Dear Family, Friends, and Diary,
We were up early, at least I was, and packing for a trip to the Trotter Farm and Orchard. Dawn promised one more day of Indian Summer, with local temperatures above 100F. This meant we needed to do watering before we left because we did not have faith that our yard will survive, even with coolish nights. I am ready for real cooling.
By 9 am or so, we were off, pausing to give neighbor Joan our Sunday New York Times. I think she and Vern get more use from our subscription than we do and that lets me justify the high cost of a news-PAPER.
Our four-hour drive would take us north on Highway 99 and west across the Sacramento Delta to the Napa and Sonoma wine country. Early Sunday is the least-bad time to drive 99, as most trucks take the day off. On other days, the highway is always crowded and slow. This time, we zipped along, in part thanks to our navigation kicking us off the highway up around Stockton to avoid a traffic-stopping accident. Even on Sunday, it's one of the the worst highways in America.
We stopped twice. Once in Stockton to top up the electron tank and then, as a diversion, at a 55-plus community in the Delta village of Rio Vista. The new development held a few thousand homes and a golf course. We looked at two unremarkable homes, nice enough, but not cheap ($400,000 and $600,000), and so isolated! We are interested in "down sizing", but this was not something that appealed. We'll keep looking.
Our destination was the Jack London Lodge in Glen Ellen. It turned out to be a mid-century motel, two-story, clean and simple, but clearly not as fancy as others in the town. Those ones went for many hundreds of dollars per night. Clean and simple was just fine.
After we unpacked, it was time to join the family at The Red Grape, a restaurant south in Sonoma. We had pizzas and Italian things for cousin Tom, his wife Kathleen, their son Vince, his wife Jen, and son Evan. I am listing all the names because we forgot to get a photo record, but if we had, everyone would have been smiling.
Afterward, we fed Carla enough electricity to cover all our local travel for the next day or two and then returned to the Lodge. A good day.
Monday morning early, I was off to write this diary. Instead of Starbucks, I was treated to Les Pascals, Patisserie et Boulangerie. It was as charming and authentically French as the name implies. This will be a good visit.
A couple of hours later, cousin Tom and Kathleen met with us to discuss a plan for the day. Because it was Monday, many of the art galleries and museums were closed, so our selection was limited. Not much jumped out, except the Jack London State Historic Park, just a few miles away.
This park visit turned out far better than we might have thought. We started with a walk up to the "Happy House" museum, built in 1919 by Charmian London to hold the memories of her famous husband.
The museum described a "life fully lived", a sentiment he expressed in his writings and in his life. Based in part on his adventures from Alaska to China, Jack London wrote over two dozen books and scores of short stories, essays, poems, and countless articles in the travel and living publications of the day.
Charmain, his second wife, became his active partner in adventures throughout their time together. She was also a published writer and a woman far more adventurous than was the norm in the early 20th Century. I walked away from the museum shop with her two volume biography of her famous, and in some sense infamous, husband. Now I need the time for some serious reading.
A half mile away from Happy House are the bones of Jack and Charmian's dream home, Wolf House. It was a nice bit of exercise, even though the late summer was hanging on a bit too long. I think the buzzard was waiting for us to drop.
At 15,000 square foot the 26-room stone and redwood Wolf House was meant to be a forever home. Tragically it was consumed by fire started from discarded construction material on August 23rd, 1913, just days before the couple was to move in. London vowed to rebuild, but his health was failing and the magnitude of such a task was overwhelming.
After the walk back to our car, we decided to leave the other half of the park for another day. That part covers Beauty Ranch, where London did much of his writing and where he experimented with agriculture. It sounds promising for a return.
Instead of touring, we joined Tom and Kathleen at Monti's Restaurant in Santa Rosa. The food was good, but the best part was some time for conversation. We even got Tom to smile.
From lunch/dinner, it was another road drive over to Glen Ellen, a loop though some of the nicest scenery in Northern California.
Tuesday was a farm and ranch day; farm first. We left Glen Ellen about 10:30 and Carla's navigation system sent us west on Sonoma Mountain Road, one of the smallest and roughest paved roads we'd been on in quite awhile. Going slowly on our no-traffic road gave us time to stop and take pictures, first of a classic Sonoma County vineyard and then of a dark redwood glen that squeezed our already-narrow path.
Twenty minutes later, we opened the gate to Belden Barns, a winery where Tom's son Vince leases a house and five or six acres. We joined Tom and Kathleen at the house and soon enough Vince came in from the field to lead us on a farm and orchard tour.
The Farm at Belden Barns that Vince and Jenny operate has two sections, the vegetable field and the apple orchard. Vince started us with vegetables. He explained that most of the produce goes to high-end restaurants in San Francisco, several with Michelin stars. Every winter he and Jenny meet with restaurateurs and chefs to determine what the menus will feature and that the Sonoma county farm can produce. Fully 60% of the crop is thus "sold" before the first plant is in the ground.
I should have taken notes because Vince's hour long tour explained every plant. Each was interesting and that's why I have so many pictures! Pop corn. Asian greens and root vegetables, selected by specific San Francisco chefs. Pop corn still drying on the stalks. "Baby" corn, a delicacy that Vince said took years to learn how to grow. Now, the two-inch corn cobs are highly sought by chefs who use the leaves, silk, and cob.
Here are a few pictures with explanations I can remember. He covered so much more.
Field work is done by Jenny, two hired workers,
and Vince, when he is not working his day job.
We were offered samples of almost everything left in the fields. Great fun.
Drying pop corn, a tiny baby corn, and some of the various Chinese specialties
Apples are a big part of the farm with a couple dozen varieties
specifically selected to blend for hard cider. Much of this is marketed under the Belden Barns label,
along with estate wines.
Back at the house, we all enjoyed a Cobb Salad with the freshest ingredients imaginable. It really does make a difference.
Over the meal, we got a better sense of just how complex family farming can be - and how much labor. A handful of acres produce work, mostly work. Winter is for planning and raising starters in the greenhouse, then comes planting, new sections going in week by week so chefs can have a continuing supply. Harvest lasts from spring, through summer, into fall, each variety in its own time. Then, field crops are plowed under to mulch the soil and temporary cover crops are put in to feed soil microbes over the winter. No breaks.
"No breaks" also meant lunch was quick. Vince and Jenny had to return to the fields and Tom and Kathleen needed to get on the road to visit her sister an hour away. We all hugged, promised to get together again, and went on our ways.
Marianne and I decided we had not seen enough of Jack London Park the day before, so we headed back to Glen Ellen (on the better road Tom had originally suggested). Inside the park, we headed to Beauty Ranch, London's experiment with state-of-the-art ranching (like Vince and Jenny's farm operation?).
Even a hundred years ago, the key to farming in Sonoma County was water.
London experimented with heavy mobile tanks, but the wagons proved too heavy for use on the slopes.
He had seen cattle in Hawaii eating cactus, so he had a special spineless variety developed for his own herd. However, the cactus grew too slowly to keep up with hungry cows.
Eschewing mechanical tractors, London also raised Percheron work horses, housed in stylish stone barns. He developed processes for treating horse manure to fertilize his farm field. A hippie idealist before his time.
Fortunately, Jack London did have a lucrative day job to pay for everything. That work was carried out in the cottage at Beauty Ranch, our next stop.
There were two small buildings on the property when London bought Beauty Ranch.
They were expanded into "The Cottage" where he and Charlain lived and worked.
Guests were entertained in the separate kitchen/parlor building
and housed in rooms built above the carriage house. (Later destroyed by fire.)
Jack died in this garden-view porch in 1916
and Charlain did as well, many years later.
We stopped by the small gift shop and bought two more London books. Now, we have way more reading to do than we have time. Let's see.
Back in Glen Ellen, we stopped at the Jack London Saloon for a beer, non-alcoholic of course. Then we picked up paninis at the market and spread our evening snack by the lodge pool. A nice end of a nice farm and ranch day.
The Wednesday return trip was completely unremarkable, a short drive through Sonoma County two-lane roads and then three hours of freeways.
I don't know if we will come this way again, but maybe.
Stay tuned.
John and Marianne