Wine grapes are fabulous.  Heaven knows we love what they turn into.  Wine!  (Ok, that’s stating the obvious…)  But, one of the many things that makes our lovely Russian River Valley, and Sonoma County as a whole, unique, is our incredible diversity of agriculture and artisan produce.  We farm- and our farming really speaks to the old world traditions of using the land for a variety of different crops, livestock and native habitats.  More and more, we’re seeing the farmers and ranchers expand from one crop or one animal on the land to a variety of uses on one property.

On our ranch, where we’ve farmed for five generations, we have chickens for eggs and meat, antique apple trees, vegetable gardens, bee hives for honey and polination, prunes, plums, cherries, peaches and berries scattered about the property and lovely creeks with riparian habitats.   

Lettuces and Heirloom Shelling Beans

This kind of farming is wonderful, because it’s year-round.  We have produce, eggs and meat every month of the year.  But, I have to admit that this month and the next few months are just amazing and so incredibly bountiful! 

An heirloom squash and its delicious blossoms

Late July in the Farmhouse Inn gardens is something to see! Sonoma County Wine Country is in full bloom, and the gardens at Farmhouse Inn are exploding with color, variety and wildlife.  Our gardner, Jana Mariposa, has provided the following account of who, what and where, all around our beautiful Russian River Valley property.

Many of our mid-summer flowers are in their full glory now, and we are all enjoying the mild weather.  We are seeing many kinds of Butterflies:  Swallowtails, California Sisters, and I’m hoping for some Monarchs, now that we have our Milkweeds for their dining pleasure.  Some Butterflies, such as the Swallowtails and Monarchs, are very specific about which plants are suitable for their ‘children’;  Monarch larvae can only feed upon Milkweed (Asclepias sp.), and the Pipevine Swallowtail larvae can only feed upon the native California Dutchman’s Pipe, which is growing happily inside the large yellow-flowering St. John’s Wort (Hypericum sp.) shrub on the West side of the Restaurant.   If you are lucky, you may see the striking Blue-Black caterpillars with bright red spikes….but they are elusive, and like to stay in the shade. 

The Tiger Swallowtails prefer plants in the Parsley (Umbelliferae) family; I am leaving many of the Parsley plants in the Culinary garden to go to flower and seed; the flowers attract dozens of kinds of beneficial insects, and the seeds are medicinal; and perhaps the Swallowtails will lay their eggs there and we will be able to see the stunning black/white/yellow/green striped caterpillars.

California Sister host plants are the various local Oak (Quercus sp.); Coast Live Oak, Valley Oak, and Black Oak are present on the Farmhouse Inn property.

West Coast Lady, Red Admiral, Lorquin’s Admiral, Mourning Cloak, Buckeye, and some Skippers have been seen in our Habitat Garden. Their palates are much more varied, as their larvae can feed on many kinds of both native and ornamental plants.

Of course our Hummingbirds think they are the ‘bosses’ of all the flowers in the garden….and they very generously share their territory with the Butterflies and other Pollinators.   It takes a lot of variety to keep everyone happy.  

It is a sad task to have to take out the ’spent’ Sweet Peas, that perfumed the air for 4 or more months…….but happily the Summer Vines are blooming and will continue to bloom until the frost.   On the West Pool fence, the Scarlet Runner Beans are already providing nectar for the Hummers and other pollinators, and the Honeysuckle(Lonicera sp.) Black-eyed Susan (Thunbergia sp.), Morning Glory (Ipomoea sp.),  and Purple Hyacinth Bean (Dolichos sp.) are all making their way up the fence for privacy and beauty.

Come and sit for a while in the Habitat Garden, and see how many kinds of flying gems will keep you company!

Here are a few of my favorite resources for this time of year:

The Natural Gardening Company will ship organic seeds from Sonoma County to you.

Creating an Organic Hummingbird habitat can be fun and easy with a little know-how.

