Beltane Ranch

This is the only wine club we belong to right now because it is such a pleasure to go and pick up our seasonal allotment of wine. It is a delightful mix of inn, restaurant, vineyard estate winery and working ranch, and is currently being operated by the sixth generation of the same family. With a little advance planning they will bring you a cheese plate and wine in one of their outdoor venues. In fact, a wine and cheese gathering there was one of the last things we did before the fire. 

Whilst enjoying wine and cheese or one of their special dinners or even picking up wine, one is welcome to  wander around the the hundred plus acres comprising  vineyards and extensive vegetable gardens, and visit the sheep, chickens, burros or even a couple of Texas longhorn cattle*.

Dana met the bummer lamb named Wally the Wooly Weed Eater yesterday, but we were told today (with air quotes and a wink) that he was 'working'. They use sheep to eat the weeds in the vineyard and their flock has grown from three or four to eighteen.  When one ewe had twins recently she refused to care for the second lamb. The story of what they did is here along with a picture of Wally. I told Alexis that Dana said Wally was pretty spoiled as he capered around amongst the guests. Alexis smiled and said he was 'quite a character'. When you see his picture, you can see why he is spoiled!

We will be going to a wedding there next month. It has been rescheduled three times because of Covid, but it is going ahead this time no 'matter what'. The bride's dog, an enormous Newfandland is going to be the ring bearer. 

Gustavo and Pedro finally finished putting in the pavers in the patio. It turned into a much bigger job than we thought, but they did a beautiful job. However they left bags of sand and gravel and buckets of broken up pieces of concrete behind. I think they are coming back to get it but one never quite knows when and I decided I really didn't want to look at it any more. I was going to shove it into the pump house out of sight but it turns out a lot of tools have migrated into the pump house, not all of them ours, while John has been out of commission and they have been working on the patio. I wound up dragging shovels and rakes and digging irons and even a sledge hammer up all the dread stairs to the garden  shed in order to make room for the dolly with bags of sand and gravel. Now everything is nice and shipshape and free of clutter on the patio, save for the  bucket full of chunks of concrete and a neat but misplaced pile of pavers. The pump house is a disaster....

It is taking forever for our super umbrella and two dining chairs to arrive (latest estimate is sometime in June) but other than that we have declared all the fire restoration work finito. More plants will have to wait until we are no longer in a drought emergency.

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