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If It’s Not One Thing, It’s A Lot More.

By naomi | Published: March 10, 2010

Benjamin the Banana Slug.My ears are burning. Besides the freezing gusts of wind from the North that are re-spreading my finally (sigh) raked leaf piles, I am fully cognizant that the groundhog saw his shadow. I believe in this stuff you know? If the weatherman can’t seem to get it right, believe in the cute ground critter and folklore to predict the coming few weeks. It’s COLD. In anticipation of our last frost date, (May 1) I’ve started my first little seedlings of a garden inside. Sitting in what was once my darkroom sink sit 5 trays of spring starts that thanks to a warm heating pad are growing much too fast and furious for their small clod cubicles.

Solved: For the past week, I’ve been wondering who’s been farting around the house. Timothy and Justice have had to take the constant questioning and my poor cats decided to take safe haven elsewhere. Learned the hard way that septic tanks do get full to the brim! With all of the rain we’ve had, my leach field was too saturated to take the overflow and excess grey water. Luckily for me one phone call and a couple of hours was thankfully all it took yesterday to remedy the stinker.

Banana slug Benjamin has been set free. Yesterday when I prodded him in his Lucite condo, he didn’t move or extrude his protective slime. I felt bad. It’s been two weeks of captivity in a one cubic foot rectangle. After popping the top off his cell an hour later he came back to life. I’m going to monitor him like a condor in my geraniums. If he makes it to my ferns he’s gonna go back to jail.

Damn it’s still cold. Thinking about the outside work to be done. The Momma Hawk is yelling at her two children of last year to get out of the nest and her territory. It’s sunny and bright outside, the squirrels are stealing straw from the shed, crows are laughing up in the big oak tree, Canada geese are flocking South, and my chickens are scratching away at the baby earwigs in my dahlia beds. I guess I’d better go see what’s going on.

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No Escargot?

By naomi | Published: February 25, 2010

Why can’t you just eat slugs? They are just so plentiful right now. It seemed that every leaf of mustard I picked this morning had one or three slithering on it, and if not its remains; which consist of a silvery mucus butt juice that he forgot to wipe after using the little boys room.

Did you know slugs come in different colors? There are the shiny blackish grey ones that I’ve never seen bigger than an eraser top from a #2 Ticonderoga. The most “common”; the” standard” slug. which I’ve spied in every single one of my friend’s yards. (I do check)  Then the gigantic brown foreskin bump headed ones with two black perpendicular eyebrows running all the way down it’s back. Like a skunk, but of course brown and black, not black and white.

When you squish a slug between your fingers, it’s actually quite soft. You would think soft like squeezing the end of your finger, but NOOooooo more like squishing the saturated wet noodles in the bottom of the kitchen sink the morning after last nights spaghetti feed, kind of squish.

They also kind of gum up on your fingers. After squeezing till eruption, the real slime the same color of the outside slug, spews and amalgams to your thumb and forefinger. Note: every good farmer carries a handkerchief for this reason. Also note to never ask to blow ones nose on a farmers kerchief.

So why don’t I just use a rock and crush slug into dirt? After trying this too many times it always yields the same result A.) the slug just gets pushed into the soft dirt, making you believe that you just tucked him into bed and he will be coming back from the dead the next morning. Or, B.) I get no satisfaction of seeing or feeling slugs death as I am the god to this little garden sanctuary and I don’t allow the devil in my the garden world.

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Seven Years and a Slug.

By naomi | Published: February 23, 2010

UGH.

Today was day two of tossing and shredding roshambowinery memories that stain like full stench Clorox bleach. The fact that the IRS wants 7 years paper back up of what seems like everything for the chance that they just might come back and scrutinize my record keeping of the past doesn’t seem at all right. I now have to designate a whole padlocked room to this dragon. My son will be a teenager sooner.

7 years worth of documents! I have a piece of paper that tells me to keep all employees W-9’s, payrolls, 1099’s, and even résumé’s. The fact that I can’t even remember some of them by name or even by face from photocopies of their drivers’ licenses?  Jumbled boxes with AR and AP mixed up in packed to the brim cardboard files with Avery labels and folders, and lots and lots of staples, and file clips. Some demon of my past even filed blank paper.  Then again someone even thought it important to save free samples, a few from a hopeful fiberglass installer… I even paid a moving company to transport this junk. Does this mean someone was laughing at me? Or were they covering for a job they were not competent?

