With fire season coming up, California declared May 6-12, 2012 “Wildfire Awareness Week.” During the week, CAL FIRE urges homeowners to take the necessary steps to prepare their family and their homes from potential wildfires. Wildfire Awareness Week is designed to not only remind Californians of the dangers that wildfires pose, but also to educate them on how to prepare. This year’s theme is “Ready, Set, Go!” Being “Ready” for a wildfire starts by creating 100 feet of Defensible Space and hardening your home with fire-resistant building materials and being prepared. “Set” is getting set as the fire approaches. “Go” is leaving early to avoid being caught in the fire, smoke or road congestion.
Old Vine cabernet from Chateau Montelena, (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Sierra Vintners is located in Nevada County, California between Sacramento and Reno/Lake Tahoe with easy access • off I-80.
Sierra Vintners wineries and tasting rooms are located throughout the Sierra Foothills and within the towns of Grass Valley and Nevada City, California.
Sierra Vintners is part of the Sierra Foothills American Viticultural Area (AVA), which was established in 1987 on the western edge of the Sierra Nevada: Roughly 160 miles long, stretching from Yuba County in the north to Mariposa County in the south.
Wine grapes were first planted here during the California Gold Rush, but like in so many California regions rich in wine history, serious wine making reemerged and flourished only within the past thirty years.
Sierra Vintners is a region of contrasts with dense forests, snow-capped mountains, golden valleys, and spectacular rolling vistas.
Like much of Northern California, the area has a classic Mediterranean climate, with warm summers and rainy winters that often include snow in higher elevations.
The characteristic cold winters are in fact quite conducive, allowing vines to go dormant, to rest and conserve energy for the coming season.
In the summer, the warm days and cool nights provide ideal growing conditions—producing grapes with ripe, concentrated flavors and balanced natural acidity—resulting in wines of distinction.
Vineyards are planted at elevations as low as 1,300 feet all the way up to 2,600. The region boasts over 60 miles of terrain between vineyards and as a result, the grapes display a diverse array of varietal characteristics.
Sierra Vintners produces an unusually wide variety of vines, boasting over 45 planted varietals. •
Nevada County’s four distinct seasons, and its range of elevations and landscapes, makes it a fertile home for more • than forty varieties of wine grapes, ranging from Chardonnay, Merlot, Zinfandel, and Cabernet Sauvignon to Cabernet Franc, Barbera, Sangiovese and Tempranillo.
PO Box 1552 • GrassValley, CA 95945 • 530.205.3016 • www.sierravintners.com
The first residents of the area were the Maidu Indians, who migrated in about 1833 from the Sacramento Valley. The four main areas they lived were the sites now called Bridgeport, Lake Wildwood, Indian Springs and Money Flat. However everything changed with the discovery of gold and the white settlers moved into the area, when Penn Valley became one of the first settlements in the county.
Photo courtesy of the Penn Valley Chamber of Commerce
The name Penn Valley may come from a Madam Penn who is remembered for her determination to make money if hard word would do it. Coming to the area in 1849, she took her turn with her husband carrying dirt to wash and rocking out the gold. Later she had a 320 acre homestead at the intersection of Squirrel and Grub Creeks, which grew to 700 acres (most of Penn Valley) after being purchased in October 1852.
Early settlement of the area was probably started due to its location on a freight wagon route from Sacramento to mining regions east. Later men gave up their picks for plows and the valley produced fresh meat, fruits and vegetables to miners as far away as Nevada (state). In the late 1800’s the valley was home to a thriving dairy industry. In Western Gateway park is the rebuilt Butter Maker’s Cottage to commemorate the importance of the dairy industry in the area.
Photo Courtesy of Penn valley Chamber of Commerce
Today the valley is still a peaceful place, but continues to gain business opportunities and residential growth. Horses, llamas, deer and wild turkeys all coexist in the area with about 12,000 residents. The Western Gateway Park, Historic Bridgeport and Lake Englebright are all a short drive away.
Photo Courtesy of Penn valley Chamber of Commerce
Lake Wildwood is gated community in the area, off Highway 20 on Pleasant Valley Road, which now has about 5,000 full time residents. Over half of the residents are retirees, but more and more families are moving in and the average age continues to go down.
Judy J. Pinegar is a writer
Her articles have appeared in many publications
For all your real estate needs
Email or call today:
John J. O’Dell Realtor® GRI
Civil Engineer
General Contractor
(530) 263-1091
Email jodell@nevadacounty.com
Home buyers are unexpectedly finding more competition this spring in landing their dream home. Bidding wars are increasingly being reported in markets across the country, from California to Florida, The Wall Street Journal reports.
