Here. State of Goldenness.

There are but two seasons in California.  Green.  And Gold.

Green comes for but a moment or two in the Spring.  A couple few weeks where the entire state seems so fresh and popping with green everywhere.  But it's just a transitory state of color for soon the same green becomes gold and it stays gold until the end to where it browns out.  Even brown though is a state of gold.
California's nickname, the Golden State, some think comes from the goldrush days (and maybe it does, I have no idea) but to me the golden state comes not because of a metal in the mountains but from the color of the grasses.  And the dust.
Even the colors whose intrinsic nature is not to be gold, to me feels like they want to become gold.

I spent the last almost three weeks driving in the gold of California.  Dusty hot Goldenness. 2500 miles of gold.  Quite a bit of that 2500 miles was driving at 5 miles an hour.  Any more than that, then you kick up a storm of dust and you choke as you open your door.

Brushed off that gold dust in so many good ol boy bars, slept in that gold in some of the vineyards so I could feel the terroir of the place.  Slept with owls and hawks and rabbits and coyote covered in that gold.

Every vineyard that still had grapes (not sure why I was hired so late in the season as some of the vineyards were picked already) I would cut off a cluster and eat it.  Chard, Cab, Petit, Muscat, Syrah and on and on. Really nice to eat what you're shooting.

Every feather no matter how big or small felt like a gift left only for me.

The current trend in vineyards is Owl boxes.  They are everywhere around the perimeter of vineyards.  They would fly away if I came to shoot near them but soon feeling like I wasn't a threat they would come back and look at me.  The remnants of their meals lay at the base of their homes.

I never fought the land

Late afternoon I am crawling up a twisty dirt road through the redwoods.  Crawling because there are signs everywhere to drive slow.  I have to drive around a pile of fresh split firewood in the middle of the road, cross over a cattleguard before I reach the top of the ridge outside of Navarro, California...Anderson Valley area.
See a house and drive to the back of it and walk up to a low deck and start my "Hello!'s"  In the city of course you'd be knocking on the door but I'm figuring up here a Hello! is better.  Eventually a man comes out.  Says he was taking a nap, I say I'm here to shoot the vineyard, he says he's been expecting me.

At the two minute mark of the conversation we're talking about bars.  "I've always said if you want to know America, go into the bars" he says. Now folks, you know how I feel about the value of bars but I let him continue.  To me there seems to be two types...one who actually listens to another and the type who waits until there is a pause in the conversation so he/she can jump in and start talking about themselves.
So I listen to what he has to say.  I don't break in.
At the five minute mark he's talking about coming out to California in 1960 via the army to go to the advanced language school in Monterey.  He told me he had read everything Steinbeck ever wrote before coming here and once seeing Monterey that he felt he had found what he didn't know he was looking for.
Not only went to every bar ever mentioned by Steinbeck but became a regular.  Him and a buddy moved to a beat down shack on cannery row to be closer to Steinbeck's ethos.
Bars.... bars....bars...
I kept listening.


At the fifteen minute mark he's onto how in 1972 he didn't know shit about grapes and went to Wente to buy some plantings for his property.  Just a hippy who wanted to grow some grapes so he could make some wine.
Those plantings have been ripped out but there some chardonnay down there next to the pump house from 74.
I like this man.  Finally tell him my views of bars.
We talk more about bars.

He says stop by after you're shooting the sunset and let's drink some beer.

"Original Beirut Taxi. 92"

 He says.

 There are books everywhere.  I mean everywhere.  We pop a couple of beers and sit at his kitchen table.  His wife has passed away.  Across the table are photos of people.  I'm thinking they're offspring and the offspring's offspring.
We get onto Montana, he finds out I went to school there. Do I know such and such who taught there. We talk about my favorite Montana author...A.B. Guthrie.  He tells me his and starts pulling books off his shelves magically and putting them on the table.  An atlas comes out and we put our fingers on special places we're talking about.  We land on the sheep/cattle wars of the west.
"You know the vineyard here is just a small part of the property.  I own all the way to there."  He's poking his finger out the darkened windows.  "I ran sheep for 35 years up here."
"I never fought the land.  Always undergrazed, always brought the fattest ewes to market."
"I always under logged my land."
And he then brings up his other career as a text book editor and it goes on and on and on.
You know how you meet someone and sometimes your vibrations are the same and you're getting this person?

The house that looks down the valley.

Not that it's pertinent but the next morning I'm at his place to shoot the early light.  Someone across the valley and on the other side must be having target practice with a very large caliber rifle.  Every shot echoed up and down and in and out of every little finger and canyon.  I counted 11 seconds from the time of a shot to when I couldn't hear it anymore.  11 seconds.  It was trippy.

A crop of a snag on this property.  A most magnificent redwood snag.  I could not take a photo of this that did it any justice.  Far enough away to see it all made it feel insignificant.  Closer you couldn't fit into the crop without a wide angle and it again became insignificant.  100-125" of hollow burned redwood.  A thousand holes from birds pecking at it, maybe 15 feet in diameter.

I'm cropping this because Y'all did not pay me and therefore I'm protecting those that did pay me.

Take What's Given

Been in Central Cali now for most of a week shooting vineyards.  Up before dawn to get the sunrise light and staying until after the sun goes down to get that liquid gold afternoon light....or whatever kind of light is being offered.

A week here then almost two more weeks shooting in NorCal and in the Sierra Foothills.  Lot's of sunrises, sunsets, rabbits, deer, owls and hawks.

A couple of nights ago I'm on my ladder in the middle of a vineyard, it's getting real close to dark.  An ATV is driving towards me.  This is not uncommon for someone to come a calling to see who you are and what you're doing.   I climb down as the ATV approaches and there's a maybe high school aged girl driving.  She's got a rifle on her lap.
Me..."I'm working for J Lohr"
Her..."I'm looking to shoot some coyotes."
My eyes are darting because my first thought is she's looking for the guys who bring people in over the Mexican border.  First thought, like I say since we are way too far North for that but for that first instant I was concerned she thought I may have been a coyote.
Her...They get our chickens.  This time of year they're real mangy looking, eyes are all crusty too.  Tell me if you see one."
She drives off real slow.

Yesterday morning, a man from the next farm to where I'm standing comes out of his place, gets in his truck and drives over to me.  I watched him the whole way.  Tells me I should move a hundred yards South.  That's where the moon will come up right over a big tree.  I tell him well I won't be around for the full moon.  He shrugs, gets back in his truck and drives back to his place.

This morning a truck stops, leaves it running and the guy gets out to asks if today's light is any good for photos.

Me...."Well, you gotta take whatever it is that's given to you.  It's all a gift."

Him..."I s'pose it is that."

This morning's gift.

Edit....and snakes, tarantulas and a most magnificent Elk.