I shredded a whole winery history of faded cash register tape with full credit card ##’s, expiration dates, and signatures. 10 years worth of interesting record keeping by a few previous (competent?) controllers, CFO’s, and managers. The staff they are all gone now, which when I go through this death pile I’m reminded, that all this shit is mine now to keep… for 7 more years.

***I am not saying that all roshambo staff was bad. I have been fortunate to know some awesome people who have become friends and have helped me tremendously… You know who you are.

AWWW.

Yep, I yipped like a ninny! Do you know that feeling when you are about to take a step and you know if you do put your foot down… If you do… something will happen and it certainly will be bad.  This morning I almost fell off balance taking that misstep thinking I was going to step on a baby rattlesnake… On inspection, it was a 7-inch yellow and brown speckled banana slug. Terrifying gross and yet it was really cool.  Poor thing was crawling gooey-ly along my crushed gravel driveway.

How did it get there?  It must have hitched a ride on the garbage truck. Every Tuesday at dawn, I hear the trucks come, garbage truck, then recycle truck, and then yard waste truck… Which one did he hitch on? What was he slithering away from? Santa Cruz is really far away for this little guy.  After my startled panic settled. My son Justice just got his perfect new pet.  As I type this “Benjamin” as he is now named is slimily sitting here with me on my desk in his new clear plastic rectangle.

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Field Tripping.

By naomi | Published: February 9, 2010

Took myself on a little field trip to the local hydro store today. I needed a grow light to start my new spring seeds indoors. I was pretty amazed after I found the front door (after walking around two sides of the building) and walked in. Just dudes of all ages standing around “bro’ing” it up in ultra bright commercial light buying five gallon sized containers of PH up and down, flora grow, and even cosmically colorful bags of organic bat guano. I have to admit that everything in the store was pretty well merchandized (If not a little temporary feeling) and the graphics were great! Even I at that moment wanted to come back here to buy my gardening stuff. But then, I’m not a weed grower. The brahs in front of me at the counter rang in $875 in plant food alone.

Why does marijuana make me so paranoid? When I was in college my next-door neighbors got busted for growing in their basement. I drove into my driveway just minutes after the bust. My neighbor was handcuffed and crying sitting on her front porch, while the police were putting Eric into the paddy wagon. Things were pretty grim.  Back then the city of Portland had a “Drug Free Zone” around the city limit which included the block our houses were located. After their jail time, they had to move and stay outside of the Portland city limits for fear of violating their parole. I eventually moved myself, so I don’t know if they ever moved back.

Living in Sonoma County, it seems like everyone grows weed. When someone pulls out his stash, it’s not a film canister (I think these don’t exist anymore) but a choice of different strains of weed in gallon sized freezer bags. And just driving down the 101 south today I passed two billboards advertising medical marijuana evaluations. It seems like the thing to do doesn’t it?  It would certainly bring in more money per pound than the lettuce starts I just planted? And hydro stores are popping up in every CA zip code. But I wouldn’t want to grow weed. I’m just too paranoid.

Posted in Journal | 2 Comments

Green Fingertips.

By naomi | Published: February 2, 2010

There is nothing like your hands stinging like red hot pins and needles that make you wonder why you are up at 8am in the morning in the dank cold 45degree fog up to your elbows in mud, leaves, and slugs. This morning after dropping my son off for carpool, Timothy and I had to ponder that as we picked over what made it through our last mini monsoon of the previous 4 weeks.

Three-stuffed garbage bags of produce were much more than I would have expected. We had two colors garnet and purple Asian mustard greens, multicolored mini carrots, with fashion names like “purple haze”, collard greens that seem to like the worst nature can give, growing greener and sweeter with each gloomy day.  A whole bag of spinach, which I had doubts about when I planted. Two kinds made our catch today. “Giant Teton” and … dammit I can’t remember. But they looked so different. One had large angular heartleaves, the other one rounder, ruffled, and cottony to my petrified fingertips.

This is just the beginning for us. Just a few years ago, I would not even known there were so many types of spinach. At the grocery stores they only come in the cello clam shell encased baby spinach or the bigger ones that come with stems, some sand, and blue rubber bands wound tightly around their midsections.

