A warm hello to all you Healdsburg locals and allies out there — each of you experiencing this beautiful midwinter Saturday from your own unique vantage point, and spending the day in your own weird little way. (Are you… bustling about the downtown marketplace? Slanging burgers for minimum wage? Getting day-drunk on $500 wine? Hiding in bed til someone comes along and drags you out? I’m here for it all!) And I’ll let you in on my personal slice of universe, in case you’re curious. Today is my little brother’s 37th birthday… the great Luke Wilson, artist and builder and Burner, youngest and most magical/mysterious member of the Wilson mountain clan of outer Healdsburg. And to celebrate another year of his existence, our family and friends will be cooking up a mythic winter stew and turning a heap of crispy old Christmas trees into a blazing bonfire. As we do out here in the hills! But first, I’m popping in to serve you another stew of sorts: Healdsburg calendar stew. It’ll be extra rich and hardy this week, with ingredients like…

Before we get started, though, I want to mention — today is the last day of the big fundraiser to save the Tierra Vegetables farm just south of Healdsburg, on 10 idyllic acres off Airport Boulevard. Brother-sister farmers Wayne and Lee James have already raised $175K of the $200K they need to stay on their land, with help from all their fans in the San Francisco culinary scene and hundreds of other locals. Their original deadline to buy the farmland back from their landlord (which is actually the county government… long story) was the end of December, but a farm staffer told me Tierra got a monthlong extension to gather the funds. So they’ve been doing one last push to save the farm this January. “If Tierra Vegetables has touched your life in any way — through a meal, through a visit, through a shared moment at the farm — please consider donating to help us secure this land,” their GoFundMe page says. “Every contribution, big or small, will make a difference. Please share our story so we can keep this farm alive for the next generation. We can't do this without you.” Pitch in here. 🙏

Also, quick reminder: The Healdsburg Newsletter is largely reader-supported, so please keep sending it around to everyone you know! (They can subscribe here.) And the other way it’s supported is by a small number of local businesses who choose to sponsor this community resource. In return, I write a special feature about them and send it out to thousands of locals. (Much like I did for the Villa Chanticleer, below!) I currently have a sponsor slot open for February. So if you own a local business — or know someone else who should be featured — just reply to this email, or reach out to me directly. Can’t wait to see the magic we make together. 🔮

The Villa’s still got it! Our historic community event space, built along Fitch Mountain’s northwestern slope in 1910 as a country resort for French elite from the city, was recently named best local wedding venue in the Healdsburg Tribune’s annual “Best of Healdsburg” reader poll. This, after the Villa Chanticleer underwent hundreds of thousands of dollars in renovations over the past couple of years, as part of a unique partnership between the City of Healdsburg and the Milestone Events Group. (Every last nook and cranny of the 17-acre, indoor-outdoor Villa grounds have gotten a total glow-up; see pics here.) When the “Best of” award was announced, the venue’s managers wrote in a message to the community: “The Villa has been a place of love, celebration, and connection for generations, and thanks to you, that legacy lives on. We can’t wait to welcome you back and create the next chapter of cherished memories!”

Indeed, the public has been taking notice. Weekends in 2026 are getting booked up fast, according to venue managers, with “only a handful of peak-season Saturdays” still available for 2026 — so if you’re eying the Villa as your dream venue, make sure to grab a date before they’re gone. This is the perfect spot to host a big party that still feels cozy and intimate — not just weddings, but also reunions, birthdays, anniversaries, meetings, memorials and other gatherings. And even now that it looks like a million bucks, the Villa is still one of the most affordable options around; you can check out pricing here. Also, keep in mind that Healdsburg residents get an extra 20% off! Learn more and book your next event on the Villa Chanticleer website. 🥂

What a bunch of gorgeousness, these past few days! It’s that sweet time of winter in Northern Sonoma County that l’ve come to think of as yellow-and-purple flower season — when the mustard and sourgrass and daffodils and buttercups and field marigolds all begin to explode across hillsides (those being the yellow guys), alongside shooting stars and brodiaea and ceanothus and radish and rosemary flowers. There are some nice whites in there too — like roadside daisies, and all manner of narcissus, and the occasional grizzled white winter rose. Can you tell I’m all up in my feels about this color schema? It didn’t help that I took a positively romantical drive along the northernmost stretch of West Dry Creek Road a couple of days ago, between Lambert Bridge and Yoakim Bridge roads. (With a little excursion off Wine Creek Road… which got its name during the Prohibition era, as legend has it, after “the feds raided a winery upstream and broke open all the barrels, and the creek ran red for weeks.”) This really is one of the most gorgeous country drives we’ve got around here, IMO… lined with old barns, cattail ponds, grazing donkeys, chicken coops, rickety windmills, babbling brooks, fairytale cottages, rusty tractors, wine caves, Spanish-style moss hanging from valley oaks, overgrown fences, slow-moving farmers tending their fields…

Anyway, you’ll have plenty more opportunities to get in the mood next week, with a neat stack of near-perfect January days coming up in our local weather forecast. Here’s what the National Weather Service is predicting for Healdsburg: