Behind every good wine endeavor is a good cat, right? We only talk about Jack Dawg, our Ireland rescue pup, for he’s the one who runs excitedly to the back seat when we leave for the vineyard, and waits in anticipation for those first bends in the road after we get off the highway, his nose up and pulling in the scents now so familiar to him out in the wilds of Wasco County. Then like some banshee he runs those hills, almost until his legs give out, and we have a very quiet dog come evening.
Who I don’t talk about is Georgina, our cat, mainly because she views cars with detest (she knows where’s she’s going when she gets in one), and although she might do just fine out there on the land competing with the hawks for nature’s mouse bounty, I wouldn’t want her to be inadvertently picked up by a large bird of prey, or some wayward coyote. So she stays home, alone, “Where she’s probably very happy because we’re all gone” says Scott.
That doesn’t mean she hasn’t been a contributor of sorts to this whole endeavor. Right after planting the vineyard, while we waited for those vines to grow and I had the time to freelance and bring in some moolah as a brand writer, Georgina would sit with me, like my own Pangur Ban, her silliness when we’d bat at each other across my laptop screen would free my mind when I was stuck, just as that old monk wrote about in his poem.
And she was hauled all the way to Ireland, where our story began, where Scott finally read all those techy wine books I had given him, her wailing from under the seat as we took off into the great blue unknown on our return trip to the USA documented in our saga I posted under Going Our Own Way. She has been a part of all this, and deserves to have it documented.
So when I ordered pavers the other day, personalized for all the individuals who have so generously supported our endeavor, their names, home places, and relevant date to be forever a part of our hill and our adventure, I added one for Georgina.
A rescue cat, found at LaTourelle Falls in the Columbia Gorge one autumn day in 2011 with my sisters when they were visiting from NY, and dumped off hours earlier, according to a road-crew worker, Georgina’s been with me through the thick and thin of it. She made it all the way to Ireland and back, and always seems glad to see us when we return from the farm (or is that just for the crunchies I give her? hmmm). For all that, kitty cat, there’s a paver with your name on it. Thank you, thank you, little fuzzy face.
