Rustridge Winery B&B

Late fall on the ranch. We are looking forward to seeing all the friends we’ve made over the last 30 years in 2021 and meeting new friends too!

Ronnie and Topper’s Chieftess are about the same age....7 months old!

This crazy kitten, we got him in August just before the fires, he loves wine and all other alcoholic beverages. Besides that, he is fearless. He owns the ranch! His name is Ronnie....

RustRidge Bed and Breakfast and RustRidge Winery are open for business! Even though the fires set us back a bit, we have been hosting guests since Labor Day Weekend! We also have WiFi at the B&B. (Unfortunately, that’s the only place we have it right now)

We now have our landlines working. Most people haven’t had a landline for 10 years but at RustRidge it’s a very important communication tool because cell service is so spotty. A week from tomorrow we will get new internet service. So little by little we are getting back together.

AT&T landline service is coming soon...can’t wait to listen to those 30-40 messages sent during the fires. I was able to listen to a few already but it’s hard to do when the cell service is so spotty. Yesterday some neighbors saw a tree on fire out by the county road. They called Cal Fire, but before they got there other neighbors were trying to put it out. We are all in this together.

Power came back on yesterday evening! We still don’t have landline phone service and the internet tower melted so we won’t have internet for at least a month. We have really weak cell coverage in remote areas of the ranch so communication is limited. However things are calm on the ranch and we have lots of produce to harvest and the animals are doing well.

The PG&E trucks are here in force today (15 crew’s from all over California). They’ve been replacing poles and fixing wires throughout Chiles Valley. Power restoration is imminent.

All week we’ve had fire trucks, utility trucks, police and sheriffs vehicles, PG&E and At&T trucks up and down the road and on our property and helicopters and planes overhead. Last night three police cars and a cal fire vehicle arrived just before 6 pm because a neighbor called in a fire behind our winery. Since the neighbor is a retired deputy sheriff they took it seriously and checked the property. Soon helicopter and planes were overhead. They didn’t find anything but we were sure glad that everyone is looking out for each other.

Our friends this last week - it’s been a week since this ordeal began - were the fire fighters! A week ago Monday evening it was the Marin Fire dept from areas like Woodacre and Bolinas that had their trucks -as many as 8- stationed at the east side of the vineyard. During the night they climbed those hills along with the crew who provided bulldozer services. When some of the crew came through the gate of the horse pasture on Tuesday morning they were rung out. All through the night Cal Fire trucks were back and forth to the vineyard. The Madison Fire dept was on board to save our house on Wednesday. Then the Rutherford Fire Dept took over for several days. They are gone now and in their place are The Huntington Beach Fire crew who are watching for flare ups.

So far, today is relatively calm. We could see blue skies at times and the winds have been light. Nothing is burning in our vicinity right now. Yesterday afternoon we got a generator at the Bnb where we are staying, thanks to our dear friend Lance who applied for a permit to come help us. Also our 4 evacuated horses came home yesterday.

I’m standing on the hill behind our house. Jim is heading down a path in the east hills where fires are burning.

Today was spent protecting the B&B. There were flare ups from the ravine and wood was smoldering. Our neighbor to the north, Eisele Vineyard, also has smoldering logs and small fires were breaking out all over. So we spent lots of time creating fire breaks and dousing the fires. Our house didn’t have any flare ups today. However, the fire was causing severe damage to the north of us, both at Eisele Vineyards and at a Green and Red vineyards.

Thank-you for your concern and prayers. We will make it through this. Yesterday we thought we would be repairing things and putting our place back together. We discovered that we lost our water storage tank. It was finally safe to go behind our house and inspect. We fixed broken water pipes and a water line that goes through the vineyard to the horse troughs. Several horses were without water and were very stressed. We only have one generator and we need to use it sparingly... due to low reserves of diesel on our property. We are using it to get water from our only functioning well. While taking a trip to my house to get water for my horse, I discovered that the brush was on fire by our house and there was wood and other combustible items fueling it. I worked on cleaning out the path and perimeter around the side of the house. Jim showed up at some point and got the water turned on and we averted another disaster. See more

Images of the fires

Now they are trying to protect the bed and breakfast with only three firefighters; the ranch is burning along the creek from the entrance road along the vineyard. High winds and sparks have caused several small fires that burn when they find fuel. I thought it was bad before but this is the real thing now.