Holey Tree

A series of errands just didn't work out this morning as planned. The day dawned dreary and damp providing plenty of motivation to stay in bed for another hour. Our Sebastopol neighbors called to see if we wanted a bag of produce from their garden so we went over there to pick it up. By the time we finished admiring their lush gardens, their handsome chickens, their acres of olive trees and their vineyard it was noon.

I thought a visit to Petaluma, a nearby town with some wonderful Victorian houses and a historic downtown would produce a blip and some lunch.The first stop was a bakery which produces wonderful hearty bread and great biscotti. When the bakery first opened, it was called First, You Light the Fire because the bread was baked by the indirect method in a wood fired oven, but apparently this name was deemed too unwieldy and it is now called DellaFattoria. I love the rustic decor, with long farm tables where they serve breakfast and lunch, eclectic bouquets of whatever is seasonal and the shelves of breads and cases of pastries. But the tables were all full, the bread was almost gone, and the empty cases did not produce the blip (or the meal) I was after.

On up the street we went to pick up our 200 year old glass carriage clock which I inherited from my grandmother and which stopped working at least 30 years ago. People who can repair these seem to have become almost extinct, so we were delighted to find an old fashioned clock repair shop. Old World craftsmanship apparently can't be rushed, because we were told that it would take "at least three months" to fix it. Since it hadn't worked for thirty years, three months seemed pretty trivial. Finally, were told that it was "ticking away on the counter", but when we arrived there we were greeted by a sign on the door that said CLOSED SUNDAY AND MONDAY. The blip of the Olde Worlde repairman with our clock will have to wait for another week.

We left Petaluma and took Ozzie, who had been patiently waiting in the car, for a walk in the country. The sun broke through the clouds as we set out, leaving a blue sky full of fluffy white clouds. Petaluma used to be the chicken capitol of the world and still has a lot of old chicken houses. Many of these have been converted to artists' studios or garden sheds or are leaning dangerously or collapsing completely. The chickens have moved on to greener pastures to produce" free range, cage free, vegetarian eggs," so I finally settled for a blip of this old California Live Oak with a hole through it.