year we were here during the tuna fishing tournament, which meant my beau only got to fish a couple of times. There were a lot of people here and the weather was nice and warm. We stayed at the same resort both times and have eaten at a couple of the same restaurants, shopped at the same grocery store as well. My beau has been able to fish every day this trip; he took one day off just so he and I could hang out together more than our usual late afternoon/evening of every other day. This trip they have caught mostly Dorado (aka Mahi Mahi) but we did get to eat Grouper one night. The tuna are much harder to find this time of year and you have to be willing to really go after them. I have spent most of my days at the pool, reading. So far, I've read three books and am working on a fourth - Finding Nouf (Zoe Ferraris), Lucky You (Carl Hiasson), The Messenger (Daniel Silva) and now, The Man From Beijing (Henning Mankell). I've walked around town, snapping some pictures of locals and the marina. There is a sail boat here rumored to be worth $100,000,000. It's big, that is for sure. It's docked in such a way, all I could photograph would be it's masts. I did find a great riding stable and took a two hour ride, half in the desert, half galloping along the beach (yes, that was fun).
We've done well with food this trip as well. We found one place we liked last time and went there right away. We have found two or three more places we will go back to as well. We've had fresh fish every night; one night we had one of the restaurants fix it for us - a starter of carpaccio and then grilled; yum! If there's been a downside to this trip, it's been the weather - much cooler and cloudy more than sunny most days. Yesterday was the coolest, cloudy and breezy all day - I went to the pool but spent the day wrapped up; today it's clear and gorgeous, so I'll be heading out soon. But cool is relative - it's still in the 70's and low 80's most of the day. I'm sure I'll miss this weather as soon as my feet hit the ground tomorrow evening!
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A couple of weeks have passed since I last had a chance to sit and write. In that time I finally visited Hyampom, the town where my beau is working part of the time. It's a very remote, very rural place; it's quite pretty but it has nothing on Anderson Valley. It's also very cold - the elevation of the valley is not high, but it's surrounded by very tall mountains and when the cold air settles it settles in Hyampom. Thanksgiving came and went during that time as well. We were in Cottonwood with my beau's family. It was a very nice time, lots of family and good food, of course. I also took advantage of being close to Redding and Anderson and availed myself of the shopping to be had there. I've been back for a couple of weeks and have been very busy. First I was helping plan the ICW holiday party, which ended up being a lot of fun. We were able to use Rivers Bend Retreat center and it was beautiful. Burt at Boont Berry did the food and it was delicious as always. We had a good turn out and everyone had a good time. The second thing I was busy with was having some clients out to do their inspections on a property they are wanting to buy. I have mentioned this before, but I'll mention it again - if you're thinking of putting your property on the market, it pays to do some homework. In this case, a little effort by the seller could have saved the dual surprises of finding out the leach field for the septic wasn't functioning and that the house needs a new roof - now. Now the seller faces the costs to rectify both of these items at a time when he was just hoping to sell and be done. If you have any questions about what you should research before you get ready to sell, drop me a line; I'm here to help.
I leave for a week in Cabo San Lucas on Monday, so I'll miss another week but I'll catch you up when I return.
