Slinging Poo

Who knew,

when I said, "I do," 

that I'd spend my birthday 

slinging poo?

Okay it wasn't really "poo," but it sure looked like it! Today, my 52nd birthday, was also day 3 of our grapevine re-planting project. Alongside my favorite farmer, partner, and husband, I spent about 4 hours kneeling in the vineyard, playing in the mud. Specifically, as John dug and chiseled out soil and rocks to make holes in which to plant the new vines (replacements for the dead vines we removed last Fall), he shoveled the stuff into a 30 gallon plastic bin. With winter/springtime natural springs still active, the holes were filled with mud and muddy clay. I pulled out rocks, mixed in compost, and added fertilizing amendments. 

This is a 30 gallon bin, being used for its intended purpose: harvesting grapes.
But it's incredible how many projects make use of the bins!

Picture the bin full of poo. Wait... on second thought, don't! Because it actually has no smell, although it does look and feel like... well, poo. But since it's my birthday, picture a tub full of rich semi-frozen chocolate gelato. It's ribboned with gooey fudge. And firm malt-balls that range from golf ball size to coffee mug size. On top of that, add a thick layer of crushed oreo cookies, and then atop that, a layer of powdered sugar. Then take a large hand trowel and mix it all together, kind of like they used to do originally at Steve's Ice Cream (Boston area, early 80's) or at Coldstone Creamery. Then, forget about the trowel: put both (gloved) hands in and mix it together! This is a concoction that the new vines will just love.

So the vine -- which is really a stick of rootstock, with a grafted-on piece of still-dormant syrah budwood with two buds -- goes into the hole. I pour and John guides the "ice cream" on top of the carefully placed roots until the hole is full and the top of the rootstock plus the buds are sticking out. I insert the pencil rod next to the vine, and connect it to the irrigation wire and the fruiting wire. Then I put on a protective tube, fill it with some sawdust to insulate the buds from frost, and tie the tube up to the pencil rod.

In between the morning and afternoon poo-slinging sessions, I did get in a short bike ride, including a delicious lunch with my cycling partner, Sherry. I got a few opportunities during the day to read my MANY Facebook messages wishing me a happy birthday. I opened cards. I talked to my mom, my dad, and got messages from my brothers. And now, from my blogging perch, I  hear the sounds of Farmer John making me a special birthday dinner. I am grateful for a day spent outdoors with friends and loved ones. And I'm grateful for all the good wishes and thoughts that friends shared with me.

Who knew,

when I said, "I do," 

that I'd have my birthday cake

and eat it too?

Me, on my 2nd birthday.

The Joys of Being a Beginner

This year marks my 40th season on skis. It's been a l-o-n-g time since those first awkward efforts on my junior high school ski-club weekend in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania, and I'm now proud to label myself an "Advanced Skier." With an average of 15-20 annual ski days during most of the years when I had a "real job," and 25-30 days a year since becoming a winegrower, I should be Advanced, right? Earlier this week, I had a few days in a row in the fresh powder when I just couldn't seem to pull it all together anymore. (Note: Yes, I still do remember that even a tough day on the slopes is better than a great day in the office!) But I was frustrated and annoyed, and feeling like I needed to take some lessons again. What I didn't know is that the lessons would come from a couple of beginners. 

Catching a chairlift with my nephew, John

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few," wrote the great Zen master, Shunryu Suzuki. Learning to maintain a beginner's mind is one of the teachings I valued most from my first yoga teacher. It means taking an attitude of openness and eagerness, and letting go of preconceptions when studying a subject, just as a beginner would. Somehow my inner skier had forgotten to keep a beginner's mind, and I ended up a little frustrated instead of joyful.

Last Fall, when I invited my sister-in-law, Alice, and her husband and kids to visit us in Steamboat, I didn't know that I'd actually be skiing with them. Three of them were beginner-level snowboarders, and one was a ski-wee with just 4 prior ski days in his little legs. For their first 2 days here, they all took lessons and then had 2 more days to ski/ride together. That third day was another snowy deep-powder day, but I decided to give my exhausted legs (and brain) a break and join them on the gentler ski trails. 7 year old Davis, on 30" long skis and without ski poles, decided he wanted to follow behind in my tracks. He and I both used a snowplow wedge stance, known in ski school circles as pizza. We made pizza to go around the turns and then straightened the ski angles into "french fries." We called out pizza, french fries... pizza, french fries over and over until we were at the bottom, laughing and talking about the great run we took. Almost-10 year old John, on his snowboard, wanted to go in the trees and ski in the powder. I let him lead me and Davis into the woods to make fresh tracks in the new snow. We hooted and hollered in and out of the aspen trees, up and down the tiny moguls and dips. On every chair ride, riding with one of my nephews, who both clamored to ride up with Aunt Deb, we'd talk about the run and plan the next one. The final run of the day was accomplished in an almost total whiteout, an epic adventure for all. Over après-ski beer, soda, and wings, as well as the trail map and all the data on my brother-in-law Jeff's ski-tracker app on his iPhone, my nephews relived every run.

My nephew Davis, proud to be a real skier

By their 4th and final ski day, I knew I wanted to spend the day skiing with them. My legs and my brain felt rested, and it had been a kick to both guide them and ski with them all over the mountain. Uncle John decided to join us as well, and we took them up to the summit for the first time. After an easy warm-up, we introduced the whole crew to their first "black diamond" run, a short run down the bowl, followed by a bounce through the powder and back to the lift. Nephew John was the first to the bottom and Davis, a few tumbles notwithstanding, made it down just fine. We introduced them to all new runs and after lunch, I took young John on another black run. I told him I was confident he would do fine, so we left the others and skied down Storm Peak together. As we waited at the bottom for the others to meet us for the next chair ride up, he was giddy and explained to me how he had to adjust his riding to get down the steeper trail.

Davis and his mom, Alice, on the chairlift

Leading Davis through the final run of the day, with both of us practicing pizza and french fries, I realized that my frustration had evaporated and my balance and joy of being on skis had returned. It was exhilarating to get back to basics and approach skiing as a beginner again. Through the eyes and minds of my two young nephews, I was treated to skiing anew. It was a splendid gift, both the ski adventure and the reminder of the endless possibilities for delight when I embrace my beginner's mind. (Many thanks to John and Davis, Alice and Jeff.)

Family Portrait: Alice and Jeff, young John,
not-old John, and Davis on the gondola

My way or the Hemingway: A Moveable Feast

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever
you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.
- Ernest Hemingway, to a friend, in 1950

This quotation on the title page immediately drew me in, and I happily settled down to read my first ever Hemingway book, The Moveable Feast (1964, posthumously.) When Woody Allen's movie, Midnight in Paris, came out last year, I was a little surprised to realize I'd never read any of the classic Hemingway novels. Both the movie setting --Paris in the 1920s-- and the eccentricity of the Ernest Hemingway character sparked my interest, so when I found The Moveable Feast on the bookshelf here in my temporary "home away from home" in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, I picked it up and started tagging along on Hemingway's amusing adventures in 1920s Paris.

The Moveable Feast. The title strikes me as a metaphor for many periods in my own life, and specifically for life at the moment. Farmer John and I just left behind our now-pruned-and-dormant grapevines to take a winter break, a ski sojourn. We are now nearly a week into our 6 week ski/stay in Steamboat, staying in a beautiful, modern log cabin-style home, just west of town, via a home exchange. Our "exchange-partners in crime," Frank and Carol, are at our place in Sonoma Valley minding the KFV homestead and animals as they escape their cold, snowy winter for a while.

The plan for 30+ days of skiing as the core of outdoor enjoyment is how we select our locale. But one of the main reasons we love doing home exchanges for these extended trips is that we can really make ourselves comfortably "at home" somewhere. For us, home is less about the specific place, and more about indulging ourselves in our favorite "normal" indoor activities, including reading, writing, eating and drinking, watching televised sports, and last but not least, cooking for and with friends. Home is one of our favorite places to hang out. So finding and temporarily transporting our lives to someone else's well-loved, and beautifully-maintained home that quickly becomes "home" for us is a perfect choice.

