Properties in Angwin are still priced sky-high and for three years sales have been skipping merrily up the chart. We saw 28 sales in 2003 and 34 in 2004. A bit above the average of 29 per year over the past 20 years.

In the boom years of 1989 and 1990, sales hit 44 and 40. But we have seen sales slip to as few as 16 several times, so last year's 34 is just fine. Yes, this is a hot market.

The first six months of this year saw 16 sales recorded in Angwin, a repeat of the sales pace in 2004. What happened in 2004, the last fulll year. 34 properties were sold. Prices ranged from $144,000 for little house on Toyon to $2,350,000 for a large home with 20 acres on Cold Springs Road. The median price was $499,000.

What is a bubble?

Is the sharp climb in values really a bubble, a bubble that will burst? The word "bubble" has been used indiscriminately, particularly by newspaperreporters who make up their own definitions.

The definition by economists is: A bubble is a bubble when prices climb 30% in a three-year period and then drop 15% over the next five-year period. In short, you won't know if it was a bubble that "burst" until eight years have passed. Ancient history.

A lot of so-called " bubbles" never burst. Prices may surge way up, but do not collapse enough to be called a "burst." Still, the Federal Reserve Board has warned that "shady" interest-only loans - and there many of them - could produce problems for borrowers a few years from now, with numerous foreclosures and a resulting fall in market values.

We have been through this before. And not too long ago. We saw a rapid run-up of values in Angwin in the late 1980's reaching a median value of $180,000 in 1990. Then values floundered around for 10 years, but did gradually rise - in fits and starts. The median finally reached $295,000 in 2000, for a gain of 56% over a 10-year period.

(This is not a great return in investment terms, considering that inflation probably accounted for 30% during that period.)

So that really big rally culminating in 1990 never did burst. Values saw minor declines before levelling off and then resuming a slow, unexciting climb.

I am intrigued by Putah Creek. It seems to be everywhere, or at least on most of my favorite drives. You cross it driving North. You cross it going East. Where does it come from? Where does it go?

Putah seeps out of springs high on the slopes of Cobb Mountain, in Lake County, fumbles its way through Middletown and stumbles generally eastward into Lake Berryessa in Napa County. When it leaves the spillway at the Berryessa dam, it forms the crooked border between Yolo and Solano Counties and ends in Sacramento County at what the map calls the "Putah Creek Sinks" in the wetlands south of Sacramento. A meandering thing.

You can find web sites devoted to boating on Putah. And on fishing.