Wider Perspective: Turning of the Year
Wider Perspective: Turning of the Year Meditating Crow Each afternoon this week I walk the goats and Hijo, our llama, in the meadows around our house. The sun is warm on the south slopes, the grass just barely up, and the last hours of light have that magical feel of transition. On the eve… Read more »
Waning 2013 and Dark Nights
Waning slip of moon, December 29, 2013. The old slip of moon rose this morning, the Valley Oaks backlit by the beginnings of Dawn. It is the end of 2013, the darkest time of the year. I admit: I love the dark, a time that it is easier to live inward. The plants… Read more »
Waning 2013 and Dark Nights
Two young redwoods we planted (left and center) 14 years ago to keep the redwood clump (to the right) company. When we first began using Biodynamic practices, we were advised by our consultant to plant redwood trees at the east end of our vineyard because the clump of redwoods there were lonely and… Read more »
Valerian and Frost
Burrrrrr!!!!! (Okay, I know, some of you are much colder! But we Mediterranean climate people aren’t used to frost!) When you need gloves to walk the goats in the morning, and when the grass sparkles at sunrise like stars, you seriously consider spraying Valerian on tender young plants, if you didn’t the evening… Read more »
The Blessed Greenness!
It is beginning! The great greening happens so quickly in Napa! Within the week of the first substantial rain of the season, tiny green sprouts present themselves below dried vegetation. Within days the landscape changes from the brown and grey grace of summer and autumn to the benedicta viriditas of winter… so different… Read more »
Happy Thanksgiving from Harms Vineyards!
Boey and St. Francis: Thanks for the animals! Happy Thanksgiving from Harms Vineyards! There is so much for which to be grateful this year: the harvests of grapes and lavender; our dear llama Racu who guarded our goats these last sixteen years and passed this fall; our customers who have supported our Biodynamic organic farming… Read more »
The Blessed Greenness!
Morning light through remaining frost cloth. The Blessed Greenness! The great wind played havoc with our new lavender plants’ frost cloth. The cloth gives six degrees of frost protection, enough to protect the tender plants while transmitting 75% of the light. The rain goes right through, so we leave it on all winter, if… Read more »
Guard Llama
Hijo and me after our bonding walk. Now I hope he likes Gaviota and Dasher, Boey and Petunia, Agaleah and… Racu’s demise has left a power vacuum on our ranch. The goats have been unruly and the coyotes get way too close at night. A consult with our Animal Communicator Rafaela Pope suggested… Read more »
Compost Cycle of Our Ranch
Dasher and Valley clean last leaves from chardonnay vines. White strips are pheromone strips to control European grapevine moth. Compost Cycle of Our Ranch I think of our goats as kinds of blenders: they mix up the food stuffs of the ranch, then release what isn’t digested to be composted and put back into building… Read more »
Zipping up for Winter
Frost cloth stays on all winter, transmitting 70% of the light as well as the rain and allowing several degrees of frost protection. Goats have to be watched with the tender new plants (which you can just see in the mulching straw.) They love tender green almost anything! This season is always more… Read more »
© 2025 Patricia Damery.
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