A Sense of Place

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Pump Trip 2011

June 24, 2011 in A Sense of Place, Farming | No comments

Our well’s pump stopped out at the farm. Nice. After hours of Scott calling around for trouble-shooting and alternatives–new pump? repair existing?–it was decided, we’d get it fixed. The problem was that Scott was at work, and the people who would fix the pump were in Vancouver, WA, some 90 miles-ish from the vineyard, and every day without water for the vines was, well, everyday without water. So after getting the phone call from Scott, off me and the little one went, from Portland to The Dalles, to pick up the pump, and haul it to Vancouver.

The pump and motor had already been pulled out of the 250 foot hole, so all that was needed was to lift that sucker and 250 feet of wiring into the back of the truck. Thankfully, our neighbor out there, who also shares the pump, had a winch on his work truck, so after some struggles, we lifted and pushed the motor (looked like a 5 foot torpedo) and pump into the pickup’s bed–Sam kept himself busy running up and down the road and tossing little stones into the neighboring wheat field…hmmmm… and then off we went, well, first had to change some little boy’s diaper out in the cheatgrass, but then we were racing the clock to deliver the pump by 5 PM, or as close as we could, which had its own troubles attached: rush hour, and getting across the Columbia River to Vancouver, WA, with all those Vancouverites who come in to Portland to work and then clog up highways on the return home; we needed to get across the river BEFORE we got to Portland.

From The Dalles, there are only three bridges that cross the river before hitting Portland’s highways: one in The Dalles, one in Hood River, and one in Cascade Locks. Crossing any one of these puts you directly in Washington State, on SR (state road) 14, on the most beautiful leafy drive that follows the folds and contours of the Gorge. While stunning, with the vistas of the river and Oregon, it’s much slower going, and it is tourist season, making it even slower. So we opted for the closest-to-Portland bridge at Cascade Locks, The Bridge of The Gods.

The Bridge of The Gods is so-called for the land bridge that formed there eons ago, when Table Mountain collapsed, damming up the river for some time before the backed up river resumed its flow to the sea. This occurrence was experienced and passed down through local Native American lore, the bridge built by one of the sons of the Chief of all the Klickitats’ gods. It’s a great bridge to cross, despited the ongoing $1 toll ($2 if all you have is credit card….), and high above the river, it’s not a lift bridge like at Hood River, where you have to wait for all the river tug and barge traffic, so great a commerce conduit is the Columbia.

After the bridge we were in Washington, in Skamania County, and on the rolling road. Sam almost three, said, with no prompting, “It’s beautiful.” And it was. The tree canopies, the views, the grasses, a very different drive than the highway on the other side of the river. And we made it into Vancouver just at 5. Found the well/pump shop, and we were back over the Columbia River and into Portland not soon after. Sam and I had a great time, we laughed a lot, sang songs, had our standard going-to-the-farm Mc Donalds lunch in the truck, enjoyed the sights (made a mental note to take Gramma and Sam hiking up Beacon Rock when she comes), and now the pump can get fixed.

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The Mistress

June 16, 2011 in A Sense of Place, Farming the Vineyard | No comments

It’s starting again. Scott. Gone. Weekends. Only one day at-a-time for now. Longer visits on the way. It happens every year. The vineyard calls. And if we can keep her happy, she, we hope, will keep us all smiling, if you know what I mean.

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Walking the 320

June 15, 2011 in A Sense of Place, On the Land | 1 comment

Looking eastward on north fence line/photo location: Hay Ranches, on shared easement

When we bought our property, we put in an 8-foot deer fence to encircle our parcel of 160 acres; done as a joint project with our neighbor, this same fence contains his adjoining 160, making what’s supposed to be a quiet deer-free “preserve” of 320 acres. Sometimes this has not been so, as we’ve had deer in a few times. The first time was when we first put the fence up, a small band became enclosed, so diverse and large was the area, they simply got stuck in. Then there have been some “how did they get in here?” moments, when we’ve found an errant deer wandering around. Thankfully, at every time, we’ve been able to get them out unharmed, still unsure of how they got in, although we have our suspicions (gate left opened overnight, for example). But to make sure the fence was not compromised in a more remote locale that gave them opportunity for entry, I went out walking it with Jack the dog this past weekend.

Mt. Hood behind the wheat / photo location: Hay Ranches, from shared easement

We did the North parcel on Saturday, the south parcel on Sunday. And weren’t both days glorious. Not too hot, not too windy. Mt. Hood pretty much in full view.  A lot of stop-and-scan, stop-and-scan action, keeping an eye out for any bounding creature rustled up out of the high wheat, or ears pricked in our direction. With the wind blowing our scent away, and quieting our crunching footsteps, we did manage to get a good 8-10 feet from a doe grazing OUTSIDE the fence. Best doe-y eyed glance I’d ever seen so close, when she was finally on to us, and then she bounced away.

Not the deer we snuck up on, but one we startled

Turns out the fence is just fine, and other than a number of dig-throughs/unders from fox or coyotes or badgers or whatever else might be coming on in, there were not places an unprovoked deer might. Jack had one tick on him rendered harmless by his tick treatment; I thought I might get some, walking through the tall grasses, arms raised in a tick-like surrender, but nothing, whew! I have to do that walk around more often. It’s quite a workout, and the scenery is crazy beautiful.

Here’s a link to more of the weekend’s pictures I popped onto Facebook.

 

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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.

Eagles and Turkeys

January 7, 2011 in A Sense of Place, And Then Some, Life of a Start-Up | No comments

That’s what we saw last weekend on our drive to the vineyard. The bald eagles up in trees along the Columbia River—I counted four within a 50-yard distance, could’ve been more—off of I-84, right before our turn-off. The flock of wild turkeys were less than five-minutes later, off in a stand of trees, along 8-Mile, us just into the twists and turns of the road as it followed the meandering of the creek. There must have been a couple dozen of them along the water’s banks. Lined up eagles and a flock of turkeys. A national symbol and a national meal. Quite an ornithological dichotomy within minutes of one another. What does this mean?

All you rational people will say, “You’re in the Pacific Northwest, ferchirssakes, and so happened upon these feathered friends in their natural environment. What, do you think they were waiting there for you?!” No I don’t think they were (ha!) but I believe with this poignant showing of nature, there is something to take from it.

Thinking about life right now, there’s no denying the stress of trying to find those people who appreciate a more individual wine. So many “what’s all this for?” moments as we dip our feet into the industry and find out how hard it is to swim upstream when everyone’s swimming down. The closed minds of people are beginning to numb our own, and I wonder, have our heads dropped to the ground, like those turkeys pecking along the stream bank, unaware of the broader picture, or, on a more positive note, is it simply focusing on the task at hand? And what about the eagles? Are they there to remind us to keep our heads up, and not lose sight of the bigger picture? Or perhaps, and pardon the cheesiness, that we should soar above all the turkeys out there?! Or maybe it’s just to scavenge what we can and feast on it. I don’t know. I only know it was quite a mix of birds that day.

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