In the Cellar and In the Doghouse (Tuesday & Wednesday, Oct. 12-13)

Tuesday we had a lazy morning bumming around town a bit, then came home to another delicious ethnic meal from Jenny and Jean-Marc.  This time it was Korean wraps: marinated beef, kimchee, cilantro and seaweed (ad lib) wrapped in fresh lettuce leaves, then dipped in sauce.  Wonderful!

In the afternoon we headed over to Williamsburg Winery, not far from their apartment.  It's a beautiful place that makes you think you've gone back centuries in time.  The wine cellar was fascinating--and the perfect venue for a Hallowe'en party with the dim light of sconces highlighting cobwebs draped here and there.

 It was fascinating looking at the rows and rows of oaken barrels, some purchased for $800 in Europe and shipped here, each of them filled with over a hundred bottles' worth of wine.  The barrels are only good for four uses--and are used for the finer "Reserve" wines only once--after which they are sold for about $75.  The catch is, there's a years-long waiting list!

After tasting seven of the wines, we purchased several bottles of the ones we liked best, then headed outside from the chilly wine-appropriate temperatures into the sunny afternoon.  On the way to the car we passed the rows of vines, and I found myself looking forward to the day our own grapes might look like this!

Right before we got in the car, I saw this sign at the end of a row of vines: "Danger  Pesticides   Keep Out."  Hmmm, I wonder if we would have bought those bottles of wines if we had seen that first!  Of course, I know that is standard practice unless you're buying organic wine, but it's a bit different when the sign is staring you in the face like that!

The next morning we hit the road and headed home, arriving just about 7 p.m., thankful that Kara had called to say she was fixing dinner for us.

Our house sitter was outside feeding the animals when we arrived, so we unloaded the car.  Suddenly she burst in the front door, yelling, "Hero is killing one of the chickens!"

We raced outside to see that he had already dropped the chicken, and she was walking slowly, dazedly toward the flower bed as if to hide among the leaves.  I picked her up without any protest on her part; it was as if she was sleep-walking.  I could tell she was one of my Ameraucanas, but that was all I could tell.

Half of the poor thing's feathers were gone, leaving no clue as to her identity, and her remaining feathers were soaked. Hero must have been chewing on her for a while, poor dear!  She was bruised and scraped and a little bloody, but fortunately had no cuts. I wiped her off with hydrogen peroxide, then wrapped her in a bath towel to try to dry and warm her.

We made up a bed for her in our closet with a heating pad under her, placed her towel-wrapped body in a box, and covered the box with a throw.  It seemed like shock was her most serious problem, and "warm, dry, and quiet" was all I could think of to do.

I could hardly even eat Kara's delicious dinner because I felt sick at heart over my chicken and over Hero's villainous behaviour.  We decided to watch TV for a while after dinner, and I held her on my lap with an afghan bunched around the towel to keep her even cozier.  Finally it was bedtime.  I checked her one last time to make sure the heating pad was warm and went to bed, not sure what I would find in the morning.