Miscellaneous: Local Birds

I took a walk around Spring Lake, in Santa Rosa, today for the first time in quite a while. It's a bit late for migrants passing through and a bit early for overwintering birds to be here in force, but it's always a pleasant walk and I did see some local regulars. In particular, I get some good shots of a male Common Yellowthroat, which, while not an uncommon bird, is one that's rather secretive and difficult to photograph. I also got a shot of a Ruby-crowned Kinglet showing its ruby crown – which is rather rare. 

Miscellaneous: Canned fish revolution?

I've noticed that there is something of a design revolution going on in the world of canned fish. A strange thing to notice, perhaps, but I have noticed it. In my experience, canned fish (outside of the world of canned tuna), whether it be sardines, anchovies, mackerel, or something more exotic, has usually been marketed in cans designed to suggest European tradition; can designs have typically been ornate and old-fashioned. 

Recently, however, the industry appears to have decided that a more modern look is in order – and it's not just one company, but several. Here are some examples from Oliver's, one of our local supermarkets (which, by the way, far outshines Whole Foods now in the quality and variety of its offerings, particularly in the produce department).

Art I'm Making: Untitled Collage No. 312 (Santa Rosa)

Here's a collage from earlier this summer, Untitled Collage No. 312 (Santa Rosa). Completed June 9, 2025. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monotype, collage. Image size: 13.2cm x 16.3cm (5.2in x 6.4in). Matted to 11in x 14in. Signed on the mat. Signed and dated on the reverse. 

For more of my abstract monotype collage work, visit my website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/ or you can purchase my recently published book commemorating ten years of working in the collage medium – Colin Talcroft: Abstract Monotype Collage: 2103–2023 (ISBN 979-8-218-37717-5). Available on the website.

In person, my work can be seen at Calabi Gallery in Santa Rosa, Hammerfriar Gallery in Healdsburg, and at the Ren Brown Collection in Bodega Bay or in my studio by appointment. Sadly, however, Calabi Gallery is closing (although it will maintain an online presence)– a great loss for Santa Rosa and Sonoma County. 

Books I'm reading: Simon Winchester's "Knowing What We Know"

In his Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge from Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic (Harper Perennial, 2024), Simon Winchester guides us with his usual skill (blending biography, intellectual history, and anecdote in lucid prose) through a broad and complex topic – human knowledge and the transmission of that knowledge – with a focus on a central question: How have we come to know what we know?

He sets out to explore the means by which knowledge (in the broadest sense) has been passed from generation to generation, covering everything from the earliest oral traditions and the emergence of writing to Wikipedia and AI language models. The digressions are many and always interesting, but sometimes the subject seems too big for a single volume. 

What emerges is a recurring concern with the vulnerability of knowledge – throughout history (for example, the risk of fire destroying an ancient library), but particularly in an age of information overload based on digital storage, and he ends the book with musings about the ease with which information about virtually anything is available today with the push of a button or a spoken request directed at a handheld device. He sounds a bit nostalgic about hard-won knowledge, relating a story about navigating on the open sea before GPS systems became available and I have long wondered how London cabbies must feel about GPS navigation considering the time and effort they have traditionally had to put into acquiring "the knowledge" (referring to map-perfect memorization of the streets of London). He never really answers the question of whether this availability of knowledge represents a loss or if we should see it as freeing our minds for other things, and so the end of the book left me hanging a little, but engaging storytelling throughout the book made it very much worth the time it took to read. From Winchester, I would have expected nothing less. 

Wines I'm Making: 2025 Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc

I was away the entire month of September, which made it impossible to monitor the vineyard at a fairly critical time – the period during which the critters have decided the grapes on the vines, even if not fully ripe, are ripe enough to eat. Despite being fully netted and an electric fence around the perimeter, something, probably raccoons, managed to get inside and completely stripped one of our two rows of vines of fruit. Zero fruit. Two vines at the front door, with no protections, were completely stripped as well. Had I been here, I might have prevented some of the damage. The second row was intact, however, and the fruit, despite some incursions and damage from yellow jackets, was in remarkably good condition with virtually no mildew or other rot.

I harvested the Cabernet on October 10. I got 104lbs of grapes from the single row of grapes, which is a very good yield and more than I expected judging from the state of things on my return from overseas. The grapes are now crushed and resting. The must (the crushed grapes, juice, skins, seeds, and all) tested at 22º Brix, which is at the low end of the acceptable range of sweetness (and may require a slight adjustment). Ideally, I would have waited another week or two in the hope of seeing the sugar levels rise a little more, but at some point it becomes a question of balancing the potential for additional ripeness with the potential for more animal damage. 

In the next day or two, I'll inoculate the must with yeast and the 2025 Cabernet will be off to the races. Almost no Sangiovese grapes were left on my return. I glean a couple of handfuls of berries (literally) from the stripped vines and chucked those grapes in with the fermenting Cabernet. We usually make rosé from the Sangiovese, but there will be none this year. And so it goes...

[Edit] Circumstances have prevented me from getting to the vineyard supply store to pick up yeast. As of today, Monday, the crushed Cabernet grapes have been sitting for three days. While I've kept them cool in the garage, they have spontaneously begun to ferment, as grapes will do, yeast naturally present on the skins starting the process. Vineyards sometimes promote their wines as natural and authentic because fermented with "wild yeasts," but I've never in 21 years of making wine tried to just let the fermentation go. The conventional wisdom is that using a commercially available yeast strain developed specifically for winemaking is more consistent and reliable. At the same time, I've read that the "wild" yeasts hanging around in winemaking areas are often the very same yeasts sold commercially, having become present in the air from decades of their introduction and use in making wines. Without analysis, it's impossible to know what strain of yeast is now working on my gape juice, but, everything else this year having been left to chance because of various circumstances (mainly my absence in September, but then being unable to go out on Saturday and Sunday because of my participation in the ArtTrails open studios event, the store being closed today, on Monday), perhaps it would be appropriate to just let the 2025 wine go and see what the result of the fermentation is. Tomorrow I'll try to confer with the experts and see what they suggest.