flowers and vino

Truth be told, we've gotten used to this Oregonian weather--walking/hiking everyday. NOW they tell us the real truth. When we admire the temperature or the flowers already blooming, all the locals say, "Yeah, but this is atypical; It's WAY TOO EARLY. We're going to have some more winter and all the blossoms will freeze."

Great! Now they tell us. We've seen crocus, snow drops, daffodils already blooming. I guess the danger is if the grapes and pears wake up too early. Those blossoms freezing will horribly impact the harvest for the year. And the "really close ski area" they brag about near us, hasn't opened for the season from lack of snow. That sounds like it'll make water scarce this summer.

We've consoled ourselves with more wineries. ("Gotta catch 'em all.")

I told our pourer at Schmidt Family Winery, that my mother's maiden name was Schmidt. (TRUE!) He gave me a free pen. I was expecting part ownership. We had visited the winery last sunny Saturday afternoon and we sat outside by the fountain. It looked like an adult amusement park and the gardens were all green and burgeoning. We heard there was live music for Friday night, so we went back and sat outside under the heaters to have brick oven baked pizza. The lady purchasing wine behind me heard me tell the cashier I was from Jacksonville and she said she was from across the street. I said I thought that quite convenient. When I got our bottle back to the table where Judd awaited our dinner, Kaylee came over to invite us to the fire. Judd asked how I had such a ready-made friend. I assumed she thought I was single and she was hitting on an older lesbian. Judd thought by "across the street" that she was our neighbor in Jacksonville across the street by our mailbox (someone we've met once.) All was cleared up after our pizza when we went over to the fire pit. She and her partner do live, literally, across the street from the winery--she moved up from Shasta, CA wanting to farm food and chickens; he from Virginia, wanting to farm pot. "The market is flooded." They just seemed happy to make new friends, even older-than-them friends. by a few decades. The live music was a dude playing a programmable piano and singing old Johnny Mercer/Frank Sinatra tunes. No one was sitting at his fire pit. But I knew the songs, hummed along and I tipped him.