It was a good haul. Not bad, a reminder of just how much we can do with our hands, time, patience, and a little love for the earth, and the things that can grow there. As I write this, Nash (the cat) just killed a cute grey field mouse behind me on the carpet.  I was thinking of helping the little guy out, but Nash brought him in for me to, I think he wants to share. It’s dead now. Snack anyone?

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A Farm Community.

By naomi | Published: January 25, 2010

The rains outside are keeping me awake at night. They haven’t stopped for over a week. With the news out that I’m a “farmer” now, I have so much to do that I’m mad at Mother Nature! I guess I need this time to think and really plan out what spring will be this year. I tend to get ahead of myself and make people around me dizzy. Piles of catalogs of seeds, plants, pipes, feeders, fencing, and compost makers are lying all over my bed.  This is going to be a lot (I mean a lot) of hard work! I don’t understand half the things on the flimsy newsprint pages. Won’t I accidentally electrocute my chickens with the goat wire?

Thank you. I am stimulated and thankful for so many people have reached out with inspiration and knowledge that I will soon tap into. Farmers as far as Oregon, and Europe have taken notice of this little place one hour north of San Francisco. I am grateful that they are letting me in and onto something special. A pact perhaps? To bring interesting, healthy, diverse, healing foods to your table. Which is priceless if it brings a smile to your lips and a few years to your life.

Now I wait until the sun comes out.

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My butt is newsworthy.

By naomi | Published: January 21, 2010

IMG_80391

This photo was taken and posted online by the local newspaper The Press Democrat in 2008. I would have been happier if they dug this pic up instead of the one that they used.

I predicted he was going to show up on my doorstep before he did. As soon as I heard his voice on my message machine I knew that his was not going to be a good article.

A couple of hours later his paunchy belly and red pocked marked nose loomed into my laundry room window. Trepidation…but I had to get this over with. I went to the door to meet him. Verdict looked at me, and at everything else surrounding me.

“Can I help you?”

“Are you Naomi Brilliant?”

“Um yes…. “

I showed him my garden.  It is just dirt and it is the future. I have nothing to prove with it. Today, it is a mushy mess. My boots sink an inch with each step “shwick shiwick shikewick”. In my peaceful moments I have a vision that this is what I’ve been waiting for. To get my hands, feet and face filthy, salt on my brow and soil under my fingernails, why because what I do now, will taste sweeter at harvest.

This is food. It is touched by hands, and not so much by cold machines. My rows are not even or straight and I might have a few plagues of white flies in the coming spring. I want to share. It makes me happy. Doesn’t it always feel good to watch someone enjoy what you have created, what you have brought to life.

For the past 10 years. That has not always been so with roshambowinery. Although I will miss what it was. It was not always what I wanted it to be. As with everything alcoholic, I spent most of my time pulling my hair trying to understand the legal definitions of can and can’t.  Distribution and sales and the act of “making” friends to sell were something I struggled with.  To most I may seem an extrovert, but in my own being, I know that it was very hard for me to be “on” especially when it was with forced acting.

I may have been known for my crazy stunts, marketing and events, but I always wanted first to be known for making great wine for you. “Fighting for fun in a winey world” was NOT born as our slogan to sell to you. I wanted wine to be about you. About FUN, about what it is to be alive, not something that is savored solely at a special meal. Wine is about place, and time. Where it was grown, the sun, and the weather, winemaking is just putting that into a bottle to be shared and remembered.

I still live on the vineyard and I will see grapevines every morning. I still will be doing what I have always strived to do. Share with those around me something I nurtured. Live close to the land and care for it too.  Will it be a success? It will even if it’s only in my own mind.

  • I guess I am bitter that a reporter from the local paper had the nerve to come to my house without invitation, and steal “the story” from another reporter from the same paper whom I had a respectful conversation with the day before. This reporter also misused statements I said to create a character of me that is exaggerated. He also even after asking, ignored my request to NOT use a photo of me (especially one that misrepresents the serious tone of the article he wrote) All of this I know was done with callous intention, which hurts me as a private individual not the winery. In the end. The story is the same roshambowinery is on hiatus, and that I understand is newsworthy.

So now where is there going to fun in this “winey world?”

** I also want to clarify that I never said that I was an “organic” farm. I currently am not certified; the word organic is a word that unfortunately has little meaning if we misuse it. I attain to be sustainable, and be as caring as I can be to the air and earth.  If in the future I apply for organic certification I will probably tell you here. We are very lucky here in California to have so many awesome local certified organic farms that I don’t want to steal from that.

