UPDATE on Rumblebee now Crumblebee….
At about 3 am we got hit with some crazy rogue wind, thunder and lightning. It was scary and hunker down was what I did. At 5 am I looked out to check on my stuff on my deck, (I rent a 37 foot RV to live in while I am working in wine country.) A massive arm of the weeping willow had fallen on my van. It is parked there for shade. It got shade; up close and personal.
Insurance says it is probably a write off. I was proud of my rust free 1984 vintage home in the road. A year ago, I was ripping up the original orange shag carpet and painting out the faux wood veneer in creamy white. It was my relatively luxurious home while I cooked for firefighters last summer and later while I navigated the loss of both my brothers last fall. My dog thinks he has the best kennel around. I bond with my vehicles. Might be a tendancy I got from my dad. 
Hard to believe that fiberglass work would cost too much. I would need a new top. It was perforated at the front and back and the shower stall fractured. Cupboard hanging loose of wall and a few things askew. Front door doesn’t open and she ran rough today. I feel a little violated, a victim with no one to blame but the wind.
I am mourning the loss because yes it is JUST a car but she runs on dreams. Well that and too many overpriced litres.
BUT I have sincere thoughts from all of you. GRATEFUL! I am lucky I wasn’t in it as at one point at night I thought I would be safer in Van than where I was.
My landlord is an arborist and he delicately removed A TON of limb. It was a weeping willow so very heavy. All the equipment was handy. Tonight, the winemaker from across the road came for him to get a tree off of a building on his property. His wife brought me garden romaine leaves and fresh pulled purple onion.
Nothing like garden produce to ease your pain.
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Earlier, on my way back from getting Rumblebee’s official dianosis, I gave a ride to a couple of the hundreds of the transient cherry pickers that have landed in this small valley. Our grocery stores are full of Mexicans and people from across Canada coming for the temp work. They hitchhike back to the orchards where they tent. The two I picked up were from Spain and Belgium working and traveling and they described their stormy night in broken English.
So despite the hit I took I am grateful for the comradery and care and diversity my home country offers. My landlord is German, working for the Punjabi, who also employs the Mexicans, international travelers and a lot of French Canadians with dreadlocks and tattoos.
I live just past the grapes, turn left before the cherries and stop before the peaches. Last week on my way out the orchard owner waved me down buried his hands in a bin of cherries and passed me the load through the window. “Do you like cherries? We are neighbors. You have a nice dog.” Wish I had a picture of him doing that, but the memory will stick.
It seems like that there has been a disproportionate amount of serious hits this year. I try to balance the experience by seeking the natural beauty of the world which I believe is the greatest healer; that, and the love of a good dog. I know I am not alone in the struggle.
Keep the cherries coming.
We feel most alive in the presence of the Beautiful for it meets the needs of our soul. For a while the strains of struggle and endurance are relieved and our frailty is illuminated by a different light in which we come to glimpse behind the shudder of appearances and sure form of things. In the experience of beauty we awaken and surrender in the same act. Beauty brings a sense of completion and sureness. Without any of the usual calculation, we can slip into the Beautiful with the same ease as we slip into the seamless embrace of water; something ancient within us already trusts that this embrace will hold us. John O’Donahue
RUMBLEBEE ROAD 