I wish I could capture on film the entire vineyard, end to end, but I'd need a wide-angle lens or a daring pilot with a steady hand and neither are within reach today. Viewed from the road, the layout of row upon row of vines set against those quaint out-buildings makes me smile. It's an image of home that conjures those old Rockwell images of a near-forgotten America. The low building is the newest on the property, built in 1940. Before it housed vineyard tools, it sheltered horses and before that, hogs. Behind that building to the left is the chicken house and the tall building to the right is a granary. They are well-cared-for structures; hubby's source of pride I'm sure.
Neither building would have such character, though, if not for the 650 vines stretching to the road and then south, draped in fading sun. It is the vineyard that defines our home more than the lake or the garden or the lawn or even the grand Cedars. This is how this place, this home, has evolved for our family so new to country living.A neighbor who lives two properties down and raises pigs, planted three-quarters of an acre of grapes last spring and today, on my walk down the road, I noticed another neighbor, living just to the south, has made good on his promise to till up his alfalfa in anticipation of an acre of grapes to go in next spring. Though, it appears he's tilled up more than one acre! Maybe he's thinking long range, working in plans to expand like we had before our hands were soiled by the reality of grape growing. We wish him well.
I was giving a friend directions to our place the other day and I almost told her, once she reached our road, that we were the first vineyard on the right. The first vineyard...
I believe there's a Rockwellian movement afoot on our stretch of country road.
