The Sonoma County Fair is running now until August 8. If you're interested in a good old-fashioned county fair with livestock, live music, horse racing, plenty of food, and all the exciting rides your kids will love, this is a great event. I'm silly enough to enjoy the fudge making, the giant pic
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07/29/2010
Slow grapes sounds appropriate for the slow food movement. Sadly, slow grapes just means our local vineyards are experiencing a delay in the ripening of the grapes. The technical term for a softening and color change the grapes is veraison. This year, we're probably at least two weeks later in th
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07/29/2010
Architects earn their keep. I think we can agree that a lot of homes were designed by a committee of people who have never lived in a house. Otherwise they would never have put the stairs there...or the kitchen there...or designed windows like that. I actually get upset when I see a bad design de
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07/27/2010
Dreaming about Building I have new buyers coming to Sonoma County tomorrow. Like many people, their plans include building their dream home. I'm realistic enough to understand they may not fulfill every aspect of their wish. On the other hand, I'm as optimistic as Pollyanna that things will work
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07/26/2010
One of the greatest delights in America is our ethnic cuisine. Sure, you can find Chinese cooking anywhere in the world, but the explosion of immigrants from Asia has brought some great food to our national dinner table. We're lucky to have a great Thai restaurant in Santa Rosa. Jhanthong Banbua
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07/25/2010
There's a small house movement encouraging people all over the world to live simply, consume fewer resources, and make a smaller carbon footprint. A big factor in how efficiently and lightly we live is in the size of our houses. A bigger house takes more energy to heat, more resources to build, a
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07/24/2010
What's the right price for a house? It's been a long time since any of us had a clear idea of what a "right" price might be. During the early 2000 to 2004 time frame there was a steady increase in housing value. Maybe a little more than we were used to, but it seemed like an authentic valuation w
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07/22/2010
We used to live in the redwoods, high in the trees with nothing but squirrels and birds for company. Well, squirrels and birds and Koi swimming through the trees. Our Koi now get to swim through forests of marigolds and hibiscus and I think they prefer the flowers to the forest. I can't ask them
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07/18/2010
Luxury homes aren't necessarily expensive and expensive homes aren't necessarily luxurious. A discussion has to start somewhere, however, so for the purpose of this post, Sonoma County luxury homes will be defined by me as anything costing over a million bucks. Since the summer of 2005 there hav
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07/14/2010
With Marie Antoinette and a loyal Costeaux French Bakery staffer looking on, a visiting couple look over some pastries. Meanwhile on the street, petanque, a French street bowling game homorously played with freshly baked rolls is going on. On the other side of the entrance three stationary bik
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07/14/2010