As I feasted on the early chapters of The Moveable Feast, John was in the kitchen transforming dough into his famous pizza crust. He had started making the dough 36 hours earlier, just as he does at home. And he used his natural yeast, sourdough starter that he's been keeping alive and growing for more than 6 years, brought with us from home. And he mixed it with his 525 watt KitchenAid mixer that he brought from home. The pizza baking stone and peel, also brought from home. And the inspiration for the pie? Yup, from home! The night before the long drive to Colorado, we had dinner at our local favorite, Pizzeria Rosso, and tried for the first time their "Goomba" pie, a pizza lightly topped with spaghetti and meatballs. Seriously! I was skeptical, but quickly won over by the light touch and the incredible melding of the topping with the crust.

Assembling the toppings on the "Goomba 'Za"

In our refrigerator here in Steamboat was a little leftover spaghetti and sausage from dinner a few days prior. I roasted a red pepper, sliced a little fresh mozzarella, and we had our pizza toppings. Salad was radicchio and lettuce from our Sonoma garden, tossed with some Biale olive oil and lemon juice. And though I rarely do so, I chose the wine to go with the Goomba pie: our friend Michael Muscardini's 2009 Sangiovese from the Monte Rosso Vineyard in Sonoma Valley.

Lots of S-es: Sonoma-Style Saturday Supper Surfaced
in Steamboat Springs; Served with Sangiovese.

With only the tiniest bit of a buzz on, I realized that what we had here was our own version of a moveable feast! To borrow from and expand on Hemingway's quote, Home is a Moveable Feast! Not just the food and wine, but also the way of living and loving life. My way or the Hemingway... who knew they'd be so similar?! And who knew that this Hemingway newbie would discover this connection so immediately and intimately... and feel compelled to write about it? Hemingway suggested that as a writer, he would write what he saw as being true, and that in doing so, he would be well on the way to writing something that is good. Mmhmm. Indeed.

Papa Hemingway and Kitty

Not just a Farmer; I'm now a Rural Chick!

I've always thought of myself as a city gal. I love the buzz of urban activity, the way people hurry from here to there, the feel of concrete under my feet, the fabulous restaurants and shop-window displays to savor. The array of sights and sounds has always had a way of energizing me, from D.C. to Boston to New York to San Francisco.

As a gag, Sara sent me her high-school-vintage Lee overalls to me
when I still lived in SF, but was getting ready to move to the vineyard.

It's now been nearly seven years since our move from Silicon Valley and San Francisco up to Sonoma County, where my front "yard" is a few acres of hillside grapevines, a large vegetable garden, and a steep, wooded hill. My backyard reveals oak tree after oak tree, a west-facing view across the valley, and the summer pasture where the sheep (and dog and hen and barn cats) graze, nap, and chew the cud. I can't see my nearest neighbor, and the most prevalent sounds are crickets and frogs chirping and croaking, neighboring donkeys braying, and hawks screeching. Unless I leave the farm, and there are many days when I do not, the only people I might see besides Farmer John are the vineyard workers across the deer fencing on the adjacent property, the UPS driver, the propane delivery guy, and well, that's about it.

To be clear, while our home setting is decidedly rural, our property is just barely east of the city limits of Santa Rosa, a city with a population of 160,000. It takes only15 minutes to get to the freeway and about an hour to get over the Golden Gate into San Francisco. Easy access and egress were desirable characteristics upon purchasing our property and later quitting our "day jobs" to move up here and farm. I wanted to feel like I could easily go to and from the city to play or just to get "out of Dodge" for a spell.

But I've found myself gravitating to a different state of mind over the last 6 months or so, and I'm pondering and marveling at a new moniker: Rural Chick. It started late in the summer when Sally added me to an unlisted and private Facebook group called Rural Women Rock. Within about two weeks, there were 500 women in the group, all of whom were invited by some other rockin' rural woman. There was a flurry of conversation threads from women of all ages, all over the country, centered around rural life and our places therein. One post that I got a huge kick out of was by an Indiana woman in her mid-20s who was preparing for a "combine date," and was seeking suggestions about what she might prepare and pack into a dinner picnic basket. If you're wondering, as I did in a comment on the post, exactly what a combine date is, here's the response from a more "experienced" cattle ranching woman from Iowa: it's when your date consists of riding in the buddy seat of the combine (tractor) with your "friend." 

