Making It Home
One
I tell them all that fate and love of a particular woman born on this
continent conspired to bring me here. That is always a perfectly acceptable
answer. I smile at the fact that everyone likes the idea of love being so
powerful that it can take one's life beyond one's control, and even though it is
true, shadows of a more complicated answer sometimes flicker in the back of my
mind.
My wife Cynthia and I,
and our two sons Nils and Carl, have lived on these eight acres saddling a small
ridge for ten years now. We are still just getting acquainted. I am here to
bring rush and movement to an apparent standstill, to allow for an inner
settling of old, stirred-up debris. Days go by when I don't leave at all, just
crisscross the land on foot in a steady string of projects, pushing materials in
a wheelbarrow or carrying tools in buckets. Daily tasks within the wheel of
seasons give the mind a certain elevated clarity. But then, sometimes, I just
take a break from what I am doing and make an effort to stop my thoughts
altogether, open myself up and invite the outside in. When you listen hard you
can join another.
Of all the views here
I like the one of the hills and the mountains the best. Many times a day my eyes
wander across them: Highland Butte, Goat Mountain, Seosap Peak, Bracket
Mountain, the entire Molalla River watershed. When it snows up there, the
clear-cuts stand out like large white rectangles, and the logging roads trace
the contours of the folds like delicate, surgical incisions. The view of these
different patches of the rejuvenating forest, in a good afternoon light, is a
beautiful quilt of green and white hung on the wall of the world.
At midday I go outside
to get a load of firewood from the pile behind the chicken coop. Loading the
wood into a big canvas bag I notice unusually symmetrical cirrus clouds drifting
in from the east. I think of Strindberg, who kept a daily cloud journal one
summer in the Stockholm archipelago. He suspected that there was a
correspondence between the shapes of the clouds and his mental states. At the
end of each day he would carefully record his emotions and thoughts, and make
detailed drawings of the dominant cloud type. But at the end of the summer his
observations proved inconclusive and his mind moved elsewhere. Still, stoking
the wood stove, I can't shake a nebulous feeling that I felt just like those
cirrus clouds as soon as I saw them.
It has been a cold
winter. Nils and Carl found a frozen brush rabbit in the vineyard today, in the
same area where Cynthia had seen one during the snowy weather six days ago. She
kept pointing it out to me, "There, three rows down, just where those big
weeds are. Don't you see him? He is sitting down, between those two
plants!" I looked and looked but saw nothing, not having seen him move.
Today his body was still frozen solid, rigid in a sitting position, eyes
open, as though ready to take off if frightened. The icy chunk of his body made
me think of a story an aunt had told me, of a neighbor boy she had known when
she was a girl. This was up in the north of Sweden, before cars. The young man
had skied to the next village to visit a certain girl, and had stayed late
talking and drinking too much. On the way home he had stopped to rest, and that
was how they found him the next day, sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, eyes
open, face relaxed, body frozen all the way through. He had not even tried to
make a fire. The parents had to thaw him out in order to straighten the body and
get it into the coffin. Once in the coffin the body had been stored in the
woodshed all winter, as was customary at that time, until spring made grave
digging possible.
I take the frozen rabbit to the compost bins over by the garden, with
Vidar, one of our cats, following. Later in the day he has eaten one entire back
leg.
We first called our
vineyard Beavercreek Vineyard because we live outside Beavercreek, and thought
that the beaver was a fitting emblem in a state flying a golden beaver on the
flag. Then I discovered that there already was a Beavercreek Vineyard in
existence, which is not surprising considering the number of places in Oregon
called Beavercreek. I called the owners of the original Beavercreek Vineyard,
and they did not like the idea of us assuming the same name at all and
elaborated on legal rights and attorneys. So we began tossing ideas around for a
new name. For weeks we swung back and forth between the serious and the silly:
Clos de Sapins. Vinland. Gopher Crest. Castor Creek. Cynthia & Laurentius.
Skookum Hill. Ad Infinitum.
In a dictionary of literary terms I finally found a new name that sounded
just right, Epyllion. An epyllion is a little epic which belongs to the
genre of short picturesque poems. It is considered an idyll presenting an
episode from the heroic past, but it stresses the pictorial and romantic rather
than the heroic. Often it involves love between shepherd and shepherdess. Still,
in spite of its definition, literary scholars argue that the term is really
useless, so what could be better than that--a really useless term full of
agreeable meaning.
Freezing rain starts
falling in the evening, coating everything with a quarter-inch layer of clear
ice. I never thought that a gravel driveway could become slippery, but it can.
At night it looks like the uneven surface of exposed aggregate concrete,
polished and shiny. I have to walk in the grass in order to stay on my feet when
I go down to close the gate for the evening.
