Thursday, February 27, 2014

Mourning the loss of Bonita...but celebrating her life

Today it's only me, Chico, writing this blog -- unfortunately, I have lost my beloved companion. As many of you already know, Bonita passed away last Monday, February 24, after a short but very brave fight for life. It started with an apparently upset stomach the prior Wednesday, but then a very delicate surgery the following Saturday revealed a twisting of her intestines -- something very rare that I didn't even understand.

She was 6, at the prime of her life, and the most fun-loving, vivacious, rambunctious, beautiful, affectionate and smart companion you can ever imagine. Those of you who met us knew that well!

    A collage of images from Bonita's life, from her young days to today. Her favorite place was the vineyard!




On her last walk of the vineyard, Tuesday 18 February, Bonita was admiring the swelling buds



This is how huge some of our redwoods
are in our Doña Margarita Vineyard

Life goes on in the vineyard, and the vines are starting to wake up. We saw some bud swelling last week at the Doña Margarita Vineyard, and today as well at the Don Miguel Vineyard. The team is almost finished tying the vines -- just in time. We expect bud break to happen perhaps in a couple of weeks, depending on the weather; which by the way, we're delighted it has been quite wet!



Today we walked the Don Miguel Vineyard
and found some bud break already -- look
at this young vine, it had 3 tiny clusters!



Mom was very proud of me for having caught this gopher -- but I wanted to eat it and she didn't let me. She held me by the collar so I would't jump!