The Halberg Butterfly Gardens are the perfect place to learn more about butterfly gardens, and you can visit when you’re in Sonooma County.

The folks at Beekind keep the bees on the Bartolomei’s Ranch.  But their site has a wealth of information about bees, habitats and organic practices.

Doesn’t eveyone just love the idea of a Wine Country picnic?  You and your sweetheart tucked  in amid the vineyards and the rolling hills of Sonoma Wine Country, or out on the Sonoma Coast, toasting your everlasting love with Russian River Valley sparkling wine (or maybe pinot noir), nibbling bites of locally made Laura Chenel cabecou cheese, hand-crafted salumi and Farmhouse cured olives…  Well I do.   Throw in some lovely Russian River Valley spring or summer weather and nothing to do for the rest of the afternoon and I don’t think there’s much that can beat it.

For some time now, I’ve been asking our fabulous team of chefs to come up with the “Perfect Wine Country Picnic”.  Which, now that I look back, is sort of a lot of pressure.  Not just the “Ok” or “Fine Wine Country Picnic”, but perfect.  Definitive.  A brown tote bag filled with a lovely selection of delectable foods, all prepared by us or our friends.   And, easy to prepare, maintain, tote and enjoy.  So, ok, a little pressure.

We’ll they’ve finally pulled it together.  We offered our first picnics to guests about two weeks ago.  And, the feedback’s been worth the wait.  I’ve even packed one off to the beach myself- and loved it!  The picnic changes with the whims of the chef, but always includes salumi, olives, local cheese, house-made hummus or something similar, fresh greens and a vinaigrette, seasonal fruit from our ranch or a neighbor, flatbread and the most amazing desserts from Patti (right now it’s a decadent chocolate brownie).  We offer some great wines that you can purchase to take along, or, if you’ll be picnicking at a winery, pick up wine there.

Copain Winery

Our concierge team is equipped with a list of our very favorite spots.  From Copain Winery, up on a hill overlooking the Russian River Valley, to Quivira Winery, deep in Dry Creek Valley, where you can picnic in the biodynamic vegetable garden overlooking their vineyards, to the Armstrong Redwood Forest

Armstrong Woods, Redwood Forest

or, my favorite, out on the Sonoma Coast… we can send you in a million great directions.  Oh, last Monday, we packed up and headed down to Marshall to Hog Island Oyster Company where we added briny, fresh sweet water oysters to the mix. 

Oysters at Hog Island

 (If you visit their website, download their clam chowder recipe.  I brought home 5# of clams and made their chowder with carrots and celery from my garden….So crazy good!  But that’s another post…) 

Summer’s heating up, the produce coming in from our farm is incredible, the winery gardens are in full bloom or full swing, and, doesn’t a picnic just evoke magical images of timeless, laid back, romance and good old fashioned fun? 

I’d love to know some of your favorite picnic ideas and locations- around here, where you are now, or around the world. 

A year ago today, we opened The Barn (whew!), and I started this blog.  What a day!   And what a year!  I consistently look back and marvel at just how naive Joe and I were- over and over and over… after every phase of expansion…  from the day we bought Farmhouse until today.  We always think we have it all figured out… lucky we’re quick adapters.  Farmhouse really is the “University of Farmhouse”.  We continue to grow and to learn.  Fortunately, we also continue to meet and recruit excellent mentors and team members who rise to the challenge and help us keep charging forward.

While construction and interior remodel during a recession was truly an excellent experience (the contractors and designers were both on time and under budget… )  selling that new room inventory was a whole different ball of string.  Joe, I and our team, have had to really adjust our thinking to move from a high-end inn to a small hotel (which has actually been unbelievably fun!).  Instead of just sitting back and waiting for the phone to ring (which is what we always did), we had to come up with strategies to get Farmhouse out to new markets and create and expand a new guest/customer base.  We’ve historically been really fortunate with the press and accolades that we’ve gotten, and that’s just driven people to us- oh, and it doesn’t hurt that we’re smack in the middle of the Russian River Valley… Then we could just concentrate on providing an excellent experience for them once they got here…  But at eighteen rooms, rather than just ten, and in a recession to boot, some tactical changes needed to happen. 

