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This Winter and early Spring has been all about tree damage remediation. Everywhere on the property are trees that are on the ground, standing dead, or likely to die. The longer they remain up, the more dangerous they are to be around and to eventually handle. Most Doug Firs that burned 50% or more around their perimeter will die. We are trying to save each an every Redwood we can, as well as Live Oaks. We have prioritized tree removal by rebuild sites, wells, and any tree that could fall on the surviving house, vineyard, fencing or pool areas. It is hundreds of trees. Some trees are hundreds of feet tall. Tree work has taken months, and we are not done. After the trees are felled, you have to chip the branches, buck them into manageable lengths and organize them. It takes big equipment. Then the real work beings to figure out what to do with all the trunks, and bark. This will take years. But in the meantime, this allows us to begin cleaning up the rebuild site areas and move on toward site development. Funding for this comes from insurance proceeds, but are limited. The cost exceeds the funding by quite a lot.
We are now well over a year out from the fire, and we remain in the midst of a large rebuild and restoration effort. The majority of our vineyard remains healthy and productive, but we have not begun rebuilding our winery facility or cabin. We are focused on land restoration and establishing new water sources and utilities. We hope to be fully rebuilt by harvest 2023. Until then there are no current plans to be open to the public. With the help from our friends at Sante Archangeli Family Winery and Beauregard Vineyards, we will continue to produce wine from our Estate vineyard. And, we will continue to sell wine. We recently released the very few cases we of 2019 that escaped the fire. You can order directly from us via email or a phone call. Please see our contact info for more information.
It is harvest! A little over a year from the fire and the vineyard is doing well. We had a fun and productive 2021 Estate harvest. We have still not begun construction as we are still preparing the site and working through County regulations and permit process. Ryan Beauregard has agreed to make our wine at Beauregard Vineyards down the road. We are eternally grateful for his generosity, without which we may not be able to make wine right now. Here are some pictures from harvest. We picked on September 7th, 2021.
The last few months at the winery site, and around the vineyard and surviving house has been about tree removal. Hundreds of trees need to be felled and disposed of. It is likely we will not be able to secure insurance, so we want to ensure that we have a good fire clearance, and have removed all hazardous trees from around each site where we will rebuild, and perimeters around surviving structures and infrastructure. We will also need to clear areas in order to redig trenches for water lines and utilities. The well for the winery and cabin still needs to be repaired. The septic system has been inspected, and we are engaging with the County to figure our requirements for the rebuild. Our insurance company finally let us remove the winery slab, so there is bare dirt now where the winery stood. While we negotiate the insurance policies and claims for the winery and cabin, we are also trying to rebuild on the adjacent parcel around the surviving house (grandma's house). The house was heavily smoke damaged, and is uninhabitable. While we navigating the insurance policy for that parcel, we are focused on tree removal and rebuilding the pool. The pool is a big priority, as it will be our only water source in case of future fires (for now, until we install water tanks). The water tank we had on the property burned. The pool area will have a fire hydrant going forward that will allow us (or firefighters) to pump water directly from the pool. We also look forward to having a place of reprieve that will be fun for the kids when we are on the property working.
The last few months have been hard. As more and more remediation efforts needed to be managed on site, and normal spring vineyard work increasing, we found ourselves at the property a lot. The insurance company for the surviving house was arguing with us over what was needed for smoke damage remediation, leaving us without a habitable home on the property to stay at while we worked. Luckily, a long time ago, Linda McHenry had secured an insurance policy for our cabin (which was a total loss) that enabled us to have money (Loss of Use Coverage) to rent another place while we rebuild. After some tough negotiation with the insurance company we were finally able to secure a place for us to stay in Felton. This made life much easier, and enabled us to have a place for Henry to stay, and for us to be able to bring the kids to the site for more than a day at a time. Prior to this, we were in hotels, and AirBnBs when we needed to be onsite for more than a day. The vineyard continues to progress, and we are enjoying the regular work in the vineyard to take our mind off all the other tasks. Our 1964 Red International Harvester tractor also finally died, and we used some of the insurance money to buy a new tractor. This money will come out of funds for rebuilding, but without a tractor, no vineyard, so it had to be done.
We finally got the go ahead and scheduled the debris removal for the cabin and the winery. The winery insurance company is still fighting us on removing the slab for the winery. We have hired an engineer to produce a report about the integrity of the slab. It is most assuredly not usable due to the rebar basically melting inside the wall. So, we have removed the debris and slab for the cabin, but just the debris for the winery at this point. It is a big relief to have the sites cleaned of debris and ash, and really represents a point where we can think about what is next.
Progress with insurance companies is slow going. The meadows are green again, but many dead and dying trees remain standing. We have submitted a report outlining the damages to our vineyard. We are still waiting for an assessment of the loss from the insurance company, and approval to remove the debris. Because we are a mixed commercial and residential loss site, we cannot use the Public option from debris removal. In the meantime we are in a race to put up or repair 1000s of lineal feet of deer fencing before bud break. Deer have been wreaking havoc, and we need fences up so they don't completely destroy next year's crop at bud break. We have a significant amount of tree work to do around the building sites. We are lining up contractors for this big task now.
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