Comments to the Planning Commission, January 7, 2015 To the uneducated eye, it may look like a good place for vines. But in fact, it is a vital part of an oak savanna and watershed. Yesterday a number of our neighbors went before the Napa Valley Planning Commission to voice our concerns about the incursion… Read more »
Casey spraying along the perimeter of our ranch this morning.
Epiphany: the Gift of the Three Kings Today is Epiphany, the day the three kings arrived to visit the Christ child. Each Epiphany we do a gift spray around the perimeter of our property, a distance and ruggedness that we seldom encounter. This involves not only the gift spray, but two before it of an… Read more »
Solstice Sunrise. May the oak savanna survive.
Land Use in the Napa Valley and Consciousness It is the end of a season and of a year, and we in the Napa Valley are hardly in a sleepy, midwinter’s night space! Land use issues are reaching a boiling point, heated up by the drought and water scarcity, and the decreasing amount of land… Read more »
The old wagon trail over the ridge into Pickle Canyon
Rain and the Stories of Water The rain comes as they predicted: heavy at times and persistent throughout the night and into the morning. Bad night for the driveway! The trails run like waterways, the ditches like creeks, water rushing down, down, gathering in the ravine and rushing on to Dry Creek and Napa River…. Read more »
Petunia, Boey, and Lily checking it all out.
Battening Down the Hatches Goats hate to have their hooves wet and muddy, so we have stone paths which go from the barn to the llama shed, to their lookout posts and rock and log piles. The rain has muddied these paths, and Ramon cleaned them yesterday morning, spreading thick flakes of straw on squishy… Read more »
Drought is a Zen Teacher: Rain and Climate Sometimes when it starts raining, it just keeps going. So it seems now! In the last week and a half, we have had over eight inches of rain. Now the projection is a another six to eight inches by the end of this week. A growing cloud… Read more »
Water Rights Snowflakes, leaves, humans, plants, raindrops, stars, molecules, microscopic entities all come in communities. The singular cannot in reality exist. Paula Gunn Allen This quote arrived in my e-mail box this week from Gratefulness.org, and it could not be at a more appropriate time. We spent three and a half hours yesterday morning at… Read more »
Donald dreaming.
Why do I love train travel so much? Every chance I get, I arrange “adventures” for family and friends that involve the rail, and they cheerfully oblige, at least the first time! Donald and I are traveling home from Minneapolis to Chicago, Chicago to Martinez, CA, now just beginning the climb after Denver into the Rockies. My iPhone… Read more »
A Bill of Rights for Water The stated task of the Second Women’s Future First Congress was to draft a Bill of Rights for Water. In a task group on the Pacific Ocean, a young woman asked about the word “rights” — what does that word mean, and particularly when referring to water? We contemplated… Read more »
One of the many phrases that will stay with me from this week at Women’s Future First 2014 Congress is that of Joanna Macy: sustaining the gaze. Even though what we see in the world is frightening and enraging, it is so important we witness (not deny) what mankind has perpetrated upon our planet and to feel, to let ourselves have open hearts to… Read more »
© 2025 Patricia Damery.
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