Life of Wry

Just a couple mini-vacation days/nights with Heidi and Susan in the wine country.. a nascent annual tradition. I missed year one because I went, unexpectedly, to Nepal. Year two was our French Laundry and mud bath extravaganza. We somehow missed last year. Back on track this year–my second, their third.

Came in late afternoon yesterday. Settled in, caught up a lot, headed to Oxbow Public Market. People around here do marketing well… everything’s so attractive and arty. Ate at Kitchen Door and had a great dinner.

Today, after a hotel buffet breakfast, we wandered into and around downtown Napa.  Gloomy day, but it’s dry and warm.  Here’s a shot of the Napa River. Lots of redevelopment money has created a nice river-side ambiance:

Explored many galleries, boutiques. Lovely downtown. Some minor acquisitions.  Resting up now–taking a Napa (get it?)–with reservations at Buchon in Yountville tonight.

This trip is all about gabbing and food, with a little shopping as a vehicle for more gabbing.  So fun.

Oh, and then there was this:

Stiletto art. (Pretty awful, no?)

A little backyard trauma here.  Recall, Frances and I have been re-visioning and replanting the backyard for a couple of years now.  Most recently, we came up with the brilliant idea to remove most of what had been planted on the center mound (initially designed in the late 80s) and, gorgeous focal point that it is, replant with a stunning array of grasses, most native: all sizes, shapes and colors.  We’d spent hours riding our bikes through the arboretum, making notes and making selections. Finally, in November (just three months ago) we purchased 50-100 or so plants from Lemuria and Redwood Barn. Here are a couple pictures representing a fraction of our hauls:

We arranged them just-so around the mound:

We carefully rejiggered our newly installed drip irrigation system so that each plant had its own little water source: 

Then we kicked back for the two winter months to let everything set roots and rest.  Which.. they did. Beautifully.  

Then the sewer pipe issue (see previous posts).  

So today, Frances and I dug up all the plants (about 50-75 of them anyway) and relocated them to a remote part of the yard–some in pots, some just on the ground in their own lusciously moist dirt (thank you recent rains!):

And cut and removed giant sections of the irrigation. Some we strung from trees, some we coiled out of the way. 

Here’s a shot of Troy (one of Hall’s Plumbing guys) crowbarring out one of the boulders that’s in the way):

And never mind we just had the dry creek bed re-rocked and its boulders re-set. But maybe I said that already..  

Here’s what the mound looks like with most of it cleared of plants and irrigation. We’ve made room for a two-foot wide trench and a place to put all the dug out dirt. Hall’s had run a TV camera through the pipe to check it out and to determine the pipe’s path through the yard, then they marked the area to be cleared. 

It’s all a bit heartbreaking. Still.. it could have been a lot worse. We can be grateful for the fact the line goes straight back, that it missed most of our trees and the play structure (future garden shed), that we’d not yet put in the new hardscape (coming in spring), that we’d already removed a whole bunch of plants, shrubs and trees, and that the irrigation is now all above ground and easily moved out of the way.  

I’m also extremely grateful Frances’ schedule allowed her to drive down from Chico this morning and squeeze this emergency job in before work and between the rains, and that I am now headed to Napa for a few days of friend time.  Meanwhile… Jim and Peter will be here on short shower and minimal flush status… if they’re allowed those things at all.  

It’s all good. 

Of course, right? It’s plumbing. There are no good stories with plumbing.

After determining that the slow drain issue was our problem and not the city’s, we called Hall’s Plumbing (at Ganesh Works’ recommendation). They first had to locate the line, then they had to dig up some perky new bulbs.  This is what they discovered:

Yesterday’s backed up toilet was today’s smooshed, undulating orangeburg sewer line in dire need of replacement.  (Maybe not dire, but if you’re rolling the dice on the life of your compromised sewer line, you best not miss on your bet.)

Orangeburg is apparently a sewer-line technology used in the late 50s that proved to be poorly thought through.  (Though, now that I think about it, it did last some 58 years.)

So instead of waiting for the next leak and/or clog–we have both now–in the line that stretches from our house to the city’s sewer system, we are coughing up $5000 to replace the pipe altogether. This means digging a trench across the entire backyard, removing the damaged pipe, and then replacing it with the new one. Bonus: it will be made of a tough, modern material and will certainly outlast us.. so hopefully we can cross sewer drama off the list of future homeowner problems–for us, as well as the next generation.