“It’s a little surprising because we thought bidding wars were done with,” Andy Aley, a home shopper in Seattle, told The Wall Street Journal. Aley says he was outbid on a home earlier this year, even though he offered to pay $23,000 above the listing price and also waive inspections and other closing conditions.
Home buyers are frustrated and caught off-guard about the bidding wars re-emerging, real estate professionals report.
“We’re writing a record number of offers, but we’re not seeing a record number of closings and that’s because it’s so competitive,” Glenn Kelman, chief executive of Redfin Corp., told The Wall Street Journal.
Why are things getting so competitive? Many housing markets are seeing a drastic decrease in the number of homes listed for-sale, leaving home buyers with fewer options and more bidding on the same house. Housing analysts say the shortage in supply is from sellers unwilling to take much less for their home than what they originally paid for it and pulling their homes off the market. Also, a surge in investors has made the market more competitive, as investors snatch up homes in bulk in all-cash deals.
“The bidding wars caused by tight inventory provide the latest evidence that housing demand is starting to pick up after a six-year-long slump,” The Wall Street Journal reports.
Indeed, the National Association of REALOTRS® reported late last week that pending home sales in March reached their highest level in nearly two years and are up 12.8 percent from a year ago.
Straw bales are a high insulation value, low-embodied-energy, natural building material made from an agricultural waste product. For many, they are locally available and affordable. Straw is easy to work with for people new to construction as they are flexible and can be very forgiving.
Curves add beauty to a straw bale house
Straw bale homes can also be beautiful. They often have graceful, elegant curves, delightful window seats, and can have exciting sculpture and mosaics integrated into the plaster. When building your house by hand it is easy to incorporate elements of beauty.Source: Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage
For all your real estate needs
Email or call today:
John J. O’Dell Realtor® GRI
Civil Engineer
General Contractor
(530) 263-1091
Email jodell@nevadacounty.com
This eating establishment provides and serves Mediterranean cuisine with an atmosphere of soft lights, colorful decor and the painted murals on the walls give you a feel for Italy. I especially like the colored flags of different countries in the main dining room. It allows one to imagine and to enjoy a meal, specially prepared from the Cirino family kitchen, to experience being somewhere else in the world.
The food here is carefully made from their time honored recipes. From “The Old World Butcher Shop” menus, which consist of Sicilian pork rostini with orange thyme sauce or wild plum sauce to Aldo’s char-grilled steak a’la gorgonzola ( locals love this) it’s a dish and recipe from Jerry’s father’s family in Napoli, Italy.
There are appetizers, soups, sandwiches and salads to generously choose from. The grilled Greek pita bread appetizer with spinach/artichoke dip is a wonderful choice to begin your festival of foods with. My salad favorite is the Tunisian Chicken salad, layered with grilled teriyaki chicken breast, fresh baby green lettuce, buckwheat, noodles, snow peas, tomatoes, cashews and tossed with a spicy North African dressing. The taste is amazing !
They also serve pastas, grains and delicious risotto dishes. I generally lean towards the risotto with fresh rosemary, red flame grapes and brie cheese. It’s a melt in your mouth meal to savor and to enjoy each and every bite. The complimentary bread basket is an aroma of fresh baked bread right out of the oven. Nice and warm.
Other dishes to explore are Tucher’s stuffed polenta, filled with fresh basil, marinated artichoke hearts, saute’ed red peppers, mozzarella, Italian Parmesans cheese set in a bed of red marinara sauce, also the rigatoni prosciutto balsamella, a soft creamy and comfort food at its best.
There is a wide range of wines and beer to pair with all the dishes and Jerry gives suggestions on his menu list to choose from. They also have a bar where you can sit and enjoy some great food and spirits. Plus, live satellite TV for the avid sport fan to watch.
Jerry and Tucker also have a kid’s menu to accommodate the younger appetite, so they too, can experience the value of fine dining.
Most importantly, are the friendly waiters and waitresses who provide impeccable service to help suggest and provide a pleasurable eating adventure. From my experience, after having a wonderful meal here, I always leave with a smile on my face.
Cirino’s At Main Street located at 213 East Main St. Grass Valley, Ca. 530-477-6000
Open daily for lunch and dinner 7 days a week with your hosts Jerry and Tucker Cirino.
The Saitta House, Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, New York (built in 1899) has been on the National Register since 2007. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The median price for an existing, single-family home in California rose 1.6 percent in March compared with the year before, marking the first year-over-year increase in 16 months, the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® reported Monday.