When Cynthia and I
started planting our vineyard, we planted one half to the peasant
French-American hybrid called Maréchal Foch and the other to the elegant pinot
noir. Maréchal Foch, named for a famous French general of World War I, has
grown beautifully, overcoming all obstacles created by two novice farmers. But
the finicky aristocrat from Burgundy has given us nothing but trouble. It
started when I bought the plants, sold as excess nursery stock from one of the
major vineyards and wineries in the state. Many of them had cracks and very poor
roots, and half never even sprouted in the spring. Of those which did, only a
handful did well. In spite of promises of replacement plants I received nothing,
sensing the shark teeth behind some of the wine industry smiles. Ever since then
we have nursed the veteran survivors along, replacing the failures, fighting
drought, weeds, gophers and chilly temperatures. Ten years later, still without
a significant crop, we conceded defeat. Three quarters of the pinot noir has
already been dug out, with most of the land going back into pasture for a few
years while we reconsider our options.
Two years ago we planted half an acre to a new variety called St. Croix,
developed by grape breeder Elmer Swenson in Wisconsin, and another half acre to
a dozen different varieties. They are all hybrids that survive almost arctic
temperatures, and like Maréchal Foch, they are resistant to phylloxera and
powdery mildew, which will eliminate the necessity of spraying sulphur as a
fungicide all through the spring and summer. Eventually, when we will have had a
crop for a couple of years and seen what kind of wine these varieties can make,
we will select the best and fill in the space where we started with the pinot
noir.
Having to change the vineyard from our original vision is part of
discovering and accepting the reality of this land. We are located high, almost
eight hundred feet above sea level, and in winter most of the vineyard land is
directly exposed to icy air masses from the interior of Canada which come down
east of the Cascades and funnel out of the Columbia River Gorge. Changing our
ideas is also the result of our growing understanding of what organic,
sustainable viticulture ought to be. I have a suspicion that farming must be a
kind of lifelong listening to what the land says.
The full moon comes
majestic over the frozen Cascades. I am down with a cold and cannot sleep in the
blue winter light. I toss and turn and think about what I have done, quitting
the job that I have had for more than four years to take a sabbatical. I was a
technical translator and in some ways it was a good job. It came to me not of my
own volition, as an unforeseen phone call with terms too good to refuse. It took
years to realize it did not take me where I wanted to go, even though it made
this perilous freedom I have chosen possible. During that time, as I commuted
away to work, something I thought existed here became more and more difficult to
experience. I trust it will speak to me again.
Thoughts meander to the familiar resting places, making well-travelled
paths. Hours pass. The winter moon slowly drifts across the open spaces; the
house ticks and cracks as the wood contracts in the dropping temperature
outside.
It is curious, but I notice that in the years we have been here, the
temperature has usually dropped right around the full January moon. We saw that
same pattern in Sweden too. And once in winter, during a partial eclipse of the
full moon, the temperature actually rose about ten degrees centigrade. When the
shadow on the moon had disappeared, the temperature fell back down again.
Early in the morning
Cynthia goes to check if the water in the chicken coop has frozen, and finds the
entire flock massacred. Bodies are scattered about, with blood sprayed on the
walls and feathers covering the floor. Returning after dawn Cynthia and I count
and find two bodies missing, the chicken wire pushed away from the ground, a dog
scat in the yard, and white feathers everywhere. What a depressing silence ten
dead chickens make. I load the strangely flat bodies into a wheelbarrow, throw a
shovel on top and wheel them far into the vineyard where I dig a mass grave for
them. All day my mood swings back and forth between fatalistic acceptance and
anger. Later I drive in to Oregon City to rent a live-animal trap. In the
evening I call my dog-owning neighbors to tell them what has happened, notifying
them that I have a trap set.
The following morning I find Elinor, our other cat, in the trap. She has
been caught, no doubt, by her own curiosity and the smell from the pierced can
of cat food which I have used for bait. I let her out and set the trap again.
Later in the day, while cleaning out the coop, on the top side of the small door
leading into it, Cynthia finds hairs stuck, reddish in color, long, smooth and
wavy, suspiciously similar to that of our neighbor's dog. I call this neighbor
back. "They look like the hairs of your dog," I tell him, "Why
don't you come on up and take a look and see what you think." He agrees to
come up the following day as soon as he is free. In the morning the clear sky is
a pale yellowish white and the ground is rock hard. As soon as they wake up, the
boys tumble out in their pajamas to check the trap and come back yelling
"We caught him, we caught him!" Cynthia and I hurry out with tea cups
in our hands and look at the embodiment of guilt itself. Indeed, it is the dog
we suspected. I put a bowl of water inside the trap, call our neighbor again,
and wait for him to show up.
The trap sits in the shade of the north side of the building and I notice
that the night's frost remains there. But I am still angry enough to leave the
shivering dog where he is. The day goes by and, it being a holiday, I am
surprised that no one in that large family misses him. At dusk my neighbor
finally shows up with a resigned look on his face, quickly agrees to reimburse
me the five dollars a chicken I ask for, then leads his stiff dog home.