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I have been thinking about the qualities of absence, of longing, and of loss recently. My beau has taken a job that is about six hours away; it's part time but it's not the kind of part time where you work 25 hours a week. It's the kind of part time that means you are gone for long stretches at a time, then back for a time and then gone again. The job involves wine making and vineyard management, so the past couple of weeks have been the busy season and have required a lot of his time. It coincided with our own harvest, of course, so he was gone for several days, then back for our harvest and then gone again a day later, this time for over a week. The first part of the absence was the most difficult - my joke was that he "picked a fine time to leave me Lucille" - with our grapes yet to be harvested, the rental house still to be painted, a garden full of vegetables needing to be preserved, and a chunk of the firewood still to be brought in. To make matters worse, the area he is working in has no, none, zero, cell coverage (apparently Verizon is working on this, thank goodness) and he had no phone at the house his employers are providing. I was left to wait for twice daily calls from either the employer's house or the winery - or even the local bar and grill, if no one else was using the phone and if there was time with their harvest going on. This wouldn't have been too bad except in the middle of this one of his family members had a medical emergency and we couldn't get a hold of him to let him know! The rental house got painted the weekend before the rains, my beau came back for harvest (which went extremely well, with a decent tonnage and better sugars than we could have hoped for), he brought in all of the firewood and I was able to pick the garden one last time and get some of the preserving done that day (and the rest over the following week). We went for close to another week without a phone in his house up there, but even that has been taken care of and he can now call from the privacy of that residence. During the recent absence I had time to think about missing him. When we first started to see each other I resisted the relationship and him; then I went on a trip with a girlfriend where I had no cell service and he and I were only able to talk two or three times for that week. I keenly missed him and realized the resistance was futile. This absence reminded me of that time a little; I've missed him greatly but I've also been the one at home this time, busy with my work, my friends and my activities. But absence does make the heart grow fonder, as the saying goes; every time I do something that he would normally do (fill the wood basket, take a turn feeding the hummingbirds or the dogs, go out to the garden to pick something, for a few examples) I would miss him, think about him, wonder when he would be able to get home again. Every night I would close out the lights in the house and head up to my room, alone. I've had my share of deaths to deal with over the years, mostly when I was younger. I lost two young cousins when I was around 14, when I was 16 a lot of the people in Elk died (mostly older folks, my god mother and the like, but a couple of young ones too, like Matt Sandkulla); when I was 20 my uncle and my father died. I grew to expect death, but I've not actually had too many people close to me die since my early twenties, a reprieve of sorts. Death teaches you about absence in a whole new way. I was reading "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" while on that trip away, missing my beau, and one of the characters talks about "never" and how we use that word all the time - I'll never do that again, It's now or never, and so on. But never means something very different after you've experienced the death of someone close to you. You realize that you will never see that person walk into a room again, they will never teach you to hit a golf ball again (my cousin), never make you eggs, bacon and potatoes for breakfast again (my father). They will never do all the things you love and all the things you hate - and when you miss someone, you would give anything for that person to come back and do the thing you hate the most, just to be able to see that person again. My beau is home again this week and we are enjoying our time together. I have the expectation of seeing him while he is gone, which is delicious in its own way, and the joy of spending time with him when he's back. But as the family emergency reminded me, there is no guarantee that expectation will be met, so I am feeling truly grateful to have him in my life and to be able to savor this. I'm even able to smile at the things that might otherwise annoy me, appreciating them more because of the sweetness of their simply being there, not being absent.
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It seems the last of our Indian summer is upon us. I have been daily, sometimes several times daily, following the local agriculture weather forecast, checking to see how many more days of sun we have left. My grapes are still hanging and looking fabulous, the sugars seem perfect and we should be harvesting just before the rain that's due this week. It's been a touchy year with the vineyard, after last year when we weren't able to get enough sunshine to get the sugars high enough to sell the grapes (but we will have some fabulous wine to sell early next year - I'll keep you posted). We farmed it like crazy, doing everything in our power to bring the fruit to where it is today - ripe for the picking, as the saying goes. I've been working on harvesting the last of the garden as well; we still have tons of peppers, eggplants and lemon cucumbers. Even some tomatoes. I think the squash is about done, though. I made my first batch of jalapeno jelly and am planning to pickle some of the other hot pepper varieties. I've also made ratatouille and frozen that for winter feasting. I'll miss all of the summer veggies, but on the other hand, I'll be glad when all the preserving is behind me and I'll be opening those cans of goodies instead of filling them. The other big project has been painting my rental house. My beau worked off and on all summer getting it ready, but when it came down to it, there just wasn't time for him to get it complete, so my brother and his mother-in-law stepped in and finished it for me over the weekend. It looks great, thanks to their hard work. Choosing the paint color was a bit exciting. Because of a snafu with my original paint choice, I had little time to choose a new color; so I picked one and brought a sample home - and hated it. So I went back, picked another but it had to be "it" because my brother was painting that day. Thankfully it worked well and everyone says it looks good. Whew! I hope everyone else is ready for the rain to begin. I know I'll be able to enjoy it this time, once the grapes are harvested and now that house is painted. I'll miss the great riding weather, but I'm ready for some indoor time, too.