The statewide median price of an existing, single-family detached home jumped 9.2 percent to $291,080 in March from February’s $266,660 median price and was up 1.6 percent from a revised $286,550 recorded in March 2011. The month-to-month increase was the largest since March 2004.
Closed escrow sales of existing, single-family detached homes in California totaled a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 505,360 units in March, according to information collected by C.A.R. from more than 90 local REALTOR® associations and MLSs statewide. Sales in March were down 4.5 percent month-over-month and 2.3 percent year-to-year.
The statewide sales figure represents what would be the total number of homes sold during 2012 if sales maintained the March pace throughout the year. It is adjusted to account for seasonal factors that typically influence home sales.
“Housing inventory remains extremely tight throughout the state and at levels severely under normal market conditions,” said C.A.R. Vice President and Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young. “In areas, such as Los Angeles and Riverside counties, where the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) wants to implement the REO bulk sale pilot program, inventory is running at levels well below the long-run average. These low inventory levels demonstrate that the pilot program is not necessary in California.”
The pilot program calls for the sale of more than 600 Fannie Mae-owned foreclosed homes in Los Angeles and Riverside counties to institutional investors.
Gaillardia 'Goblin' offers multicolored blooms for the fire safe border
Fire is a Fact of Life in the Sierra Nevada Foothills
California is home to some of the most scenic vistas in the world. The natural beauty and mild, Mediterranean climate [Sunset Magazine Zone 7, USDA Zone 8] have attracted millions to settle in the foothills. Living in Nevada County means learning to live with fire. That’s because our scenic vistas are fire-dependent. Fire cracks seed casings, allowing our native plants to thrive. And it clears out dead brush that can choke living plants and cut off food for wildlife.
Work with nature and choose plants that are climate and soil adapted. Incorporating fire safe concepts into the residential landscape is one of the most important ways you can help your home survive a wildfire. Creating an area of defensible space does not mean you need a ring of bare dirt around your home. Through proper planning, you can have both a beautiful landscape and a fire safe home.
Vegetation Arrangement
The general concept is that trees should be kept furthest from your home, shrubs and trees may be closer and bedding plants and lawns may be nearest to the structure. From a wildfire fuel perspective, vegetation is often described in terms of its vertical and horizontal arrangement. The vertical fuel continuity is also referred to as “ladder fuels.” Laddering arrangements of fuels enables fire to climb neighboring vegetation like a ladder. Reduce the chance of fire climbing into trees by removing the lower tree limbs from 6-10 feet from the ground (or the lower third of branches on smaller trees.)
Fire spreads on the ground from plant to plant and then onto your home. To reduce the chance of fire spreading horizontally, space or group plants in clumps for visual screening while providing enough space between plants to reduce the fire spreading. Individual spacing needs depends on the height and width of the plant, but generally a three times height for vertical separation is a good rule of thumb.
Vegetation Zones
The home defense zone is within 30 feet of the house. The reduced fuel zone lies beyond the home defense zone and extends out to 100 feet from the house or the property boundary. Greater defense zone widths are necessary when your home is sited on a steep slope or in a windswept exposure. The most intensive vegetation management lies within the home defense zone. Objectives for the home defense zone include:
Remove any combustible materials (such as needles, leaves, dead twigs, firewood, dry grasses, recycling, and building materials) from within 30 feet of the home, garage, outbuildings, and propane tanks.
Reduce the ladder effect between plants.
Replace any flammable plant species (such as juniper, cypress, or broom varieties) with fire wise plant selections.
Maintain high moisture content in the vegetation
Where to Plant
Avoid putting plants in the following locations to minimize the movement of fire from the vegetation to the home: immediately adjacent to the siding; underneath vents or eaves; tree limbs over the roof; and underneath or near the deck.
Mulching
Mulch conserves moisture, but also burns. Carefully choose the location of plants or garden beds that will need mulch. Mulches greater than 2 inches deep tend to smolder and are difficult to extinguish. Do not use wood or bark mulches within 3-5 feet of the house. Instead consider colored rock, pea gravel or other less flammable materials. Having a “hardscape” immediately adjacent to your home will help harden the structure from flying ember intrusion.
Maintenance
Maintenance is critical to fire safety. Over time, plants grow both vertically and horizontally, mulches dry out, leaves and needles accumulate within and around landscape vegetation. All of these fuels may help feed a fire. Remember to conduct annual cleanup of your established vegetation to ensure a fire safe condition during wildfire season.
Remember that no plant is completely resistant to fire. Plants with low fuel content can be the difference between safety and destruction. You will find that a fire safe landscape can increase your property value, provide wildlife habitat and conserve water while beautifying your home.