There were many conversations about blogging and social networking; it's where I finally realized that I had some things to say, and that's how my blog started! I was introduced to an eclectic collection of women's blogs, and really learned a lot about other people's agricultural interests and ways of life. We  talked as a community about the business of raising animals for food, canning fruits and vegetables, rural and farmer fashions, rural parenting, what we liked to drink after a long day of work, and just shared mutual admiration and support for a lifestyle in rural American communities. I was fascinated with the group, and enjoyed chiming in with comments. Alas, two months after its inception, the group imploded when an "outside" rockin' rural woman happened to buy the Rural Women Rock name, URL, and Twitter handle. Some of the inside women decided that they wanted no part of a group with a name that someone else had bought the usage rights for and would -- GASP! -- try to make a profit from. 

All activity in the group ceased, and another new "page" was formed, but the community aspect, where anyone could start a conversation, was kaput. I still follow some of the blogs, but found myself missing the camaraderie of the community, even though it had been with people I didn't even know! About a month later, I received a very cool invitation from, Deborah, my Sheep School and Lamb Camp partner, and it reignited my interest in communing with rural women -- in person! --  right in my own area.

How could I resist?! It was right up my alley.

Rural Chicks doing the Rounds of local Roadhouses! And they invited me! Who knew, when I said "I Do," that I would both identify with AND be identified by others as a Rural Chick! Can you tell I'm energized by this? Woohoo! The first meetup was in December, when 5 of us convened in western Sonoma County for "dishin', cussin', bitchin', and heehawin' " The only thing missin' in the list was drinkin', and we did that too. 

Other than all being women who live and work in an area that is somewhat rural, though proximate to population centers, we are all passionate about and somehow work in agriculture. After that first night out, I was excited to have some new friends, and we saved the date for a January outing. That follow-up outing was last week, and 13 Rural Chicks came a-Round for a date at a fancy local Roadhouse, Barndiva, in Healdsburg. [Full disclosure: it was actually not a roadhouse this time, but we had a great time sharing our work and interests, and vowed that the Roundups would continue, with an emphasis on real roadhouses (read, casual and cheap!) where we could be loud and linger without bothering anyone.]

Of the 13 "chicks," nearly all of us write blogs and/or a website about our lives and work in a rural, agricultural community. As a group, we farm winegrapes, olives, milk, fruit and vegetables, and pigs and chickens. We have sheep, goats, alpacas, cows and horses, livestock guardian dogs and an assortment of ducks, geese, and hens. We all love good food, advocate for local agriculture that connects our farmers with residents and restaurateurs, and we teach people how to get involved in agriculture themselves. I am so looking forward to developing friendships and new ideas together with this group of Rural Chicks. Who knew?!

Ditching the "Worst-Case Scenario"

Throughout childhood, my education, and all the corporate career years, I was well-indoctrinated into the common practice of preparing for the "worst case scenario." Who among us didn't have a parent who told us we had to wear clean, un-tattered underpants because if we got hurt, the rescuer or doctor would discover the quality of your "drawers." My mom wouldn't let me wear blue or purple nail polish because if they found me after an accident, they would get one look at my nails and think I was in cardiac arrest. Never mind that my fingernails could have been perfect accessories to some cool outfit, we had to act as if the worst thing would actually happen!

My college degrees are both in Engineering, which at its core, applies science and math towards solving problems. The discipline is aimed at finding solutions, but the art is to find a good solution. Engineers are stereotypically a risk-averse bunch, and much thought goes into minimizing the risk of bad outcomes, also known as worst case scenarios. If any of you non-Engineers are glazing over at this point, I'll simply offer exhibit A, which I'm sure you're familiar with.

You'll probably agree that most of us, whether we know it or not, are in the habit of anticipating that things will go wrong. This way, we can play it safe! I still recall one of the key principles I learned in Dale Carnegie's "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" training back in the mid 1980's: 

----> When you're making a decision or a change in direction, first identify 

the worst case scenario. Accept that as an outcome. And then improve on it. 