So this past year has been truly event filled.  We’ve tried some new things that have been aces and we’ve come up with some really bad ideas (oh well!) We’ve taken our reputation on the road and introduced Farmhouse to some incredible new people-

We’ve reached out to new markets through donations to and participation in various charitable events around the country.  Just last weekend Joe and I attended both the Croquet Tournament for Make a Wish, held at Sonoma Cutrer winery and the Gala for Meals on Wheels at the Fort Mason in San Francisco.  We donated weekend packages to the auctions and our chefs participated in preparing the incredible food served.  We had a great time, met some amazing people and got the word out about Farmhouse to a brand new group of folks. We’ve been getting out and doing a lot more of that sort of thing- turns out it’s nice to get out now and then…

Our trip to New York was insanely cool- we’ve gotten such amazing response from editors.  Just about everyone we met with has committed to a story over the next six months!  I’ll keep you in the loop, but we did get a little  spa story in the May Vogue Magazine already!

Farmhouse in Vogue, May 2010.

We’ve learned, through our new and wonderful friends at Kurtz-Ahlers and Associates that the travel agencies are alive and thriving- if you can connect with the right ones!  We’ve travelled to LA, where we met an extraordinary group of Virtuoso and American Express Centurian Agents.  Talk about incredible knowledge- these agents plan the most exotic and complicated trips for people who really know how to travel!  Luckily they’ve been interested in us and many have visited and are now sending clients our way!  Joe and I are off to Dallas next week to meet with agencies there!

Social Media is King (or Queen, or something).  We’re still totally clueless about how it really works (thank you almost 1200 Facebook Fans for bearing with our lame posts) but we’ve hired an Expert to come in and set us straight (fingers crossed!).

And that all just scratches the surface of our new initiatives and ideas.  We’ve also done something that we’re VERY excited about.  We’ve promoted our amazing Guest Services Manager, Meilani Naranjo into a brand new Revenue Manager position and we’ve hired Tamera Shaw as our  new Guest Services Manager.  Tamera is charged with implementing a host of new programs, all designed to better serve you.  She’s already got a Bell Team in place so we will now offer Bell Service, Room Orientation and Turn Down (starting early June!), She’s expanding retail to offer picnics and a host of cool Farmhouse-style retail items for you and she’s working with our team to bump or level of service to the next level (stuff like this is what I live for!)

The home ranch continues to expand.  We’ve budded some pinot noir grapes to an interesting varietal called trousseau and will be selling that to one of our very favorite wineries, Arnot-Roberts- we’re looking forward to seeing that on Farmhouse’s wine list one day!  We’ve expanded our garden from one acre to two- and have added a whole slew of new vegetables and fruits, all of which will end up on our guests plates.  Our flock of chickens has expanded from 10 to 250.  Yes, that’s a big jump!  We have a good friend, Marc Felton of Felton Acres, who’s brought his flock of Heirloom Breed layers to our orchard.  They’re happily munching grasses, bugs and whatever else they’re finding out there, and the eggs are fabulous!  They’re also nicely fertilizing our apple orchard…

And the very best news it that naive but lucky, we’ve come out of our first year as a grown-up “hotel” stronger, more polished and better than ever.  And, shockng, but true, we had a great time figuring it all out.  Farmhouse has always been, and continues to be, one fantastic adventure.   Joe and I come in every day, excited and enthusiastic about what the day will bring.   And we’re rarely disappointed.  Farmhouse is such an exciting collaboration between our extraordinary team and the new mix of guests that every day brings- It’s a continually evolving entity, and sitting at the helm of the whole thing is one fantastic place to be!

