St. Helena Photo Gallery by Ruth Moorhead at pbase.com

St. Helena

Near St. Helena, my siblings and I own the tiny parallelogram of land where we grew up. We like it there; it has a lot to enjoy
(hill, pastures, creek, several kinds of oaks, eucalyptus trees, birds, flowers, fruits, mushrooms...).

It is rainy and cold there in the winter; balmy and green, with lots of flowers, in the spring; and hot and dry in the summer.
Autumn is kindof a combination of all of them--what I remember from then is not the weather, so much as the nose-wrinkling smells
from heaps of fermenting grapeskins and the ever-increasing, industrial clamor of the bustling harvest, subsiding, after that
much-overrated hullaballoo, to the subtle aroma of puffballs in the damp and quietly greening fields.

"Naked Ladies"	Eucalyptus	St. Helena Sunset	Branches in the pick-up	Same Sunset, Opposite Direction	Valley Oak
Vineyards...endlessly...	Woodpile	Black Oak	Lichens on Fender	Madrone Bark	Quince
Amaryllis in August	Hedge-trimming in Progress	Eucalyptus Tower over an Oak	Gray Pines
Five Days Worth of Work	Just a third of a very fine oak	Final (Smoky) 2018 View from Exit Gate			Raindrops on Parade
					Home Away
The Bees' Branch
	Quince, Blooming in the Rain
Eucalyptus Stump That Lost its Fungus
	No! No! It's NOT a fungus; it's part of a tree root (we think)
			Iris missouriensis		Vicia americana, American Vetch
Vicia americana, American vetch				Brodiaea

comment

Ruth Moorhead		09-May-2013 06:26
Thank you, Mark, and yes, E. viminalis is one of the ones we have. The eucalypts in California were brought over in the 1930's and planted in groves in many different places as a grand (albeit misguided) experiment; they were hoping they could produce cheap wood quickly for construction of houses and furniture...bad idea! In the 1980's, the lerp psillids (I hope I'm remembering that name right) came by themselves to add to the ambiance. Highway rest stops have been developed in some of the groves, and I love to stop and enjoy the smells and the sounds that the wind makes in the tall trees. Growing up in a eucalyptus grove, we lived in fear of wildfire; now we kindof agree that a fire would be the best thing that could happen to the house on our place.

Mark Whitton		24-Apr-2013 02:50
Wow, sounds just like my home in Orange, New South Wales, Australia. I have many photos of the same subject matter too. The eucalypts even look like a native of this area. Euc. Viminalis (ribbon Gum). The shots are great. Mark.

Lily Franklin		19-Sep-2010 22:58
HI there, I'm an intern at Stag's Leap Wine Cellars living in Napa for the crush this year and I am trying to find out when quince ripen and where I can find some in the valley... I saw a comment you left on Simply Recipes with a link to this site and I was wondering whether you had any to share/sell or if you could tell me where to get some...? Thank you, Lily

Ali Majdfar		06-Mar-2007 05:35
Spectacular Collecction, GMV

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