That is, start with thinking about the worst thing that could happen. Then, after you accept that as what could happen, start working on what you want as a better result. And this principle was offered to help you "stop worrying" over the worst thing that could happen!

A couple of months ago, on a bike ride, my friend Sherry and I were deeply engaged in conversation about "the law of attraction," which basically says that you attract into your life whatever you think about, and that your dominant thoughts will find a way to manifest. So as we pedaled, it occurred to us that if you're making decisions and living life with a mindset of avoiding the worst-case scenario, then the very idea of investing mental energy in the worst-case scenario could easily lead to the manifestation of that worst case! WHAT IF, we thought, you assume and plan for the best possible outcome? What could life be like? What if we stopped worrying about what bad or scary things might happen and start imagining all the amazing things you could bring about?

I decided to put this into practice last month after John and I received the news that the many cracks in the facade of our 7 year old house were not the cause of water damage, they were a symptom of something a lot more serious: construction flaws that allowed rainwater to get behind the high-tech coating and moisture barrier system and start rotting the wood panels underneath in the frame of the house. It had to get fixed, and sooner was deemed to be definitely better than later. The "old me" would have freaked out, looked for finger-pointing opportunities, obsessed about the extent of the damage and potential cost, and worried about starting such a project at the start of our rainy season and just prior to an extended home exchange where other people will be living in our house for 6 weeks in January and February! Instead, I accepted this event as an opportunity to practice the assumption of the best case scenario. Who knew that a former engineer (not to mention an old dog!) like me could let go of all those ingrained habits and work on preparing myself for experiencing the best possible outcome?

Emotionally, intellectually, and physically, I consciously "let go" of involvement in the project, choosing instead to focus on expecting and envisioning progress and on-time completion. Husband John liaised and built an alliance with the contractor, our original builder and our architect, who all rallied around the project and agreed to financially support the project. They set goals to get the problems corrected by the end of the year without the involvement of lawyers and insurance companies. We knew it would be smoother, more collaborative, and less costly for everyone to spend our time and money on fixing the problem, not paying attorney fees and wasting time in litigation.

Scaffolding up, exterior stripped down to the wood

Six weeks ago, the scaffolding went up. We had to duck to go in and out of the front sliding doors and the garage entry/exit was tricky! The day after Thanksgiving, demolition began as the layers of exterior coatings were chiseled off, from the color-impregnated acrylic coating, to the 1.5" thick white styrofoam insulation, to the black paper coating atop the wood. Then they started pulling out nails to remove and replace the sheets of plywood, and they removed and resealed each one of our 16 windows. It was noisy, it was messy. But every morning, anywhere from 3-7 guys started arrived and began working between 7:30 and 8. They (mostly) cleaned up after themselves, they were polite and pleasant, and they worked hard. I asked questions and John gave me updates, but I pretty much stayed out of it. When the contractor came over to check progress and talk with his crews, I talked with him, but never about details, and mostly about life in general and how pleased I was with the work and his guys.

So how did it turn out?

• Do you remember I mentioned we are at the start of our rainy season? Every single day during the demolition and re-construction was sunny. The mornings started in the mid-high 30 degree range, but quickly warmed up to high 50s and up. So the weather was even better than we could have even hoped for. 
• There were no rain delays and mild temperatures allowed the new exterior coatings to be applied and dry/cure easily. 
• John and I were able to go about our business of getting the vineyard ready for the next growing season, confident that the work would get done without our hovering.
• The color match is perfect. 
• The landscaping around the scaffolding is pretty much unscathed, save for lots of tiny bits of styrofoam in the mulch.
• The final detail steps were completed on December 28 and the scaffolding was removed on the 29th, before the end of the year, as planned.
• John, ever my hero, steered the process like a champ, and joined me in assuming the positive outcome.
• I stayed calm, eerily and deliciously serene, throughout the whole process. I marveled both inside and aloud at how well the project was progressing, and regularly "checked in with myself" around the fact that I was consciously practicing assuming that the best case scenario would happen.