So, back in January, Rod and I decided the kids were big enough, and the economy was getting tight enough that we’d finally invest in that sexiest-of-all-vehicles, the Fleetwood  tent trailer.  Yes, the one your folks, or your neighbors, or that somewhat geeky person that you knew had.  Or maybe someone really cool, but my associations are pretty geeky. 

There she is in all her camping glory!

So, on a really dismal, pouring-down-rain-day (because when I decide it’s time, it’s time, rain or not) we loaded up the kids (Helen in a black cat suit, tail, ears and all) and trekked down to our local seller of RVs.  And lo and behold, there on the lot, all popped out and splendid in it’s fabulous navy blue and burgundy trim with its oh so homey curtains and linoleum, was our soon-to-be home away from home. 

Do you think we were aspiring to great adventures in Yosemite or the Grand Canyon?  Treks down into Monterey or up into Eureka?  Nope, we just wanted to camp at the coast.  And that’s all we ever do.  Ten or more times now since January.  Down to Doran Beach, up to Wright’s Beach.  Our friends (and especially my brother Joe, who also has a tent trailer, was our inspiration, and travels all over the greater American West with it) have come to find our very limited selection of destinations a little boring.   Maybe even a little weird.

The view from our campsite.

But not us.  We love it.  This past weekend, we were out at Wright’s Beach. Spot number nine.  Eight has better views of the insanely dangerous surf and astronomically huge waves- and occasional whales- but nine is cozy, tucked in and has its own little fairy forest where the kids explore and play endlessly.

The weather, this past weekend, was epic.  The first night, Friday, while we were all fast asleep in what has become a really beloved little home, Sonoma County and beyond was attacked by a totally out of character September lightening and thunder storm.  We awoke to a pattering of soft rain and a lightening show, over the ocean, that was beyond cool.  It lasted for hours, and we sat around the revived camp fire, all bundled in our foul weather gear, sipping wine and feeling like we were a million miles from Wine County in late summer. 

By morning, the sun was out, everything was dry-ish and the lightening from the night before seemed like a dream.  Except for the fact that all of our neighbors couldn’t stop talking about it.  Wright’s Beach is like that.  It’s set up like a little neighborhood.  And as often as not, all of the kids form an instant pack and all of the grown-ups meet on the beach at some point, and it gets very friendly.  Which we usually like.

Rocco flying a kite with our neighbor, Mike.

I know, that sounds really cute.  Gotta get my Farmer’s Market fix?  Or what?  I go postal for want of fresh picked peas?  I go into fits from the absence of perfectly ripe heirloom tomatoes perched, all fragrant and enticing, on my kitchen counter?  Well yes.  Actually.  I realize that that’s just kind of precious.  I live in Wine Country, it’s all about the “lifestyle”, here, right?  So we put on our big straw hats, grab our chic, but totally organic market baskets, and we head to the market to see and be seen by other fabulous Wine Country-lifestyle-types, while we purchase perfectly peeled, dewy produce and feel so good about “doing the right thing”.  Isn’t is just so green to be addicted to the Farmer’s market? 

Actually, that’s not it at all.  Eating fresh, seasonal food, grown or made by people you know and like, is addictive.  Not gotta have my Twinkie addictive, but it becomes a sort of food for your soul as much as anything.  Plus, our Farmer’s Market is just so much fun!   We go to Sebastopol and Occidental.  Western Sonoma County.  The Green Capital of America.  More kids per capita than any other towns anywhere.  Barely even Wine Country at all.  Not to say that Wine Country doesn’t have it’s share of Farmer’s Markets that are more, say, glamorous.  But they’re not over here in West County.

