My Future Garden

    The garden called out today. It is unborn, unformed, but still it called. So I answered by starting on the garden wall.  Stone by stone; digging, leveling, and laying out a pattern for my future garden.  While I work, I think about legacies and a vineyard we visited just as the harvest came nipping in.
                   
    The rush to gather all the grapes into bins had just ended. The glee at getting it all in before the rains came was like fireflies in June. I think of the physical labor of a vineyard as my back is aching, my arms are weak and, I sweat over a few stones laid.  I also think about Isabelle Simi, whose legacy as one of California's first women vitners, is celebrated in a recent article by Jessica Yadegaran published by the Bay Area News Group: Sometimes the ordinary becomes extraordinary with the mystical mix of time, light, and good old fashioned sweat.

     Kevin, the vintner at Proulx vineyards, sparkles and resonates with a comment he made over dinner.  He said, “I’m in this for the long haul. Fifty years is not too long of a time horizon for me.  I build slowly and carefully.”

    The family is already building a legacy at Proulx vineyards where four generations work, live and play.  Each contributes what they have to the business.  The artist builds in beauty. The great-grand parents gather everyone in.  Another family member renovates the old 1887 farmhouse to give it honor. All offer gracious hospitality to wine tasters and vineyard visitors wandering into the valley.  This valley is not East of Eden. Rather, it is East of Camelot (or Hearst Castle) in the Central Coast vineyard area of California.  Each family member has a part of their own dream wrapped inside this bigger legacy.

    Now the dilapidated farm they bought before El Niño years is strikingly wonderful.  It’s not just the wines they make, although the Zinfandel and Merveille are beautiful.  It’s something intangible, but crucial.  They have woven camaraderie into their family business.  You can almost taste it in the wine they sell and feel it in the family style bunkhouse bed & breakfast they run.  It’s a great place to see a legacy being built, slowly and carefully. Take a walk in the clouds, gaze at the rust and orange vineyard hills, sip the harvest delivered from old and new vines and ponder the cooperation it takes to build this legacy.

    I have no illusions that my garden wall will still be around in 50 years.  I do have a hope though that in 50 years more people will grow their own vegetables or buy from local farms.  I hope that in 50 years we will have figured out how to re-cycle, re-use, or renovate everything instead of sending our leftovers to muck up the oceans. 

    So, I work on my future garden like a legacy, stone by stone, and think how to move my vision of the future closer to reality.  Is this how Nehemiah felt?  In the meantime, the last bit of sun on a tawny fall afternoon is enough blessing for today.  For tomorrow, which Proulx wine goes with Thanksgiving dinner?.