This born-and-bred East Coast gal, formerly "type A to the max," did it! I practiced the law of attraction and I planned for the best case scenario, and it happened that way! Cycling partner and native LA gal, Sherry, pronounced that I am now officially a Californian (After 20 years here, I know she meant that in the nicest and grooviest way!) I'm not sure how I could ever again feel like planning for the worst case is the right choice for me. Sure, things may not always go the way I think they should or could, but I know that I can take things as they come and adjust as needed. 

So while I will always wear clean underwear and will probably abstain from blue or purple nail polish, I'm not preparing for the worst anymore! And I know this is an improvement -- I am a better, a free-er, and a happier person for the experience of planning for the best.

The Meaning of Christmas

Even though I was born and raised "a nice Jewish girl," my mom, brother and I always celebrated both Hanukkah and Christmas.  In our rendition of Christmas, there was obviously no religious connection, but we always had a Christmas tree (with presents underneath) in the living room, a big styrofoam Santa Claus face hanging on the front door, and a sprig of mistletoe hanging in the kitchen. We knew all the words to every Christmas carol, faith-based and seasonal, and sang them heartily.

Christmas morning, 1969, with my mom and 7 year old brother.
Note the "irreverent" pregnant angel topping the tree.

In college, by my junior year, I was living in an apartment, and my roommate and I got a tree and hosted a tree trimming party (any excuse to have a party and serve cocktails!) We thoroughly enjoyed our first "adult" tree in our own place.  Sharon and I strung popcorn garlands with our friends, received some very cute ornaments (I still have the skiing teddy bear), and took advantage of some strategically placed mistletoe.

Christmas 1980: Catching my friend Tommy, under said mistletoe.

Over the years, without the pressure of kids in my child-free household, I've sometimes skipped the whole tree and decorating thing at Christmas, but more often, John and I have gone to tree farms and cut ours down. Despite the fact that there is a tree farm 1/2 mile from our house, and we don't even have to go on a public road to get there, I just am not "feeling it" this year.  

Ditto with the exchanging of gifts.  I did select and order books to be shipped across the country as gifts for our young nephews, and I feel good about that.  But I just feel kind of... I can't come up with the right word for it, and I don't know how to spell the sound coming from my mouth, but I just don't feel like buying "things" for people. I'd much rather "do things" with people, and enjoy their company, but this is difficult with both our families and many of our friends thousands of miles away.

I'm feeling a little baffled by this gift-giving disdain, because I've always loved Christmas! Yet kind of like Linus Van Pelt, I am turned off by how over-commercialized Christmas has become in our country. Decorations and music in the stores by late October. The 2+ month flood of television commercials (which at least I can fast-forward through!) 24 hours of Black Friday. Cyber Monday. Huge stacks of advertising inserted in the newspaper. Coupons stuffed in the mailbox. Everything on sale in the stores. Spend, spend, and spend more. I mean, why do I have to buy "more stuff" for the people I love? To prove what? Do they really need anything? I simply don't want to buy presents just to check off that I did so or just because I have always given gifts. Will they be upset or feel slighted if I don't buy them gifts? And if they do, how do I feel about that? Actually, just putting these thoughts into words is helpful and rather liberating.

Turning inward, I feel very happy and secure this holiday season.  I'm healthy, grateful for what I have, and engaged in activities and groups of friends that I enjoy.  I see plenty of people around me who are not so fortunate, whether their despair is economic,  poor physical health and/or diminished emotional well-being, and it troubles me. I have been volunteering some of my time and money, and trying to offer kindness and compassion, yet I know I can't save the world, or even substantively help very many people. 

So when is it all enough? When are love and compassion and gratitude the gifts that are the most meaningful? And will I be able to give those things to everyone who is open to receiving them? And can I make this the way I live my life, and not just the way I live Christmas?

Spiders and Snakes

I was never what you would call a "girly girl," but I was also never very fond of bugs while I was growing up. Many childhood "bug" memories stick with me, and most of them still kind of make my skin crawl.

• My childhood home was in an apartment in Langley Park, Maryland, just "over the line" from the city limits of northeast Washington, DC. Heat and humidity define summers there, and our air conditioner was always running on high. I remember some sort of leak and the resulting wet areas of a rug. When I lifted the corner of the rug, several large cockroaches scurried out. Ewwww!
  
