have you experienced a natural disaster?

two weeks ago there were fires in southern california raging out of control. this photo was taken from the main street of a small town called sierra madre, ca. the town is next door to the town of pasadena where i was born. i have relatives living throughout the area..this photo was sent to me by an uncle who lives just a few blocks from where this was taken..scary and... .oddly..beautiful. the photo is a bit blurry..but was taken from a camera phone....happily, there was damage to only one outbuilding..no homes, businesses..or more importantly..people were hurt. the photo reminded me of the numerous natural disasters i have lived through..and what those experiences do to your psyche. when i was growing up..we lived in the foothills of the san gabriel mountains. really beautiful..but a fire danger most years. southern california experiences something called the "santa ana winds". this usually occurs during september and october each year. the weather is still pretty hot, and when the santa ana's occur the wind blows from east to west. normally it goes the other direction and ..blowing from the west..you get the ocean breezes to help cool things down. the santa ana's are strong, swirling, and blow really hot air. if you are not from southern california it is hard to imagine what this does..but historically fires start, rage out of control and massive damage occurs. i have many memories as a child of watching fires near our house..being on the roof with my dad hosing it down..smelling the fire and breathing in the bits of burned char swirling around in the hot breezes and preparing to evacuate... a number of times we were ordered to leave..and there was nothing scarier for a kid than to be in the family station wagon with your mom, dad, 2 sisters and the family dog..and whatever possessions would fit..driving away not knowing if your home would be there upon your return. thank god..it always was there..and we were always o.k.

i have lived in california all of my life..this means i have experienced earthquakes..too many to mention..including the 1989 earthquake in san francisco...no damage to our home. our napa farmhouse is located across from the napa river and we dealt with the floods of new year's eve 2005..we live on a corner lot and all three streets flooded and came to the top of the sidewalks..we needed to evacuate..but no water came onto our property.

i wrote a post last week and asked "what are you grateful for?" i was thinking this morning as i looked at the sierra madre photo...of how grateful i am that my family and friends have endured all of these natural disasters safely without any damage to themselves or their properties. we are all o.k... the same is not true for so many people..both in this country and throughout the world. napa farmhouse 1885 supports habitat for humanity...and their efforts to rebuild in the katrina ravaged parts of the gulf coast states..along with other agencies helping others rebuild their lives...my heart breaks for the people of myanmar..and we will do what we can to help..

have you experienced a natural disaster? if so, please share your story.

best,
napa farmhouse 1885™
"live a green life of style™"

Why Mose??

so i told you in an earlier post that i lived with my husband and massive dog. the husband's name is peter..the dog's name is mose. (or mo, mosey,posey etc.)..how come people make up weird nicknames for their pets?? mose is a 115 pound golden retriever..who knew they could get that big..he is not fat just massive!!

anyway, we live on a corner lot across the street from the napa river in napa, ca.. there are a number of bed and breakfasts in my neighborhood and everyone has a dog. our street is well traveled with people walking, biking, jogging and many have their dogs with them. our house has a front and side yard and is completely fenced with the obligatory white picket fence...i told you it was an victorian farmhouse right? mose is the mayor of the neighborhood. he is the happiest dog who ever lived and loves people more than anything..even more than treats which is saying something. strangers are always petting him through the fence and..because they look at his tags..all know his name. he is way more popular than peter or myself. all day long i hear people exclaiming "MOSE!!!" as he leaps through the air with joy. because of this i am constantly asked how he got the name mose..which of course as you start to get to know me..leads to a story..here goes..



peter and i have been married for 25 years... freaks me out everytime i say that..not because of the marriage..very happy thank you very much...but because i am actually old enough to be married that long. anyway, we got a cat..her name was lucky... the month we got married..she was terrific..more on that in another post... and lived to age 20. when she died my husband and i mourned for months and we decided we could not get another cat..felt too disloyal. i had always wanted a dog but our lifestyle..my constant travel, peter's work hours and the fact that at the time we lived in a flat in san francisco...made it impossible. when lucky died we decided to give it a try..peter was consulting and working from home so we thought we could make it work. who knew that 6 months later we would buy our napa farmhouse..we didn't...... we researched dogs that would be best suited for our environment..the only non-negotiable was that we both loved big dogs. all the research showed that goldens were best suited for us..and they were already my favorite breed. we wanted a puppy (one time only) and found a number of breeders in the bay area. i phoned one guy who said he had 6 week old puppies..3 females and one male. we had decided to get a female thinking they would be smaller and calmer..better for a flat with a small shared yard. we both love music..especially the blues..and decided to name our puppy lucinda... after the musician lucinda williams..and call her lucy for short. we decided to drive out to visit this breeder just to check it out as we completed our research...now if you knew my husband you would know that he is not the lecturer type..but in this case the1 hour drive to the breeder was interminable. peter lectured me the entire time saying over and over that we were just looking..not to fall in love with the first puppy i saw...we needed to set up our house first..etc..over and over and over. i truly was still in research mode so the constant chattering took it's toll. we pulled up in front of the breeder's home where he had a big open air pen in the doorway. three adorable goldens were standing up looking at us..the cutest thing i had ever seen..or so i thought. we parked and started walking up the driveway. all of a sudden..over the backs of the three female puppies..appeared another golden..this one with a massive head and massive paws. this was the male..his body was about the size of his 3 sisters..but oh that head..those paws... peter took one look, glanced at me and said. "let's take that one"..all remnants of lecture gone. i must admit..this truly was the cutest thing i had seen and i, too..fell instantly in love.



well we did get that one..the breeder told us he would be big..probably 90 pounds. at 4 1/2 years of age he is 115 lbs without an ounce of fat so who knows how big he will get?

so.. at long last.. the name thing. lucinda was obviously out so we needed something new..something male. the breeder would not let us take him home for another week so we went home, looked through our cd collection and tried to find a blondish blues singer that we liked. settled on mose allison which seemed appropriate. and mose it is....



much more on mose in future posts.

best,

napafarmhouse1885