Tomorrow, bright and early, Frances and I will be temporarily relocating all the native grasses that we just planted a couple of months ago, and which are now in the line of fire. The plumbers will also be taking up all the newly re-laid rocks in the dry creek bed, including the brand new barrier cloth that was installed a year ago. They’ll be moving large boulders that were carefully and artfully placed by the rock people, taking out a number of other shrubs, and we may lose a crepe myrtle or two. It will be a mess, with muddy dirt piles everywhere. [Hangs head.]

All for the cause.  It’s a good thing, I’m sure, but oh so frustrating about the yard. Oh so!

While I was deeply ensconced in my office watching evening gowns on parade and speeches (some really good) and Hollywood glam, Jim was doing this:

The good news: Jim has no interest in the Academy Awards so missed nothing. The bad news: Jim has no interest in plumbing, either, but had no choice but to get to the bottom of on overflowing toilet and slow-draining drains.

As posted by Jim on Facebook:

The problem with driving down Pleasants Valley road is that you end up singing that Monkee’s song for the rest of the day.  You know the one:

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday
Charcoal burning everywhere
Rows of houses that are all the same
And no one seems to care

You’re welcome.

Okay, forget that… It was another between-storms kind of day, here on the verge of spring in the valley.  Which means:

First poppy in our front yard:

And another weekend, practice-driving outing for Peter. We headed west…

Here is Russell Boulevard looking its blue-sky-white-cloud best.. lots of mistletoe on those walnuts:

Alfalfa, perhaps, along Stevenson Bridge Rd:

We continued south along Stevenson Bridge Rd, west on Sievers, south on Hailey, west on Sweeny to 505(S), until we got to I-80 (W).  Got off at Pena Adobe and meandered over to Pleasants Valley Rd.  Traveled along for awhile as the clouds began to build up again …. so pretty in its broodiness:

We headed up Mix Canyon for a steep thrill. Peter decided to get out of the car again and go for a little run. After the rains, the creek was flowing pretty impressively (off to his left):

More road shots along Pleasants Valley:

And a peacock sighting (look carefully). This guy flew in front of our car and landed in the bushes.. I shot this as we sped past:

And then we headed home along 128/32, with a final stop at In ‘n Out.  This makes the boy so happy. Was supposed to be a baseball scrimmage day in Rocklin, but got rained out… so this was the next best thing.

As Peter and I were driving back from Sac this morning, there was a growing gap in the clouds overhead and I said, “start looking for rainbows.”  (Perhaps not the thing to say to your 15-year-old who’s driving in rush hour traffic on the interstate in the rain–two new-driver firsts.)

Sure enough, one started to materialize dead ahead.  Ho hum, as rainbows go:

But then this happened:

It was a double rainbow, the outer rainbow of which was fainter and less complete. At its peak, however, the inner had dark, crisp color bands. Very spectacular!

I’m a huge fan of the drive-by.  I love sitting in the passenger seat snapping photos through the car windows. Here are a few from today’s drive home from Dillon Beach.  

Typical road shot along the Tomalas-Petaluma Road:

After lunch in Petaluma, we passed the train station on the way out of town:

And heading toward home along 116, we saw lots of sheep. The rains we’ve recently gotten in California are finally turning the hills green. 

Because it rained like a banshee all day today, which was just fantastic and moody, and all we did was watch movies (three so far) and season six of Mad Men (three episodes so far) and played scrabble, I don’t really have a photo.  So, I’m sharing one I took the sunny day we arrived.

Shot from the deck, Pacific ocean reflected in the glass.  But you knew that.

And okay, I did take one picture today… of the Scrabble board:

Things to notice:

1. Jim’s seven letter surmise, which also landed on a triple word, which earned him a stunning 85 points…impressive Jim.

2. Jim allowed my quiz which also formed the word oz.. which, you know, is not a word, but I got a lot of points for it. He felt sorry for me.

3. He also allowed my trig, which I thought was cool because by adding that T, I got to spell trig twice!

4. Final score: Jim 344, Kari 261.  As usual.

There’s a walk we take in Dillon Beach… it goes up a very huge hill, and this barn and these cows are at the top.

After that, you go through a narrow gate and find yourself in the middle of open fields with miles and miles of coastline to explore.

Most of it is grazing land high above the water with views north to Bodega Head and south to Point Reyes.  We only walked about 1/2 mile along the cliff to this beach; you can see the trail.

This is looking north:

This is looking south:

You can see Dillon Beach–the long, wide beach that ends at the opening to Tomales Bay. The distant land mass is the beginning of the Pt. Reyes National Seashore.

I leave you with more cows.

A bit of a sandpiper confab.