Making it through
You can tell I'm running on empty when I start drawing "Gamboge Girls," my name for rubber stamped images on a gamboge wash. For the life of me, I can't think of anything better but I can't skip days because, well, I just can't because then things will get even worse.
We've just come through an intense hot spell - back to the summer we missed - but with a cool-down beginning. It's not summer, it's not winter, it's..... fall in northern California. Most of the crush is complete now, I'm not noticing wine scented air or seeing double trucks of newly plucked grapes. The final tally of the crop hasn't come in yet. More than ever, when a movie scene shows a bottle from a classic year, I get it, how the vines ripened at just the most perfect temperature and cadence, how things were at their quintessential best with soaring temperatures -- but not too high -- came on the days they were most needed and the dips and lows were timed with awe in mind as well. That's life in the vineyards, something I didn't appreciate until we moved here in 1995.
I hope it cools off for good for this year. You did more on this page than I have done lately!
ReplyDeleteIf only the weather didn't affect us so much!
ReplyDelete