On the Land

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Welcome, Little Kestrel(s)

June 6, 2011 in A Sense of Place, On the Land | No comments

I posted a few pictures over on our facebook The Grande Dalles page, but I have little faith that any links I provide actually work, especially from the feedback I’ve received, SO,

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are pleased to introduce you to our newest little kestrel. We were out at the vineyard and Scott pointed out while we were eating lunch that both kestrels (the male and female) were sitting on their box. After he and Sam went off for a tractor ride and some irrigation work, I headed down the hill to check it out. Sure enough, there was a kestrel on the box. But it was a baby. I almost think I heard little squeaks from the box, but being a bit away and with Jack the dog breathing as heavy as a freight train with all his running around, I’m not sure. Supposedly a kestrel clutch is 4-7 eggs, so I cannot believe this little fella or gal is the only one. But here he/she is–one view looking south on greening wheat ground, the other westward on a fallow field, but still the same bird–and I couldn’t be prouder, that this little kestrel life has blessed our ground.

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Early June on the Land

June 6, 2011 in A Sense of Place, On the Land | No comments

What else more can I say?

Watching Sap

April 3, 2011 in A Sense of Place, Farming the Vineyard, On the Land | No comments

Bud Break, 2010

That’s what we’re waiting for these days out in the vineyard, for the days to warm and the sap to rise, to see what we’ve got to work with this year. Here’s why: right around Thanksgiving last year, a major freeze rolled through the Columbia Valley and our vineyard on Rock Flour Hill. We were spared the below zero F temperatures vineyards in WA and to the east of us received–the lowest our gauges recorded was 5 degrees F. So far we’ve seen no wood damage that we’ve heard might be the case in WA. But Scott says there’s no guarantee of bud damage, we just have to wait and see for the days to warm up and the sap to start making its rounds, out to the buds and leaves that unfurl from them. We had a similar wait-and-see  episode the first year we planted, a deep freeze came in instead of the anticipated first frost at the end of October. Our vines were young, tender, barely hardened off in defense of winter cold, and we were told the vineyard was dead. It wasn’t. But it was a frightening thought, and many months of fret ensued.

On the other side of the country, in upstate New York, my father is also closely watching sap, as he waits for buds to come out, but on sugar maple trees. For him, this signals the end of collecting sap for his maple syrup production–he told me that once the trees bud, the sap becomes soured, and no good. He’s a very small producer of syrup, maybe only a handful of gallons — when it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup, and it’s just him doing the work, who can blame him?  When I was young he’d tap the centuries’ old maples out in the front yard of his similar-aged home (used to be an Inn). I think now he uses the younger stands of maple up on the hill where he has his sheep. He still does it the old fashioned way, outside over wood-burning fires, imparting a lovely smokiness to the syrup. He better save me some!

Funny how we’re both in our own sap-watching stories. I guess that’s just what some farmers do: we watch sap.

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Hello, Spring

March 21, 2011 in A Sense of Place, On the Land, The Meadowlark | No comments

If you’ve been reading along, you’ll know there’s nothing better for me than hearing the Western Meadowlark’s song punctuate the still out on our hill. Happy Spring to all of you.

 

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The Tangle and the Blue

February 14, 2011 in A Sense of Place, Farming, Farming the Vineyard, On the Land, The Meadowlark | 2 comments

I know, reminds many of a Bob Dillon song, but I wasn’t thinking of that when we were out at our vineyard this past weekend. Instead, my title is based on the more literal facts: the tangle of our vineyard against that blue sky. It was a stunning blue, as you can see, and there was a sweet growing smell of Spring in the air, along with numerous Meadowlark calls, the one sitting in the slight bowl of our vineyard off to the east was so shrill and distinct, answering a number of other calls blowing in from afar.

So, what’s the tangle about? A few things. One, we haven’t pruned yet, so you have the tangle of all the old canes. The other is from all the dried weed called Mare’s Tail Scott’s now fighting.

Dried Mare's Tail, an obnoxious weed

Funny this weed didn’t show up early on back in the day, almost six years ago now, when we first planted our vineyard on that wheat ground. No, THOSE monstrous weeds were Russian Thistle, Prickly Lettuce, and, shoot, the last one escapes me — it’s a total ground cover, creeper-like thing, supposedly people eat it when it’s young. I’ll remember. Anyway. I’ve mentioned before, but in case you don’t realize, we purchased one MESS of a vineyard site as far as weeds are concerned. We had no idea that all these monsters lay in store, and how they’d materialize after the ground was no longer soaked in the big weed sprays of the commercial wheat farmer. Or maybe in our case, thankfully, the ground wasn’t all that sterilized, as all these weeds lay in wait. Pig Weed. That’s the name I forgot. Anyhoo…We’ve been fighting the slow fight, and thankfully, the native clump grass we’ve planted is now starting to choke out many of the weeds.

