Click on the Vineyard Oaks Sunset image to enlarge

Vineyard Oaks Sunset

Vineyard Oaks Sunset is taken at the end of a winter day in Sonoma County.  Vineyard Oaks Sunset is a location I like to frequent to do photography.  This location of Vineyard Oaks Sunset is just minutes away from my home in Santa Rosa, California.

Oaks are a common tree found in the landscape of Sonoma County.  Oak woodlands are a common site in California.  Statewide California’s oak hardwood rangelands in total comprise 10 million acres.

An image like Vineyard Oaks Sunset can often be captured in the winter when clouds roll in from the coastline.  Heritage Oaks in vineyards are found throughout Sonoma County.  Heritage Oaks are native oak trees that have reached a certain size in diameter and cannot be cut down.  The diameter size can vary throughout the State based on local regulations.

Oaks are intricately tied to the history of Sonoma County with early settlers describing the oak landscape as a “park”.  Many historians view the Native Americans of the area as being stewards in tending the land for thousands of years.  Frank Marryat an early settler described the landscape: “the valleys are sprinkled with oak trees, and it seems ever as if we were about to enter a forest which we never reach, for in the distance the oaks, though really far apart, appear to grow in dark and heavy masses”.

In the early days of Sonoma County history, instead of the vineyards seen in the Vineyard Oaks Sunset you would see open spaces of rangeland.  The Wappo called the Santa Rosa area wici-lo-homa, or ‘meadowlark woods,’ suggesting a mix of open meadows and trees.

Land acres near Sonoma, Petaluma, Cloverdale, Healdsburg, and Cotati all have soils where large numbers of heritage oaks are still found today. A combination of natural and human forces have shaped the landscape that greeted 19th century settlers, one of these changes being the vineyards that are now seen where rangeland once was.

Vineyard Oaks Sunset at the end of a winter day is a view of this present day Sonoma County landscape.