Harvest Moon

Harvest Time.  Let's get at it!

It's been a bit of a whirlwind lately.  And that may be the understatement of the year.

The past few weeks have been interesting, to say the least.  There's far too much to include in one posting so Amy will handle some of the utterly ridiculous aspects of our recent lives, while I share a bit of the sublime.  For that, we need to go back to the early morning hours of September 17th....

It's 5:30 in the morning and I'm lying awake praying to hear nothing.

For the past hour, we have been kept awake by a certain Mr. C.J. Davis (and Amy kept out of bed trying to console him) who is suffering from some unkown malady that, according to Madame le Medecin could be anything from a cold, to an ear infection, to Chicken Pox.  Gee, thanks for the rock solid diagnosis Doc.  Of course, it's possible that she actually said he has none of those things and I just misunderstood -- all I know is that we came away with four prescriptions and C-Dog now has more chemicals in him than Keith Richards circa 1972.  [queue foreshadowing music...]

As he finally settles enough to put him back to bed, I hear the sound of a tractor rolling up the road outside.  "Guess some farmer is getting an early start on the vendange today."  But instead of rolling off around the next bend, the sound just gets louder... and louder... and louder.  By a twist of what surely must be some wickedly vindictive fate, said farmer apparently decided that the grapes in one of the fields behind our house had to be harvested RIGHT THEN.  No matter that the sun was still a solid hour and a half from even threatening to rise.  No.  The full moon was just a day ago and once the eyes adjusted you could have read a mystery novel by the light it cast.  Apparently these French take the whole "harvest moon" thing VERY LITERALLY.

So, we laid there for the next hour and a half listening to the machinery fulfill its purpose of making obsolete the centuries-old tradition of les vendanges by hand and feast by night....

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP4oN6Wx5uE).

Somewhere beneath the anger and bitterness we felt at having -- finally -- two sleeping kids while a symphony of metal blades and diesel engines serenaded us from outside, I did find a little hint of excitement knowing that the harvest was in full swing and within a day, we would be walking rows of vines, bending, reaching, cutting, and loading bucket after bucket of sun-ripe Grenache.

And so it was that on Thursday we drove out to Castillon-du-Gard, four villages down the road to the East, and met our new friends, Matt and Amy (yes, ANOTHER American named Amy -- that makes three for those keeping score at home) at their "big vineyard" for a day of harvesting grapes by hand, in the traditional sytle.

After following Amy down roads barely wide enough for her tiny '78 Renault 4L, we pulled up into the field, unloaded the kids, introduced Ellie to Daisy, the over-friendly pooch that makes sure Matt and Amy get everything right, who promptly barrelled Ellie clean over with a giant enthusiastic wet kiss, and learned how to pick grapes.

Here's a little tidbit that you don't really think about until you're in the moment:  picking grapes is actually work.  Sure, there's the romance of the vendange, the big lunch, the wine, the sun, and the lively conversation, but when you get right down to it, it's still just a lot of bending, reaching, cutting, loading, lifting, walking and repeating again and again.  Now, this is not to suggest that we didn't have fun.  It was a good, solid day's work that felt great when we were done.  Mind you that we didn't exactly set the world ablaze with the speed of our harvest.  We spent a good portion of time chasing Ellie up and down the rows and, of course, attending to King Cole.  Ellie, much to her credit, did legitimately learn how to cut the grapes.  She would find a bunch, locate the stem, reach up with the snips, cut if off and put it in the bucket.  At three.  Needless to say, we were impressed.  If things continue to go south with the economy, we're considering sending her to California on a seasonal basis to bring home a few extra bucks.

Nuthin' to this.

Cole, on the other hand, was another story.  Keeping tabs on him consisted of: keeping him from pulling the grapes out of the buckets and tossing them into the next row, keeping the tiny ball of fluff known as Sydney the puppy from attacking him and licking him to death, and of course, carrying him in the backpack while bending, reaching, cutting, etc., etc., etc....

I think the lowlight for C-dog may have been his post-lunch nap.  It sounds like a perfect plan, right?  Morning picking grapes, big lunch, then a nice snooze in the sun at the edge of the vineyard.  Frankly, I wanted to join him, having perhaps enjoyed one too many glasses of wine at lunch.  So, after lulling him to sleep in the backpack, Amy set him down, still in the backpack, which has a stand that I'm sure is designed specifically so that a child can be left entirely unattended in the middle of a vineyard in rural Southern France.  

As I'm clipping grapes and chatting with the person working the next row, I hear an odd "thump."  I'd never heard that exact sound before, yet, in the millisecond of silence that followed it, I knew exactly what it was.  Before I could turn my head back to the end of the rows, I heard a low whine that quickly escalated into a plaintive wail.  I sprung back to the edge of the vineyard and, sure enough, there was C-dog, backpack and all, toppled over onto his right side.  Um... oops... sorry Buddy.  

We ended the day with a cold beer and plenty of thank-yous and poured everyone into the car to hobble home... whupped.  

We'll look forward to visiting the winery soon and, of course, stocking several bottles of the 2008 vintage from La Gramiere.  If you can find it in your local wine shop (and it would help if you live in Californina, Brooklyn, or... um... Maine, apparently), you clearly must try it (www.lagramiere.com).

Daisy makes sure the grapes are ready...