Since my exchange last year, I stayed in touch with farm owners, Dennis and Rachel, an easy-going yet active and hard-working couple from the midwest. Dennis is a Marine Corps pilot and Rachel works in renewable energy for the state. On a whim, I reached out to Dennis last week to ask if they needed help on the farm. An immediate response informed me that it was grape-pruning season! So I packed a bag and hit the road on Monday morning. My excitement grew as Red and I reached the city limits. The pretty drive cuts through green pine trees and rural farms, snuggled in between the Coast and Cascade mountain ranges. This spontaneous trip was exactly what I needed.
I was thrilled by the familiarity of Cadence Valley as I pulled into the driveway. The thriving property includes a large barn, two fish ponds, and a happy crew of farm animals: alpacas, goats, sheep, chickens, ducks, and quirky felines, Marcel and Pinot. The farm yields a wide variety of garden vegetables in addition to an array of fruit trees. The vineyard produces more than 1,000 pounds of grapes per year, providing enough to both sell and keep for wine-making.
The beautiful 1950s house has been modernized with a clean and simple taste, displaying expansive views of the surrounding farmland. Train tracks run behind the property, which adds to the humming soundtrack of the farm.
Ever wonder how grapes grow? Grapevines produce fruit on one-year old wood. When a bud sprouts in spring and grows into a new shoot within the larger grape plant, the shoot turns from green to brown by the end of the growing season, at which point it is considered one-year old wood. The following spring some of the buds on one-year-old wood will grow flowers (which develop into fruit), while the buds on older wood produce only leaves or shoots. The primary goal of pruning is to maximize the amount of one-year old wood on each grapevine without encouraging the plant to produce so many grape clusters that it lacks the energy and nutrients to fully ripen them. Left to its own devices, a grapevine grows to a dense mass of older wood with relatively little "fruiting wood" each year. 70-90% of the previous year’s growth is removed each winter--our task at hand. As we set to work on the grapes, Dennis and I caught up. I listened intently as he told me all about what had changed over the past year.
After a few hours of pruning, the setting sun signaled Dennis and I to feed the animals before heading inside. Rachel returned home from work and prepared a delicious vegan macaroni and cheese dinner with home-grown squash. Over the meal, I learned more about Dennis and Rachel's goals for the coming year. The rest of the evening was spent curled up with a book next to the wood-burning fireplace--in the added company of Marcel and Pinot!
I was surprised to see frost on the ground the next morning, but the blue skies motivated me to take a brisk walk through the neighboring fields. After breakfast, Dennis and I finished pruning the section of grapevines that we began the day before. Mission accomplished! We went inside to clean up and eat lunch before saying goodbye to the animals and heading back to the city. While I could have stayed on the farm all week, "life" was calling me back to Portland. Besides, Dennis had been summoned to New Orleans for a military drill, so I was happy to drop him off at PDX airport along the way.