Cynthia is in the
middle of pruning the old vineyard. Pruning requires a creative approach. Even
though every vine has grown differently, the end result should be the same: good
canes for the coming year or, if there is no available cane, a rejuvenation spur
so one will grow the following year. She comes through with a pair of loppers
and makes the primary cuts, severing the thick canes from the trunk, planning
and directing next year's growth. Then she comes through a second time with a
pair of pruning shears, to trim loose ends, remove smaller canes in tight spots,
undo last year's plastic ties, and rip the woody tendrils off the trellis wires.
This kind of cutting can be done in any weather. Later, in or after rain when
the wood is supple, she will come through again, to bend the new canes and tie
them to the wires.
I prune the replanted vines, which vary in age. The bushy growth of the
one-year-old vines is cut back to two buds, and the vertical two-year-old vines
are shaped into straight trunks if they are thick enough at the top. If not,
they are cut down to two buds again and have to start over. During spring and
early summer they will send out some horizontal growth along the wires, and
perhaps set some fruit. Pruning is the dialog we keep with each other.
The cold weather
suddenly eases for a single day. The icy wind has stopped blowing and there is
no frost in the morning. An immense mass of warm air, the one called the
Pineapple Express, has unexpectedly hurried in from some far southern place in
the Pacific. It smells sweet for the first time this year and in the afternoon I
open the study window for the first time too, trying to decide if the sweetness
is the smell of the ocean or of the land it has travelled across.
One night on Crete, climbing a dark hill on the outskirts of Iraklion to
visit the grave of Kazantzakis, Cynthia and I felt another wind blowing in from
Africa, bringing with it incredible smells of the Egyptian desert. It was such a
dry, spicy fragrance we could not force ourselves to return to the exhaust fumes
of the ancient city below, even though we had an appointment. We stayed late,
made love in the empty park, talking and watching the lights of the city.
The magic of sunlight
warmed our house today. When we built it, we simply did what canny farmers in
Sweden did for centuries: Found the right spot in the landscape and oriented the
house according to the four directions, put most of the windows on the south
side and practically none towards the north. No firewood, no attention, no
ashes, no effort, no expense. Tack sol!
Going to get a basket
of potatoes from the wine cellar, I look at the stone wall I built and notice
how well the moss has grown on the rocks in just three years, without any help
from a human hand. The stone wall faces north and trees above shade it. The
stones around here are reddish when they come out of the ground, but exposed to
the weather they start to darken. Perhaps it is the chemistry of iron oxidizing.
Today, the wet moss on them is a radiant green, in full bloom now, thin stems
with tiny oval heads shooting out of the lush carpet. In ten years most of these
stones will be completely black and covered with moss.
Potatoes--how suggestive and secretive they are in their bin, smooth and
polished like glacial rock; how wonderfully they smell of the earth. I fill my
basket with yellow Finns, the only variety we have left. The Nooksack is already
gone and so is the Mandel, the blue German and Rote Erstling. We have to plant
more. This is the best month of the year to boil yellow Finns, because their
flavor is at a peak of richness, and they will not crack open, and it is too
early for them to have started loosing flavor and softening up in the process of
sprouting. All winter they have matured towards a firm waxiness instead of that
dry, crumbling texture they had in the early fall.
On my way back to the house, I think of dinner: boiled potatoes with dill
and butter, some sausage, fresh bread, and a simple shredded cabbage salad with
salt, lemon juice and olive oil. Perhaps a Maréchal Foch of our first bottling
to drink?
Tired of the 6 o'clock
news I turn the TV off and step outside. It is already after dark and the
evening has cleared into a cold stillness. East of our ridge a narrow tongue of
fog crawls up the draw from the sea of fog below. The waning moon fills the fog
with a strange fluorescent light. It will drop far below freezing tonight; I can
already see the sparkle of crystals in the grass. I walk across the driveway to
the lean-to shed where the thermometer is, and a neighbor's dog starts barking
at the sound of my footsteps in the gravel.
After two days without
precipitation I start removing the cut canes from the vineyard floor. Each row
is about 220 feet long, with 27 vines spaced eight feet apart. On seven acres
there are a hundred and twelve such rows, which would make a total of about 3000
vines if the whole vineyard was planted. Just to walk up and down all the rows
is about four and a half miles. Now eighty four rows are planted, but only sixty
eight with mature vines.
It takes several trips in each row to pick up all the canes and drop them
at the end of the rows. Later I will load them into my tractor trailer. The work
is monotonous and I get sore in strange places from all the bending down, but
the body needs it no matter how the mind objects. In three hours I can clean
about six or seven rows and haul the cuttings to the back where I have a huge
pile of them. These cut vines are mainly carbon and water pulled out of air and
soil; they are sunlight made heavy.
This is a job which must be done before the grass starts to grow and
entangles the canes. For us, canes are really a resource. A few are cut into
four bud sticks and sold as cuttings for new plants, and every year women will
come and gather long ones for wreaths. Others will get the thickest wood for the
coming summer's barbecues, but most of it is chipped for use as mulch and
chicken litter.
While pruning our
fruit trees, I spot a solitary heron flying low, just over the rooftops, turning
to the north and gliding over my neighbor's farm buildings before disappearing
from view. My eyes follow his slow flight like a prayer to an old spirit.
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