Marriage of ag,tourism makes Winters great place

            I’ve been reading with great interest the articles about the land use argument going on north of town and it got me thinking about what it means to be a “city slicker” living in a farm town.

I guess I’ll start with a little background on myself and what little I really know about farming. Until moving to Winters 15 years ago I had never lived anywhere that didn’t have a population of at least a couple hundred thousand people. Anytime I went to the grocery store there was food available, fresh, frozen, and processed.

            In the early 90’s Diane and I had a café at the Flint Farmers Market in Michigan. We got to know and see how hard the farmers worked just to make a few bucks. They would spend all week tending the fields’ then before dawn load up their trucks and head into town, some of them driving from a few hours away. If their produce didn’t sell then back in the truck it went along with any chance of a profit.

            When we moved to Winters we didn’t realize how much of an agricultural community this was. We thought it was just a small town, kind of a suburb of Vacaville. We moved here in June and that first September my sister in-law who lived in Vacaville got tickets for a fund raising event called “A day in the country” put on by the Yolo Land Trust. If I remember correctly it was out at the Hamilton’s property off of Moody Slough Rd. and we had to drive out these little country roads to get there.

            When we got there I was awe struck by the abundance of fruits and produce that were being showcased. They were grilling meat and there were wineries pouring wine, I remember Heringer Vineyards was sampling their first vintage of Petite Sirah out of a small barrel because it hadn’t been bottled yet and it was so good. I couldn’t believe that all this came from right around where we now lived. That’s when I truly realized that we did indeed live in a farming town even though all the orchards I’d been driving past should have been a clue.

            After that I started to appreciate the guys driving past my house with their farm equipment heading down to the orchards at the end of Russell Street. The ones wearing the white hazmat suits and towing the big blower tubes are kind of scary but hey, they were here first.

            One of the funniest stories I have about my ignorance happened shortly after we opened the coffee house. Early one morning around 6:30 we started hearing and seeing a helicopter flying low over the creek. My first inclination was to assume it was the police looking for a criminal. I started asking the few customers coming in if they knew what was going on and everyone was as bewildered as I was. Then Tom Duncan comes in and looks at me like I’m an idiot (his usual look) and tells me that they’re just spraying the walnuts across the creek.

            Having the coffee house gave me the opportunity to get to know some of the local farmers and ranchers, primarily the younger generation since the old timers didn’t want to leave the round table at the café.

Now I work for a farming family and that’s given me more insight into their business and yes, it is a business. The days of subsistence farming here in America is long past even though we love our gardens and our chickens too.

My point is that even though I’m an outsider living in a farming community, I accept the commercial agriculture going on around me and everything (good & bad) that goes with it. I also see the other side of the coin where the farmers have to put up with the additional traffic to get their equipment through town or no parking at the hardware store. The cost of housing for laborers keeps going up because more of us want to live here and I’m sure so many other things I haven’t a clue about have changed for them as well.

But living in a community is all about trying to get along and making compromises even though sometimes we are on opposite sides of the debate. For me what makes Winters a wonderful place to live is that marriage of agriculture and tourism. The history, work ethic, and delicious bounty that comes from our farmers and the restaurants, wineries, and places of beauty that draws the tourists.

           Sounds like a marriage made in heaven, so really, what are we arguing about?

To view the column in it's original form go to page 15 of the following link. Winters Express 9/29/16

On urban redwood and smalltown changes

            Hard to believe that this is the 50^th column I’ve written for the Winters Express. I thought I would take this milestone as an opportunity to reflect on my perspective of living in Winters.

            When Diane and I bought our house here in 2001 it was really more about pricing than location. We had been renting in Vacaville since moving to California in 1999 but the problem was that we were already priced out of that market so we started looking in surrounding communities.

            I saw an ad in the paper “for sale by owner” in Winters. The moment I set foot in the house I got chills and an overwhelming feeling that I was home. We had to get it, but of course it wasn’t that simple. Long story short, with a lot of hook and a little crook we got ourselves a house.

            It was damn near perfect, a big Redwood out front and a palm tree out back. Half a block in either direction we had a funky little Irish Pub or the public library. Around the corner there was everything we needed, restaurants, bank, drug store, art gallery, antique shop, hardware store, and 2 video stores. We felt safe because the police and fire stations were barely a block away and the neighbors looked out for each other. There was an instant feeling of comfort and community.

            On Sundays I would walk up to Lester’s for pastries then come home and sit on the porch with my coffee and read the paper. On that short, quiet walk I would stop in the middle of Main Street and look west towards the gap with the sun shining on it and I would think to myself, “this is paradise”.

            But that was a quarter of my lifetime ago and my perspective, as well as Winters has changed. Let’s start with that majestic Redwood just 6 feet from my bedroom window. What I once thought was great, now I wonder who the hell planted that monster so close to the house, oh and don’t get me started on that nasty, seed spewing, frond dropping, palm tree out back.

            That funky Irish Pub is now a loud, obnoxious, busy bar/restaurant with an outdoor patio less than 100 feet from my porch, no more sitting and relaxing on a quiet Sunday or evening. Even the walk to the bakery can be a pain trying to dodge the people waiting for tables at the café.

            15 years ago when I drove over the freeway I barely noticed the gas station because I was so mesmerized by the view of the water tower, the Berryessa gap, and the town spread below. Now all I notice is fast food and what will soon be a massive training facility.

            The retail mix in downtown has also changed and I own up to my part in that change. When we decided to open Steady Eddy’s 12 years ago it was partly because I couldn’t get a good Cappuccino in town. The original idea was for a small coffee bar that just Diane and I would run and would fit into our quiet downtown lifestyle. But no, I let the landlord talk me into a bigger space that then meant everything had to be more.

            Around the same time, music and wine venues opened and thrived downtown. Tourists drawn by the new vibe started coming on the weekends, we started getting good press and a visit to the café by Triple D didn’t hurt.

            Now we have hotels and a Starbucks coming, more retail and construction on Grant and more new houses in the pipeline. With all the growth we’ve had and everything that’s coming in the near future I can’t help but wonder what Winters will look like, or more importantly, feel like in the next few years.

            For me it’s an emotional conundrum. On the one hand, I know that my living situation’s not getting better and there’s not much quiet in my future. I don’t recognize most faces around town on any given evening which takes away from that small town feel, and on the few occasions that I get in my car I’m surprised by how much traffic there is up on Grant or even downtown.

On the other hand, the value of my house is increasing, the business where I work keeps growing so some job security, and when I want to go out to eat or drink I have some wonderful choices.

So I guess from my perspective I can’t really say if Winters is better or worse, what I can say is that it’s different and it really just depends on if my glass of wine is half full or half empty.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 10 of the following link. Winters Express 9/1/16