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Last Wednesday I had the most wonderful day. It took a little planning, but it was worth it. It started with taking my horse, Jac, up to where my friend keeps her horse on the Holmes Ranch. We took the boys (our horses) down Holmes Ranch road, across Smith Hills, and down Guntley. Feeling ambitious, we decided to ride the short distance down the highway from Guntley to Holmes Ranch; we were aided by horse friendly people at Handley Cellars who let us sneak around the back and out their driveway, making it a much quieter and safer ride. We made it back up Holmes Ranch road and to the barn with a total ride time of about two and a half hours. After I dropped my horse off back at his barn, I headed into Boonville for a really wonderful and relaxing massage from Nahara. This is a great experience - she possesses such healing abilities! I left there feeling loose and limber. My evening was complete with a scrumptious dinner prepared by my beau - lobster tails and champagne. My brother and his family joined us and I got to spend some good time with my two nephews. As it was my birthday, we finished the meal with a tirimisu cake as I opened my presents: a new winter coat, a new raincoat and a Carhart vest just perfect for riding right now. It's such a blessing to live in such a beautiful place and have the opportunity to experience everything we do. Life is good.
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I spent the weekend before last at the Mendocino Women's Retreat, held at River's Bend in Philo. This was the third year I have attended (and the third year of it's existence) and it was as wonderful as ever. In some ways it felt like a reunion as I saw women I hadn't seen for the past year and yet with the unique theme and new participants, it felt very fresh. It was a time to reflect, attend thought-provoking, even emotional workshops, and simply catch up and share some female bonding. I felt very relaxed and at ease for a few days - a true retreat from the hectic nature of my every day life. Of course, coming back into reality happened. It started as soon as I drove away from the retreat - a call to go taste the wine we'd made last year, to assess it and decide its future. I peeled the stick-on bindi from my forehead and headed back into the world; culture shock hit immediately as I walked into the tasting room of the winery we have our wine stored at and saw a woman in a pretty dress and high heels with her beau, tasting wines. I was still in cozy, comfortable retreat-wear, with no makeup and mussed hair! I'm not sure which of us was more out of place but it was fun to experience the discrepancy. The wine was tasted and decisions discussed but nothing set in stone yet. The rest of the week was anything but restful, with driving to Santa Rosa twice, once for my mom to her eye doc, then for myself for the same. We did hit Sallie's and Goodwill and found a few good bargains, which was fun. I had to get a new laptop as my old one was dying and that took nearly two days to successfully set up so I could work again. Then I had friends over for a basic canning tutorial. Whew! I was struck over and again by the difference in the pace of the week, beginning with the restfulness and ease of the retreat, the time allowed to deepen relationships and experience events and the craziness of the rest of the week, running from one appointment to another, squeezing in every moment to accomplish some task before collapsing into bed at the end of the day. I think some of the busy-ness of this time is the season, as I wrote before. For example,I have spent every moment at home prepping and canning either tomatoes or tomato sauce, something that only happens at this time of year. Some is coincidence, the two appointments out of town happening during the same week; and the doctors' schedules being such that we could not combine this into one trip. I look forward to those quiet winter days when all the autumn chores are done and we can relax until spring starts knocking on the door.
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It seems as though Mother Nature wanted us to make sure we knew that the season was changing as she brought in a slight rain storm just as we passed through the autumnal equinox. The air and the light have changed; the mornings are cooler, crisper, the afternoons filled with a golden tint and the last warmth of the year as the sun moves away from us. Fall chores are heavy upon us: harvesting the vegetables from the garden, putting them up either by freezing or canning, bringing in the last loads of firewood and getting them under cover for the winter, and any projects started outdoors need finishing before the real rains come (such as that paint job on my rental house). The grape harvest began a couple of weeks ago for some. Our grapes are finishing going through verasion, we are thinning the crop, removing fruit from vines that either are unlikely to ripen or from vines too heavily laden to get everything ripe with the current amount of fruit. The vines look really good, the extra farming efforts by my beau evident in these waning days of ripening. Now we try not to worry about what else Mother Nature has in store for us, how much rain, how many cool days instead of "Indian summer" days we are looking forward to between now and our harvest. Last year we were in Mexico when the harvest was called, due to rain, not because we wanted it then. This year we've planned our trip for December - if the grapes aren't in by then, they aren't coming in. It's a balance - we want to be able to stock up on tuna and wahoo for the winter as well. The real estate market continues to be quiet. There is some action here and there but I have noticed a drop in the number of visitors (but not my friends who stop by to say hello) to my little gas-station office in Boonville. I'm keeping busy, I have clients who are actively buying and selling, searching and hoping, so it's not as bad as it was a few years ago. I want to give a little plug here for the Senior Center in Boonville and call attention to a new class being offered there starting next week - chair yoga, taught by Kathy MacDonald. It will be held before Thursday lunch, starting the 6th of October. If you have more questions, give the Center a call at 895-3609. Try it out and say hello to my mom while you're there!
