High above Sonoma's vineyards

View from my sister's deck

For one full week, my faithful readers -- eagerly turning to their favorite blog -- have been confronted with the same sad memorial honoring my late, lamented cat Muldoon.  Is their no cheer in the Northwest Corner, they must be asking?  Must we mourn Muldoon forever?

Well, no cheer in the soul of its author, perhaps.  But one's professional duties call me to move on.

Polled vines and
wild flowers

Actually, I have spent most of this past week in Sonoma, California -- once a family center, but since abandoned as relatives have departed one by one for such far flung residences as Chiang Mai, Thailand, and -- even more far flung in spirit -- Challis, Idaho.  But my sister is recovering from knee surgery and, like an injured pet limping back to the family home to recuperate, is holed up in the countryside just outside Sonoma.

As I suggest, I have visited Sonoma on many occasions.  But until this past week, I'd never taken a certain small road off a major highway that passes through Sonoma, and climbed with that road into the surrounding hills.  My sister, relying on the kindness of good friends, has been recovering at the very top of this road, a road that leads through breathtaking scenery, winding sharply and always upward through planted vineyards and unplanted hills covered with forest and scrub. 

Vineyards seen from deck

In the summer, I suppose, these hills are brown.  But in late March, they are emerald green.  My first drive up the road -- which to prevent a deluge of tourists shall remain nameless -- was through light fog, and I was reminded of the moors of Scotland.  The next day was sunny, which brought forth a different beauty.  And in all weather, the road suddenly comes upon fields of trimmed-back grapevines, dormant and awaiting their spring growth.

If my sister had to recover from surgery, she found the ideal place to do so.  And as for me, I was able to enjoy great beauty and a sense of splendid isolation within twenty minutes of downtown Sonoma, without the need of having gone myself under the knife.