Posted in Journal | 6 Comments

Pulled a tick off of Nash (as in Steve Nash) the cat this morning.

By naomi | Published: January 17, 2010

I knew he had one when he came in around the blackest part of night, but I was too stupid with sleep to wake up.  I kept flicking it with my finger until Nash got mad at me and left. He came back in at 7, and then with enough light in my windows to see, I remembered that I made a mental note to check him. Sure enough it was still strongly attached.  Pulling back his fur to inspect I saw it, as big as a purplish/grayish fava bean with blood sucking teeth. I must say I am not a squeamish person but I shivered. The kind of feeling that makes your stomach immediately sour, my fingers were filthy from stroking his little bulbous body.

Do I get tweezers? No too big, the chance at popping it was too real, and then it would leave a putrid rotten bloodstain on the cat and my sheets. I reached and pulled out a tissue, snuggled my fingers around tissue and tick and hoped for the best. Pluck. It came out. Now between my fingers I squeeze, He’s tough, but I can feel that he’s jelly in the center with a shiny leather coating. I got his head too, most times they leave them there to infect and fester, a friendly reminder like a mosquito bite that you keep scratching. His miniscule legs were rowing away from me. But I got him. I take him to the toilet and watch him swirl away.

Posted in Journal | 4 Comments

Dug up.

By naomi | Published: January 14, 2010

Digging little graves this morning. The crows are waiting up in the branches of a black walnut tree to interrogate my foot deep, foot wide holes. They aren’t for anything dead however, tomorrow I’m driving to another small farm in Sebastopol to pick up as many raspberries as I can dig up.  My son said he loves raspberries, so I’m going to give them to him.

Today it made news… A small blog post in the Press Democrat (a local Santa Rosa rag) I’m not sure it made the paper or not. I haven’t left here today, and maybe I won’t.

Just glad I told my wine club a few weeks ago. The hounds are going to be coming around. Already another reporter is searching for the story… message on my phone? Yes. Calls to other people who may know where I am today? Yes.  When I checked my email, a flood of questions and queries.

…

Just looked at the PD site. Ah, there is already another article. I guess they don’t need to know anything to write about me or the winery? Ugh, that horrible picture!  I don’t even look like that anymore. 52 minutes ago… It was written not even an hour ago.

Oh well, I’ve got a lot to do today. Got to plant mulberries, gooseberries, asparagus, and then digging more little graves.

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Bare(root) Season

By naomi | Published: January 8, 2010

I’m a little late.  I promised Timothy I’d get something up before the end of the year. Not much to write about the farm in the winter. Most of my yard looks like a black fungus infected it. Unrepentantly we had 3 days of 18degree weather and all of my flowers fried. Dead. Organic is tough too. Although my collards and chard taste great, I share them with my slugs and snails. In this dormant season I just want to see what happens. I’m experimenting with what it’s like to leave and let be and I see my Asian lettuces coming up in spite of the freezing rain.

December 31st I officially closed roshambowinery, which resembled 10 years of my life. It feels very permanent, but then I assume it’s going to take me 6 months to figure it all out, just what have we been paying for all these years?  I’m looking out my office window to my right, and see my poor rhododendrons and my lacey ferns just shadows of themselves, their leaves like drooping dogs ears, and bedraggled with mildew.  It’s going to be a tough, busy, and cold few months.

But that is how it goes. Yesterday I bought our first bare roots to plant this weekend. Prunes! I brought them home to a not so eager welcome. But have you ever tasted a fresh prune plum? Not juicy, but so sweet and deep with an almost molasses and deep sugar syrup like flavor.  Timothy and our friend Jeff also built 4 new raised garden beds. They are propped up along a walnut tree waiting. I’m going to put lots of asparagus roots into them, I need to get to ordering them.  Spring is going to be so green.

It feels real.

Posted in Journal | 4 Comments

  • A Small Farm One Hour North Of San Francisco.

    We live both in Healdsburg, a small town in Sonoma County on a ranch with 100 acres of grapevines. And in the city of San Francisco, in the heart of the Mission District.

    With a shared love of cooking, these two divergent places brought us together with the mission to grow and farm good food to [...]

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