Sunday morning is all about the market.  We roll out of bed, load up the kids and the stroller, grab coffee and a donut at My Friend Joe’s (yes, an actual donut.  Helen likes the ones with sprinkles,

Pink sprinkles for Helen thank you very much

Rod goes for Old Fashioned and Rocco will take anything we give him.  For me, it’s those greasy double-fried apple fritter things.  I know it’s gross, but it’s only once a week… And, we’re on the way to Nutrition Nirvana…) and head for Sebastopol. 

The Farmer’s Markets are a weekly festival.  Music, food, crafts and incredible produce grown by dynamic farmers.  We load Rocco into the stroller/shopping cart  (the super-grubby, falling apart thing that used to be Helen’s) and away we go. 

First stop (always, can’t be missed or skipped) Hector’s stand, for honey sticks.  $.25 each.  Everyone gets two.  Helen is in charge of choosing flavors and passing out.  We also get spring garlic, sweet onions and lemon cucumbers from Hector. 

That's Hector

Next, once the kids are good and sticky, we make our way all the way to the end of the market.  Got to see who’s got what.  And it gives the kids a chance to “check out the scene”. 

While we sort of “troll” the market, we decide the menu for the week.  We have to be strategic- because we’re committed to eating everything we buy.  Before next Sunday.  Beautiful squash blossoms?  Great, what are they going into?  And when?  

This week’s Sunday dinner ended up being our favorite salad of yellow wax beans (the ones tinged with green that are unbearably fresh and sweet tasting) and grilled fresh, wild Copper River salmon with a sorrel aioli. 

Full Circle Breads

The salad is one we live on in the summer.  My grandmother made it religiously every Sunday for my uncle. When she had beans in the garden, anyway.  We called it “Cuncia”.  I’m not sure where it got the name, but it’s basically tender green beans with sweet onions, olive oil and red wine vinegar.  The trick it tossing the beans with the oil and vinegar and salt when they’re still warm.  They get the most amazing flavor.  In my family you could add canned tuna- the really good Italian stuff packed in oil, you could add potatoes, starchy ones, so the potatoes break up and coat the beans, pesto (that’s from my great grandmother, who put pesto on everything), and that’s it.  End of the line.  Can’t add anything else.  Well, we do.  Tomatoes, olives, cucumber, you name it, it all works and is really good. 

The sorrel aioli or mayonnaise is also a basic at our house.  Pretty much every Sunday Rod makes some form of aioli from whatever herbs we find: nettles, sorrel and basil are standard for us with our eggs and some McEvoy olive oil.  We smear it on everything all week. 

Jill from Crescent Moon Farm

Anyway, back at the market… We make our stops at Crescent Moon for all of our hot fresh and dried ground chili peppers (we use a lot of peppers) and heirloom shelling beans, Laguna Farm for lettuces and the sweetest carrots you’ve ever had-their corn is fantastic too.

Then we head over to see Mateoat his Yucatan Tamale cart for “Farmer’s Market Huevos Rancheros”.  Fresh duck eggs, housemade tortillas, fresh salsa, peppers from Cresent Moon.  You get the picture.  And an agua fresca- this week was peach and thyme. 

We eat while the kids dance in the fountain with the other jillion half naked, tribal toddlers and pop in for occasional bites and slurps.  There’s always live music.  Sometimes its great, sometimes it’s not, but the kids always love it, and actually we do too.   The Farmer’s Market, like the seasons themselves only lasts a short while.  We anticipate its arrival, we mourn its departure and we sure make the most of  it while it’s here.

Photo shoots are intensely intimate.  A one day shoot is like an entire relationship crammed into 8 hours if you’re lucky, but generally more like 12 or 14 by the time it’s all said and done.  You’d think that after eight years with Farmhouse, and with all of the experience accumulated in the years leading up to Farmhouse (I ran a winery and handled all of the PR and marketing, but that’s another story), that I’d remember from shoot to shoot what always end up to be the pit falls.  Well, somehow I never do. 