Native Clump Grass

Native Clump Grass

Fingers crossed.

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A Winter Collage

January 11, 2011 in A Sense of Place, On the Land | No comments

Put this together for you, from when we were last at the farm.

Colors, Textures and Lines

September 14, 2010 in A Sense of Place, On the Land, The Little House on the Hilltop Project | 1 comment

Out on the farm the other day I snapped a few pics; while Scott’s out hunchy-walking underneath the chest-high bird netting that now encloses the vineyard checking the grapes’ progress, I’m out with Sam, tooling around.

The moods and colors and textures of the land continually surprise me; every day something new. Looking at these I think about the structure(s — barn, winery, and house) we hope to one day build (gotta sell that wine), and how much there is to draw from for inspiration. The proposed agricultural structure from our Viennese architect friends (see Week 26 of The Little House on The Hilltop Project — scroll down for image) captures the essence of what we look for, the idea suggests an outcropping of the basalt that forms the foundation of the land upon which our hills sit, while at the same time feels as if it undulates under the influence of the sculpted hills that surround it.

As a detail person, I think about the patterns of life that flow through our property, beyond the obvious seasonal changes–the passing overhead of a red-tailed hawk, the agricultural rhythms that pulse through and around it, the flow of the wind, the paths of the resident coyote(s?) and other unseen critters, the bursts of spring and early summer color of the lupine in the uncultivated eyebrows, the spirits of people past and present that this magical land contains–and how these might be represented in the structures. There are so many patterns of life that exist, I imagine the possibilities as endless. Not to mention all these colors, textures, and lines.



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A Peek From the Hilltop

May 21, 2010 in A Sense of Place, Farming the Vineyard, On the Land, Secret Office Video Files | 2 comments

Figured it was time to show a little about what I’ve been either hinting at or outright saying about our little vineyard on the frontier. The video says we went yesterday, but we didn’t — it was last week. Just takes me some time to edit all my “uhs” and “ahs” and, of course, the blather. And so what if I whisper at the end something that indirectly gives nod to what I think about our wine. Someone’s gotta say it someday. And hopefully soon it won’t be just me.

And for another one day soon…I’ll give our whole sordid story in video form, since so many of you have been asking, but for now, enjoy the wide open spaces that surround our place.

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As the Meadowlark Warbles

May 6, 2010 in A Sense of Place, On the Land, The Meadowlark | No comments

For me, if I don’t hear a meadowlark out at the vineyard, it’s not complete. I don’t know why that song has come to signify the “being” of me there, but it has. Thankfully I hear one every time. And then I wonder, is it the same one? Do we have a resident meadowlark like our resident kestrels?

We were at the farm just the other day, Wednesday. Scott was showing around a city-slicker NYC friend, to whom I had loaned a fleece and hat because she had left NY in balmy weather, only to find a spring Oregon chill. Sam and I were checking for owl poop, I mean, pellets, under the owl houses that stand some 10? 12? feet above the trellis poles, attached to them by long screws and bolts. Sam carefully grabbing onto the vines as he hauled his growing little legs over the lower wire. Scott noticed and called out, “Make sure he doesn’t knock off any buds,” which I was already doing, of course, imagining where next year’s fruit canes might come from.

We headed toward the boxy house, white markings along its face, dropped by birds surveying from its roof. I really wanted to find a pellet. Wanted to find the little mass and pull it open with a vine’s cut spear that still dotted the rows from this year’s pruning, and see the bones and detritus that it might contain, stuff you learn in 10th grade biology, or from your crazy bird-mother… But there were none to be found. Only a quick rustling of feathers as we approached, and then a blur of wings as it left its hole. Was it an owl? (It would have to be a small one.) Was it a kestrel taking over a larger home? (The kestrel homes are more an rectangular upright, this was a horizontal positioning.) I don’t which bird it was, but I only knew it was there, and it left in a hurry, with Sam trying his best to keep upright, his face all rosy from the cold, and wind, stepping over the wire, and not far away  atop another pole, the meadowlark let loose.

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