I like to think it was an omen. Just as we arrived to meet Christopher, the shepherd who had brought over one hundred sheep to the pulled vineyard waist-high in cayuse oats, vetch, and various perennials, I spotted a tiny black lamb. It stood with its mother apart from the herd at one end of… Read more »
My friend Norma says the forest looks like a painting with its lithe, dark trunks of oak and madrone silhouetted against the sunlight. The crew has thinned out young bay laurel and the bushy, tall stands of poison oak and invasive Himalayan blackberries. Yes, I always thought of the forest as verdant, but the over-the-top… Read more »
Many years ago, my friend Karlyn gave Donald a saxophone that had been her father’s during the Big Band era. Her father had played with Spike Jones when they were in college. That beautiful instrument has a historical lineage, which I am sure Donald felt. Donald had it restored at a small shop in a… Read more »
When I spoke with Charlie Toledo last week about the forest on our ranch, she said she was always concerned about the overgrowth. First People would have kept the forest thinned with cultural burning so the stream would be accessible to deer and coyotes, so there would be reeds for baskets and the acorns, healthy. … Read more »
It takes two inches of rain to awaken the annual grass seeds in the savanna, and we definitely got two inches of rain last week. It started slowly, with 0.6″ on the first day followed by 1.5″ on the second. I was overjoyed. The dryness of the drought chokes the land. We were all suffering…. Read more »
I have worked before with Dyane Sherwood, the publisher of Fruits of Eden: Napa Valley 1991-2021 (which is currently being typeset. Dancing Raven Press, an imprint of Analytical Psychology Press). I know her propensity to mix visual imagery with the written word, a process quite different from the written word alone. “Take pictures of the… Read more »
Sometimes meaningful patterns of life’s events are revealed only in hindsight. What guides our lives? Is there a subterranean stream that carries us—if we let it? Such is the case in how I came to meet fine art photographer and videographer Deborah O’Grady. These many years later, I am delighted she has agreed to write… Read more »
Fruits of Eden: Napa Valley 1991-2021 has been copyedited for the final time and is on the way to the typesetter at Dancing Raven Press, an imprint of Analytical Psychology Press. I now have to summarize the book in 2-3 sentences (for the back of the book), a little longer in 4000 characters (for Amazon),… Read more »
Mishewah Wappo descendent Alyx Howell said that his people call poison oak “guardian oak” and, as a result, have a better relationship with the plant. When you call it guardian oak, you are less likely to get an itchy rash. Alyx knows stories about the oaks that I have not heard from any other source. … Read more »
The story starts with taking out the trash about 8:15 pm Wednesday, an unusual thing for me to do. In fact, when have I taken out the trash in the evening? It involves driving the 3/4 mile driveway to the trash cans at Dry Creek Road, and who in their right mind would do that… Read more »
© 2024 Patricia Damery.
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