The Back Yard

North Face. Because of Spirit Oak, no other view of Mt. St. Helena compares to this backyard panorama. Photos don't do it justice. The mountain is just about due north on the compass. Some folks think the mountain is volcanic but it is actually a 5-peaked summit (4,342 feet high) created by uplifting rock from nearby volcanic field eruptions. It's part of the Mayacamas Range (originally called Mt. Mayacamas) and one of the few mountains in the Bay Area that gets snowfall in winter. Great hiking all year round. Great views. Robert Louis Stevenson honeymooned in a cabin there there back in 1880. The mountain creates beautiful cloud formations year round.

Long Shadows. August can roast during the day in Calistoga but the shadows of Spirit Oak always keep the backyard comfortable and inviting.

The Last Pines. Someone planted a line of nearly 100 pine trees in the 50's that formed a tight square around the backyard property lines and along the axis of the current house. By the time we got here, almost all the trees were sick and dying, so cut them down and pulled the stumps. We left a few of the healthier specimens here and behind Spirit Oak to the west. You can see the lone stump of one of the remaining trees that we later had to chop.

Hot Tub anyone? One of the reasons we left these three pines was because it seems like a good spot for a hot tub. Good shade, good protection, great view.

A Big Back 40. Clayton (one half of Clayton and Martha Craeger, immediate neighbors to the west) built this bluebird house which gets new guests every spring and summer. (Bluebirds eat the few insects that nighttime chill doesn't take care of.). This is the view standing at the north property line.

Fig. The parcel just to the east belongs to the former wife of Mike Grgich, the famous winemaker now at Grgich Hills Estate in Rutherford, who made the '73 chardonnay at Chateau Montelena (just a mile by crow flight north on Tubbs Lane) which won best white wine at the historic Paris Wine Tasting of 1976 ... and kick-started the Napa Valley onto its stellar course in the wine world. Mrs. Grgich used to picnic under Spirit Oak as a little girl growing up in Calistoga and she had wanted to buy the Spirit Oak property, but the Greeks did not want to sell it at the time. So she bought this parcel instead and would drive her Mercedes down to the back in the summer months and eat a sandwich. She planted two fig trees here, too, but this is the only one that has survived. (The Greeks only decided to sell the Spirit Oak property to us when the elder brother needed money for mouth surgery. The property was never on the market. Martha Craeger introduced our family to the Greeks, we all met inside the yellow shack one hot summer day, and that was that.)

Vinegar Joe. The grape and house parcel to the northeast was owned, before he dies recently, by a ex-Silicon Valley engineer (one of the early ones) whom everyone around town knew as Vinegar Joe. He grew Merlot and planted three of these wispy trees at the edge of our properties right after we moved in.

Table Grapes. This old vine is at least 40 years old ... and the white grapes are delicious. Many neighbors have taken cuttings from this baby to start their own summer dessert factory. A few oak trees are starting to shade out the vine and it's less productive every year. It's ready for a new cutting at a sunnier location.