St. Francis

For three consecutive years Paul and I have journeyed to California to visit our son Tim and daughter-in-law Deb. They introduced us in 2008 to the mission at Santa Barbara. The sculpture pictured here is of St. Francis, my favorite representation ever of him.

The next year we visited St. Francis Vineyard (pictured below) in Sonoma Valley where we learned some lessons from a vintner; how chardonnay branches are grafted onto vines that had been formerly producing Shiraz grapes; how vine growers encourage all the strength of the vine to focus on the grapes; when and how harvest happens. We thought Francis would have been most pleased to have his name and effigy attached to this vineyard.