Ideally, in a perfect world, you’d fine one photographer, whose work you love, and work with them exclusively.  But, I can’t do that.  I can commit to one husband, happily, but one photographer?  Forget it.  They’re too tempting, too seductive.  Great and even really good photographers have a unique voice.  They see your property in their own way- whether they’re intrigued by the architecture, the story behind the property, the interiors, the people themselves.  Each one, if they’re passionate about what they do, falls a little in love with the place for the time they’re here.  If you’re lucky.  And, they make me fall in love with it all over again. 

I meet photographers everywhere-  sometimes I meet them on assignment for publications doing stories on Farmhouse, or at parties, or through designers.  When it comes time for a shoot, I’m nuts for days trying to decide who is just perfect for this particular shoot.  Do I use the person I used last time?  Rarely- I’m always chasing the next exciting voice. 

For this shoot I decided to use Tai Power Seeff.  She’s an incredible photographer who I met when she came to do a two day shoot for Brides Magazine (The story she shot comes out this month sometime).  She sent me a link to the images she’d shot and I was hooked.  She sees Farmhouse like I do.  A little bit traditional, kind of sexy, but really fresh and bright and happy.  She’s basically famous, and travels all over the world, but she and I hit it off while she was here, and she agreed to come back once we’d finished the Barn and do the images for me.  

We picked a date- two days after she got home from Paris and two days before she leaves again for South Africa- and I started working on my ever-too-ambitious shot list.  It’s always a challenge to distill it down to what I really need- not what I want, but what I need.  Right?  What I want is every new flower, the new breakfast dishes, that really cute little caterpillar we’ve all 

been watching (got that one).  But, what I needed, in this shoot anyway,  is several shots of each new room, the renovated pool area, new gardens and, if we’re really quick and efficient, shots of our new Winemaker Wednesday Picnic Basket and some Holiday shots.  I sent the list to Tai and got the thumbs up- with the caveat, “that’s pretty ambitious…”  Well, I already knew that.

The day before the shoot is all about pulling props together, hiding electrical cords and getting ready to be super-efficient.  I scour all of our wholesale flower marts, our gardens and even our neighbor’s gardens collecting enough flowers and plant material to turn into just a few subtle arrangements for each shot. I’m compulsive about not using the same arrangement twice (but as everyone asks, “who even notices?”  Well, I do…).

Tai and her assistant, McNair, arrived the night before, we walked the property and planned the day. Then they headed up to Healdsburg for dinner and a little socializing at Scopa, a terriffic little modern Italian place that’s always filled with locals and visitors alike. 

The morning of, I set up a station for cutting and arranging flowers, my stock of books, glasses, magazines and props and lots and lots of bottles of water.   Then we met for breakfast and got cracking.

First pit fall.  Models.  Somehow we never arrange enough of them, or someone can’t make it.  Tai’s roommate was scheduled to come and couldn’t- so we were lucky enough to get Kate, one of our absolutely darling restaurant servers to stand in.  And, since Tai’s assistant, McNair is great-looking, we decided to pull him in too.  So, models in hand, we headed up for some tub shots.

Now, here’s how the relationship goes.  First you’re kind of flirting.  “Oh, I love your stuff, want to get  together?”, sort of stuff.  Then you set a date.  The actual shoot.  But, you don’t know one another very well, and so things start off rather tentatively.  Translation: slowly.  Every single shoot- every single one- we get about two hours in, we have about one of fifty shots done, and I start to freak out.  So we ramp it up a little and I start collaborating a little more.  Until finally, by the end of the day, we’re averaging about ten really good shots an hour and we’re humming along. 

Kate and McNair, cute huh?

At the end of the day, I had literally 167 tub shots of Kate and McNair (many of them breathtakingly good) and 600 shots total.

Tai was amazing to work with.  She gets Farmhouse and her voice really tells our story.  I think I may have found my “steady” photographer.  As long as she doesn’t marry the guy in South Africa…

Keep an eye on our website, we’ll be filling the new images into the Barn pages soon…