Abstract Vineyard

OilMan forgot it was Thursday and our appointment with Kathy, so we had to drive like crazy over the hill, up the freeway, and past the Russian River, the wineries and the vineyards laced with mustard flowers. It is  pruning season now which interests me because there are so many different methods of pruning depending on the varietal, the vine and the location. I tried fruitlessly to get a picture of these old, head pruned vines but I had the wrong camera for taking pictures from a moving car.

Although I approached the problem accidentally, and intentionally moved the car rather than the camera past the subject, I still liked the result.

We drove home through Coffey Park in search of a hot dog stand (a secret vice we both harbor) set up on the street by a man whose house and business there burned down. While working on rebuilding his home it occurred to him that all the fast food restaurants within walking distance had also burned down, so he brought in his hot dog stand to help supply the thousands of construction workers there with a place (of sorts)to eat. 

The majority of the lots in Coffey Park now have a house under construction on them. The streets are lined with temporary power poles and Porta-Potties. A few houses are finished and have people living in them. I saw a man carrying his baby into the house and wondered, what is it like to live in such a busy and noisy construction zone? It must be better than the burnt and desolate debris strewn place it was a year ago. But is it better than just walking away, going somewhere else and buying a house? 

It's certainly better than Fountaingrove. Because of the terrain, the size of the lots and the grandeur of the houses that burned, the fire-prone location, and the fact that the flames melted the underground PVC water pipes, and there were problems (real or imagined) with the soil causing long delays, many people did choose to walk away. It is still pretty depressing, even though there are more signs of rebuilding.

I think it is a story worth documenting,. It is actually thousands of stories worth documenting.  But it's not something that can be done with an iPhone.  I'm still pondering the idea....

Thanks to Ingeborg for continuing to host this interesting challenge....