Columns

Last week, Katey and Nicole Bacigalupi welcomed me to their Russian River Valley tasting room. I remembered the first time I met these twins, when at five years old they attended horse camp at Hoofbeat Park. Seeing these adorable girls all grown up with families of their own, and managing sales and marketing for their family business of wine offered a much-appreciated small town memory.

Our economy in 2019 did very well. It made lots of money, piled up big corporate profits and created billions in new wealth. Historic stock market levels were recorded on Wall Street, the Gross National Product kept increasing, now for 124 months in a row, and the low level of unemployment keeps getting bragged about.

Last week the first rebuilt home was completed and occupied following the October 2017 wildfires. A happy ribbon-cutting ceremony was held at Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park neighborhood, the epicenter of the greatest housing losses.

Don’t you love this time of year? Artichokes, asparagus, fava greens, fresh green onions, and so much more. Those vegetables scream of a bold appetizer plate or maybe a meal of greens. How healthy. They are examples of bright, beautiful and in-season greens happening here and now.

Fall is one of the most beautiful times of the year here in Sonoma County. The air is crisp, days warm and nights cool.

Looking for a lost pet or a new four-legged friend? See the list of incoming strays and the slideshow of cats and dogs available for adoption from the Sonoma Humane Society, Healdsburg Center.

Everyone I meet believes this year has flown by. True, we lost weeks immersed in a fire storm. But, even that doesn’t explain why the months seem shorter. Before the fires, the winter had morphed into summer and summer into what? Thanksgiving.