Download your Copy of the Firewise Plants for Western Nevada County Plant Guide complied by: Lynn Lorenson, Landscape Consultant & Master Gardner; Karen Callahan, CA Native Plant Society; and the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County.
Visit the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County’s Firewise Landscaping webpage for additional information.
For all your real estate needs:
Call or email today
John J. O’Dell Realtor® GRI
Real Estate Broker
Civil Engineer
General Contractor
(530) 263-1091
Email jodell@nevadacounty.com
Scotts Flat Lake April 13, 2012 early morning from my deck Photo by John J. O'Dell
Rising rents, coupled with slumping home prices and interest rates near record-lows, are boosting demand for homes at entry-level prices.
Making sense of the story
Increased buying activity from investors and second-home purchases may be factors behind the recent pickup in home sales, but real estate agents say they are fielding more calls from anxious tenants complaining about rising rents.
Average apartment rents rose by 2.7 percent last year, while the national vacancy rate dropped below 5 percent for the first time since 2001, according to a quarterly survey released Wednesday by REIS Inc., a real estate research firm.
The largest rent increases came in San Francisco and San Jose, Calif., which saw increases of 5.9 percent and 4.9 percent, respectively. Such increases are one reason why industry analysts believe 2012 will be the first year since 2005 when the share of apartment renters that moves out to buy a house increases from the previous year.
Historically, the cost to rent an apartment has been about 10 percent lower than the after-tax cost of owning a home. That rental discount began to fall in 2010 and disappeared entirely last year, according to analysts at Deutsche Bank who track housing costs. By the end of 2011, the bank’s research found that the cost to rent an apartment was about 15 percent higher than the cost to own a home.
It isn’t always easy for home buyers to make it to the closing table though. Lending and appraisal standards remain tight, keeping many would-be buyers out of the market. And aspiring buyers are competing with savvy investors who have turned buying and reselling foreclosed homes into a business.
Picture courtesy of the Rough and Ready Chamber of Commerce
By Judy J. Pinegar
The first established settlement in Rough and Ready was made in the fall of 1849 by a mining company from Wisconsin known as the Rough and Ready Company. Their leader, Captain A. A. Townsend, named the company after General Zachary Taylor (nicknamed “Old Rough and Ready”) who had recently been elected the 12th President of the United States. Captain Townsend had served under “Old Rough and Ready” during the U.S.-Mexican War.
Gold was easy pickings, and by the late 1840s, the population of the town of Rough and Ready had exploded to over 3,000. The town had plenty of uncontrolled lawlessness and a growing resentment of the government which had imposed a Mining Tax on all claims. On April 7th, 1850, a mass meeting was called to propose seceding from the Union.
The Great Republic of Rough and Ready was formed that day as a free and independent republic. The townspeople elected Col. E.F. Brundage as President, and Justice of the Peace Hans Q. Roberts as Secretary of State, who then signed a constitution similar to that of the United States.
The Republic of Rough and Ready lasted only three months as the world’s smallest nation. It came to a halt when preparing for a fourth of July celebration, it was realized as an independent country it had no reason to celebrate. A popular vote restored the new Republic to the United States followed by the most riotous Fourth celebration ever held anywhere. An alternate story for the reason Rough and Ready rejoined the union is that Nevada City refused to sell the “foreign” miners liquor!
In 1859, a devastating fire destroyed most of Rough and Ready as shown in the photo.
Picture courtesy of the Rough and Ready Chamber of Commerce
Picture courtesy of the Rough and Ready Chamber of Commerce
Rough and Ready is located west of Grass Valley, California, on State Route 20 at the junction of State Route 49, approximately 62 miles (100 km) from Sacramento. The post office at Rough and Ready was established in February 1851. Among the oldest buildings are the blacksmith shop (1850s), the Grange (1850’s), the Odd Fellows Hall (1854), and the Old Toll House. The population was 963 at the 2010 census.
Picture courtesy of the Rough and Ready Chamber of Commerce
The Rough and Ready Calendar of Events includes the following. It is a great place to visit on a weekend…come for a drive!
Weekly
Every Sunday
The Fruit Jar Pickers
10am to Noon at the Grange in downtown Rough and Ready
Monthly
Every 2nd Saturday
Breakfast at the Grange
8am to 10 am at the Grange Hall. Great food and entertainment for $5.00
Annually
Last Sunday in June
Secession Days in downtown Rough and Ready. 7am to 3pm.
Annually
Last Sunday in September
Chili Cook-off in downtown Rough and Ready. 10am to 3pm.
Curves add beauty to a straw bale house
