Saturday loomed overcast with a forecast of rain. Rain would be very welcome but I had an Estate Sale to go to!! It was advertised as having several barns full of stuff and an old farm house. This was just up my alley!! So off I went. It was a trip back in time to the Napa of the past. It was located off Vichy Avenue where there used to be a family swimming pool and picnic ground called Vichy Springs. As I child I spent many happy days out there with my friends and family. As I grew into a teenager- we went out there to see and be seen in our bathing suits of course. Many happy memories for me. The road took me this way and that and finally to a fancy gate that had been left open for the sale. I passed through the gate, past a very nice house and then to a dirt road. The road led past several very old barns and I parked near them. I walked up to the farm house from there.
The first thing I heard as I approached the house was RAVEN talk. Oh the ravens were flying this way and that, talking, cajoling and calling! The house was located right next to a narrow vineyard which was itself right up against the eastern hills of the Napa Valley. The distance to the hills was about 300 yards at the most. The bottom edge of the hills was covered with oak trees. The upper hillsides were covered with chaparral. It was the look of Napa of my childhood minus the vineyard.
It was very lovely to have a home that close to nature.
I spent quite sometime watching the ravens. They were coming and going with what appeared to be nuts of some type. They were stashing them somewhere up the hillside. I think it was walnuts as there appeared to be walnut trees on the property.
At the sale I did find a bunch of old wooden thread spools, an English trug and the best thing- an automatic card shuffler. Several days before the sale Chuck and I had been teaching our granddaughter to play Crazy Eights. She watched Chuck shuffle the cards and wanted to try. She is four and just could not do it and got frustrated. When I was young my grandmother had one of these shufflers and I liked to use it so I bought that sucker for my granddaughter to use! So it was a good day for Estate Sale finds. But it was a bad day for Napa. When I paid for my items I was told the property had already been sold, it all would be demolished and bulldozed for another Napa McMansion. I was so sad. This is happening all over the Napa Valley. People with lots of money are coming in and buying up property and building these giant houses which are second homes or maybe third, who knows. Anyway- another one bits the dusts.
The ravens will be OK because the hillsides, oaks and now the vineyard will still be there. There is a lot of open land above the property in the eastern hills. But still.........
The first thing I heard as I approached the house was RAVEN talk. Oh the ravens were flying this way and that, talking, cajoling and calling! The house was located right next to a narrow vineyard which was itself right up against the eastern hills of the Napa Valley. The distance to the hills was about 300 yards at the most. The bottom edge of the hills was covered with oak trees. The upper hillsides were covered with chaparral. It was the look of Napa of my childhood minus the vineyard.
It was very lovely to have a home that close to nature.
I spent quite sometime watching the ravens. They were coming and going with what appeared to be nuts of some type. They were stashing them somewhere up the hillside. I think it was walnuts as there appeared to be walnut trees on the property.
At the sale I did find a bunch of old wooden thread spools, an English trug and the best thing- an automatic card shuffler. Several days before the sale Chuck and I had been teaching our granddaughter to play Crazy Eights. She watched Chuck shuffle the cards and wanted to try. She is four and just could not do it and got frustrated. When I was young my grandmother had one of these shufflers and I liked to use it so I bought that sucker for my granddaughter to use! So it was a good day for Estate Sale finds. But it was a bad day for Napa. When I paid for my items I was told the property had already been sold, it all would be demolished and bulldozed for another Napa McMansion. I was so sad. This is happening all over the Napa Valley. People with lots of money are coming in and buying up property and building these giant houses which are second homes or maybe third, who knows. Anyway- another one bits the dusts.
The ravens will be OK because the hillsides, oaks and now the vineyard will still be there. There is a lot of open land above the property in the eastern hills. But still.........