• The cockroach disdain grew from there! In 10th grade biology class, we were assigned a project to collect and mount insects from all the different classifications. The insects were placed in a "kill jar" and then mounted to a foam display board, with a straight pin piercing the insect's middle (thorax!) section. I captured a cockroach, committed insecticide with the kill-jar and then mounted it. I was awakened in the middle of the night by a scratching sound. When I turned on the light, I found the cockroach alive and spinning in place around the pin, using his legs to propel the rotations. I kid you not! General disgust of cockroaches notwithstanding, I had extra reasons for really hating those things.
  
• I was a Girl Scout for only one year, at age 11, because my softball and basketball team practices were scheduled to be on the same days as scout meetings. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, and I chose to go for sporting glory over badge-earning endeavors. Anyway, Girl Scout cookie-selling season came around and my mom volunteered to take charge of cookie delivery and storage for our troop. Imagine hundreds of boxes of cookies in our apartment-size living room! The individual cookie packages were packed inside large cardboard boxes, which were stacked everywhere. A few days into this, we saw ants on the wood floor around the boxes. Moving the boxes revealed more ants, and finally, we discovered armies of ants inside the boxes. Zillions of ants marching all over the cookie packages... Ugh!
  
• Another ant incident comes to mind -- I'd forgotten I even had this memory! Raisin Bran cereal... Pieces of raisin skin would rise to the top in my cereal bowl, floating around in the milk. I swear for the longest time I was convinced they were ants! And I still won't eat Raisin Bran. And candied dates, which we always had at our house during the Passover holiday, looked like cockroaches to me.
  
• Finally, snakes have always been part of my consciousness.  And courtesy of my mom, not in a good way! She is an ophidiophobe, one with an irrational fear of snakes.  It's as true now as it was then that even when she sees a snake on TV, she screams. Whether it's Indiana Jones in "Raiders of the Lost Ark," the animated "Jungle Book" movie, or a National Geographic documentary, you know the scream is coming.  Even when we went to the National Zoo, she would warn us to stay away from the snakes.

So I'd never been a big fan of the creepy or the crawly or the slithery creatures. I thought nothing of squishing them, swatting them, and disposing of them down the toilet. When I started practicing yoga and exposing myself to some Buddhist teachings, my stance softened. After all, "they are sentient beings" just like you and me. And "I am not separate" from them. When I moved up to the Vineyard -- the "country" -- I really changed my thinking.

In and around my house, landscaping, garden and vineyard, there are spiders of every kind. I'm pretty sure they view our property as an arachnid safe haven, and invite all their friends and family to move in. I still draw the line at scorpions (and black widows!) inside the house. All of those are scooped up and relocated outdoors. But spiders are okay! We have reached an understanding, a détente, and we coexist mostly peacefully, indoors and out.

Spider at home in its web in the syrah vines

As for snakes, they've played some new roles in my life. Turns out that my husband collected snakes as a kid, so he's comfortable around snakes and can quickly identify beneficial and harmless snakes from the nuisance and dangerous snakes. Rattlesnakes have a frequent summer presence here in the heated rocky foothills. I've found them in the vineyard, in the sheep pasture, in the garage, and sunbathing in the driveway. After my dog was bitten on the nose (and survived) and my cat was bitten on the neck (and didn't survive), rattlesnakes get no slack, zero tolerance. Farmer John whacks them with a hoe, slicing off their heads. DONE.

A rattler, with the hoe that felled him

But gopher snakes, garter snakes, sharp-tailed snakes, and king snakes are welcome here.

A long garter snake made an appearance while brother and S-I-L,
Lawrence and Nelli, were here. John had to convince them it wasn't a rattler.

I enjoy seeing these snakes around. It's become a game with us to see who spots them first, and I always do a "victory dance" when it's me!  When I see a spider in the house (like, every day), I'll often say hello to it, hoping they don't mind that I call them all by the same name (Spidey.)  

Who knew, when I said "I Do," that I would ever actually view spiders and snakes as salutary creatures, let alone worthy co-inhabitants of my home and planet Earth? I've come a long way baby!