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I received a call from someone last week asking my opinion on whether or not a Class K building permit makes a difference when one goes to sell the property. According to the Mendocino County Building Department website FAQ's page, "Class K is a relaxed construction standard available to owner-built rural dwellings and appurtenant structures intended “… to allow and facilitate the use of alternatives to the specifications prescribed by the Uniform technical code to the extent that a reasonable degree of health and safety is provided…” " There are a couple of other restrictions, but the fee is the same for either a Class K or a regular Uniform Building Code structure. I called the Building Department and found out a bit more: the language for the description of a Class K permit comes from the state of California and is part of its building code. Generally, the building is not inspected for seismic bracing or engineering or wind shear and the fire safety standards are relaxed (no sprinklers are expected). Owners sign a waiver stating that they are aware that the structure is not being reviewed to the same code level as a structure built with a standard UBC permit. Speaking to other long time real estate agents, the overall opinion is that a Class K permit does not usually make a difference when selling a home. However, there are always exceptions. The person at the County that I spoke to told me of one instance where a lender would not lend on a newer Class K structure. In these days of tough to find financing, lenders are looking for every excuse to say no and a Class K permit is one more reason for them to do just that. Sometimes an appraiser can make an issue out of a Class K permit as well, and occasionally the Class K status can be found on the title to the property. Overall, the main issue is going to be the quality of the building; the County says that most Class K structures are built well. Often a lender can be satisfied if a home inspector examines the house and indicates that the building is safe and well built. In the short term, a Class K building permit is going to be easier on the builder, the property owner. In the long term, getting a regular UBC permit is going to make a future sale a lot easier. No one, lender, buyer, appraiser, will be able to question that the home was built to code at the time it was completed. It's a personal choice and only you, the builder and property owner can answer to what will be best for you. As a follow up to last week's column, both I and my beau did really well at the Fair; we came home with three best of divisions - one for my tomatoes, one for my biscuits and one for his canned albacore. I also received firsts on all of my other baked goods and he got an assortment of firsts, seconds and thirds for a lot of his veggies. We both felt pleased as Punch! Hope this inspires some of you to come out and compete next year!
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It's Fair time again! Boonville has been flying the banners for a few weeks and I have seen the carnival people arriving over the past week as well. Entries are starting to be due for judging - my mom dropped off her needlework a few days ago. My beau is entering some of his vegetables this year (Ok, so I filled out the forms and told him what he would be entering...) and those are due on Thursday night. I am writing this on Monday evening; tomorrow all of the baked and preserved goods are due, so that means I will be spending much of tomorrow morning in the kitchen baking. This year I decided to add a couple of new items to my baking entries. I am doing my cookies and apple cake as usual (hopefully my cookies turn out better than last year - they were very disappointing last year), but I have added biscuits and sourdough bread. I've been making biscuits for a while and every year I look at the other entries and think I can compete. The bread is because over the winter I did a lot of sourdough bread baking and thought it would be fun to see how I'll do. I'll be up early, hoping to get the baking done before it gets too hot - nothing like running a 400 degree oven on a hot day! I think I'll make the biscuits first, because I can eat a couple for breakfast! The sourdough takes a few steps, with resting time in between, so it will likely be the last thing I put in the oven. In between I'll bake cookies and the apple cake. The apple cake is the hardest and most time consuming - the apples have to be peeled and cored, then chopped. It's all a bit of work, but a lot of fun, too, especially if I get rewarded with a ribbon or two! I'm also helping out at the AVVFD hamburger booth, so look for me on Saturday afternoon next to the grandstand, then Saturday night my beau and I will be out there dancing to Dean Titus and the Coyote Cowboys, and mom and I will of course be attending the sheep dog trial on Sunday. I look forward to seeing you at the fair!
