REMEMBER WHEN BALLOON MAN drifted low over The Valley on that wintry afternoon in his patchwork quilt of a homemade zeppelin, the airborne object looking as if granma’s sewing basket had turned upside down and had flown up and away. That time our aerie visitor had headed south until he put down at the Boonville Brewery about 4:30, after he and his passenger had drifted low and slow directly over Bill Charles’ sheep a few yards from my burn pile.
THE WEEK BEFORE, Balloon Man had flown low and slow to the northwest, throwing pregnant ewes into perilous gallops. His latest voyage drifted in the opposite direction, Balloon Man again disturbing pregnant ewes near Philo where, according to another irate rancher, “Our livestock guard dogs went bonkers, the sheep went running all around, including the special baby doll sheep we raise for our vineyard, which are quite valuable because there aren’t very many of them around. We all have pregnant ewes at this time of year. I called the phone number you had in the paper but all I got was a very little kid.”
JUDGING FROM his subsequent letter of explanation. Balloon Man was unrepentant, seemingly unaware that he’d seriously aroused the ire of The Valley’s ranchers, armed ranchers, and that ire is not the ire one wants to arouse. And was lambing season for crimeny sakes!
THERE’S a lot of money in play here by ranchers who can’t afford to lose sheep which, by the way, do double duty in grazing crucial areas of The Valley to keep them in the open pasture that does so much to keep us rural. We begged Balloon Man, “Have some respect for the venue here, guy. Why not fly over in the summer months — well, the early summer months anyway — fly over the Anderson Valley at the low altitudes you seem to prefer, and you better hope you packed a parachute.
BALLOON GUY’S name is Kevin Herschman. He calls himself Hot Air Balloon Adventures, and from the look of the thing, hand-stitched by its owner, it would seem to be a rare example of truth in advertising; going up in the air in the thing would certainly constitute an adventure. Herschman was here in 2010 for a weekend festival called Mendo-A-Go-Go. People lined up at $75 a ticket for a ride lasting 20 to 50 minutes. The law says aircraft of any kind are supposed to stay at least 500 feet above terra firma, and Herschman is licensed by the FAA. He says his balloon can soar as high as 12,000 feet but he usually confines his flights to 6,000. Herschman’s truck is inscribed, “The sky’s not the limit.” In theory, he can be reached at 225-772 4208.
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