Last weekend Lisa and I spent a ladyweekend up in the woods.
With J-La working seven tens right now (that's seven days a week, ten hours a day. true story), the possibility of a vacation for our family this summer is looking slim, so I'm taking every opportunity I can get to make my own vacation, as it were. This seems to be coming in the form of housesitting, which works out quite nicely for my budget as well. In May I got to housesit for our friends Doug and Theo, who conveniently live about four minutes away from us. I was able to spend as much time as I needed at home with our sweet pets but also had the pleasure of staying in their amazing home, sleeping in their comfortable guest room, and cooking in their Big, Awesome Kitchen (the biggest lure for me).
So when my friend Bernie offered his place in the woods of Sonoma County to me, I jumped at the chance. Two-and-a-half days out of town can seem like a long time. Lisa and I have been talking for a while now about finding a week (or even weekend) getaway house to escape to and do some cooking, reading, relaxing. Perfect. The day of our departure it was 100° in Oakland, I kid you not. If you live in the Bay Area you know that if it's that hot here, it will be even hotter in Sonoma County, but we kept our fingers crossed. It was indeed hot, and the house had been closed up, but it wasn't long before we got it to a manageable temperature. Plus, we stopped at the market for groceries and wine (and beer) on the way, so we were set. We weren't far along in our first glasses of wine when Scott and Ene, the owners of the property and Bernie's friends, came home. They offered to take us on a tour of the property and while doing so told us a bit about their past and vision of the future of the land where we were staying.
I certainly can't do it justice, and when I start thinking about it I get so excited I really don't know where to begin, but suffice it to say I was fully inspired. Since I'm not sure how much they want a guest blogging about the ins-and-outs of their property, I'm not going to go into too much detail here. But I will say that I was blown away by what they've done and what they're planning on doing. The projects that they've worked on in the past are really cool, here are their web sites: http://www.thewowhaus.com/ and http://www.deepcraft.org
Favorite moments of the weekend:
- fresh eggs brought to us by Ene on Saturday morning (see picture, above)
- Copperfields Bookstore in Sebastopol, where I got this book. I am obsessed with it, btw.
- arriving at the Sebastopol Farmer's Market and seeing belly dancers and lots of locals "dancing along"
- cooking dinner
- adding some of Bernie's fresh thyme to my pluot conserves
- Chester, the cat, who freaked Lisa out with the "gift" of a dead lizard
- Luna, Scott and Ene's dog who we cared for one day of our stay. So sweet!
- Lisa's ongoing observations of the hat-wearing Sebastopol community
- reading for hours on end
ah.
Hot and smoky. Lovely. It's cooled off and the air has cleared a bit. I couldn't see Mt Diablo very well and I live at the foot of it.
That sounds like such a fabulous mini trip! jealous, jealous.
As for the Feb Lady Sweater, no, you're not alone. It's not in my queue or on my needles either.
Posted by: Carrie K | June 29, 2008 at 06:57 PM
"Obsessed" is a very nice compliment--thanks! Now I'm obsessed with the wowhaus--what an amazing project.
Posted by: Homegrown Evolution | June 30, 2008 at 07:48 PM