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When I lived in San Francisco all I had to do for heat was turn up the thermostat and plan to open my checkbook to PG&E and write a bit larger check to them to cover this. In one apartment we had a fireplace but it was more decorative than useful and I think I can count the number of fires we had with it on one hand. When I moved back home winter heating took a whole different perspective. Instead of one simple motion of the fingers, it is a several month-long process that eventually results in heating my home. I'm sure most, if not all, of you are familiar with this! In fact, I talked to an acquaintance about this and she said she and her husband figured they touched a piece of wood eight times before it was on fire. For me, the process starts sometime during the summer when my brother, a timber feller, selects and cuts trees on my property for me. He fells them and cuts them in rounds the correct length for my stove. They lay for a while and then we take the wood splitter up and find a good spot where we can both split the wood and get the truck in to load it up and bring it to the house. Either my beau, his son or myself splits the wood and piles it up; this year it has been my beau. It's been my job to bring the truck up and load it and bring it back to the house where we both unload and stack it. From there it will be brought in and burned in the fireplace and will sometimes get so hot it causes us to open the windows! Here's one of the first loads I brought in so far this year:
I remember when I first moved back home and I was actually doing all the splitting, loading and unloading myself (my brother has always been the one to fell and "buck" the logs for me) and I was laughing to myself as I imagined the expression on some of my City friends if only they could see me then! I had a feeling they would hardly recognize me, all dirty and sweaty and working so hard at something so physical. But it felt good and it continues to feel good. Every year it's a tough chore that has to be done and yet it remains one of my favorite seasonal chores to do - it's a very satisfying thing to know this hard work now will result and many cozy evenings spent in the warmth of my hard work, while the rain pelts down outside.
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I've been thinking about summer and what that means to me. For many years summer was a period of time defined not by the equinoxes, those floating dates in the latter half of June and September, but rather by my school year. Most of my school years that meant early to mid-June until the day after Labor Day. I think towards the end of my high school years we might have started the week before Labor Day, but it was nothing like today's start in the middle of August (ugh). In college, summer actually ran from the middle of May until the last week in August - how nice that was! Today's school year can hardly define summer any longer, with kids going back while temperatures still spend most of the day above 85 degrees. As an adult without a three month long summer vacation I have the weather itself defining my summer. The past two years that has meant summer not starting until much later in June, but because it feels weather related, I find myself feeling like summer extends into early October. Only when the rains begin and we have those cool, crisp evenings and mornings with hot days do I feel like Autumn has arrived. Summer can also be defined by clothes. At least in Anderson Valley, summer means shorts, skirts, light shirts and sandals. Unless I plan to ride my horse, you will not find me in a pair of jeans. The last summer I worked in Mendocino I remember dressing for home but having to bring a heavy sweater along because it was so cold that year. The only time I need a sweater now is if I plan to enter a building with air conditioning. The foods of summer change too, not just because of what is growing - like the obvious tomatoes. I don't sip hot tea all day, but rather drink cold water and sun tea. I don't turn on the oven (except the week of the Fair when I'm busy baking cookies and cakes to enter) and everything we eat is either grilled or cooked on top of the stove. But the garden also dictates summer food - squash, cucumbers, peppers, basil and green beans are just some of the vegetables only available in the warmer months. Of course, this year with the cooler temperatures, we continue to have lettuce, arugula, radishes, beets, kale and broccoli in abundance. Summer is also a good time for real estate, with more people out and about enjoying the fine weather. I would be remiss if I didn't mention here a new listing I have that would make a perfect summer getaway, a nice, off the grid house on the middle of Greenwood Ridge, on 24 forested acres. It's in the neighborhood that I grew up in, where I spent many summers riding my horse. The owner would like to sell this year and the price has been reduced significantly. If you want more details, give me a call or drop me an email. (707-272-1202 or anne@annefashauer.com)
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