ALL THE BEST LAID PLANS....

With 2009 coming to a close and our sights focused on the 2010 Block 2 expansion, it was finally time to put together the plan for all the work ahead. Initial layouts of Block 2 were made, putting on paper the intended pole assignments (over 700 of them) and the corresponding plantings we will have. Block 2 will be dedicated to reds this year. Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot. Both of these, as I've mentioned before, are Bordeaux grapes, and we think they'll do well in our climate. We ordered just over 2700 grapevines, at about a 60/40 mix. These needed to be ordered early in order for them to go through the grafting process in a timely manner, and be ready for planting next April.

For Block 1, where we basically did everything wrong due to equipment malfunctions and poor timing, not to mention an irrigation project that took a year longer than anticipated, we hoped to learn from our mistakes and lay out on paper the steps needed for a more efficient work flow. With that in mind, it all starts with getting the poles in and as much of the irrigation lines ready for when the vines are planted. Block 2 is adjacent to Block 1, but in the desire to maximize return on the farmland, it was being used this year to grow soybeans. "Farmer Mac" leased nearly 25 of our acres for this purpose, and as of November 10th he still had not harvested it. I had asked him to give me a "best guess" on when he thought he might be working the fields, and his answer was 2 weeks after the first frost, which he said normally comes around November 1st. A review of historical data shows his guess was a slam dunk. Past years had November 1st as a 50/50 chance of getting a frost, but current forward looking forcasts had no frost anticipated until well into December. Therefore it became a waiting game for us.

Will Mac harvest the soy anyway, now that his crew had already taken out the corn, cotton, and peanuts ? Or will he truly wait for a frost to determine his timetable ? Turns out there is qualified reasoning for when to harvest soy. The ideal moisture content of soy is 14%. Less than that and the beans will start to crack. Harvesting at 17% or 18% is OK if the storage facilities have driers to knock the moisture content down to prevent storage rot.

As for our timing, we have a large window to get the posts in. Though the ground never really freezes here in Virginia, the days do get shorter, and comfortable working temperatures tend to start later in the morning and end earlier in the afternoon. I had also managed to twist both my sons' arms to help pounding in posts, but even their available time is difficult to schedule. My son Chris has recently become unemployed with the current economic crisis, and realizing he will have to do some real bullwork has motivated him to send out alot of resumes. As for Rich, he works for the Red Sox and between the season's end and Spring training there is a lull that gets shorter the longer we wait to start the post project.

It'll take 3 days to fully till and screen the fields readying them for the layout of the vineyard. Put a day towards laying out the field. It'll take another 5 days or so with help to get all the posts in. During the winter months the holes can be drilled for the wires that hold up the drip lines, and then those need the drippers installed above every plant location. February will be dedicated to tieing in all the driplines to the main irrigation line, and then it is fully prepared so that we can lay down ground cover between the rows of a rye/fescue/clover mix. This should give the ground cover ample time to pop up and take command before the weeds, or so we think.

During these 6 or so weeks our attention can go back to Block 1 where we can start pruning all the vines, with the primary training purpose in 2010 to develop the arms (or cordons). All the wires should have been put up by this time, so that won't be an issue this upcoming year. And after completing the pruning we will be starting the big plan we devised to take control of the weeds.......till, weedwack, and then pre-emergent herbicide.

Other fields are being harvested of their soybeans now by other farmers, and all the planning made will not go to waste, but in the meantime we wait, and wait, and wait.

ANOTHER YEAR, ANOTHER CHAPTER

We are wrapping up another year and another chapter in this venture. Each year that goes by is one more closer to first crush. Jerry completed the 2nd round of pruning in late July and August so the vineyard looks like it is in control again. He has steadfastly weedwacked the weeds into submission, using post emergent herbicide to give them their final blow. It has worked to some degree, and hopefully the lessons we learned this year can be transferred to next year, both for Block 1 and our Block 2 expansion.
The spray schedule carried us through mid-September and for the most part it did its job. No bug damage that we could find other than the occasional Japanese beetle having a food orgy. And black rot and other fungicide problems didn't seem to pop up either.
Our main concern regarding these things is that my next door neighbor had an herbicide spray that floated over to the vineyard (and on Jerry) and killed some of our new leaf growth. We didn't have any fruit this year so my concern is more towards killing my help. I'll have to chase the farmer down in the off season and see if we can arrange a way not to have his sprays travel. It didn't seem like he was too concerned about spraying during the evening or an otherwise calm moment.
Of course there are still the deer. They left us alone during the season......too many other good things to eat I guess. But now that we stopped spraying some of the bad taste may have rinsed off in a rain making the grape leaves more appetizing. Just a theory.
We did get some fruit on our Seyval Blancs this year. Most of it we snipped off but we did save some bunches for sugar testing. This year was Diane and my 36th wedding anniversary. I was convinced it was the year of "vineyard equipment". I got her a refractometer (good thing it wasn't the year of the snow shovel) which we put to use and found that we had a Brix reading of 20. This translates to a sugar content of about 10%. If it was a harvest year we would need to let the bunches hang longer.
We also transplanted some our our baby crape myrtles that we had put in the ground when we first moved in. These we have lining one side of the driveway just when you enter the farm. They struggled the first year they were in, but now they are branching out and having a personality that includes upward and outward growth, along with some bright red coloring.

It is Fall now and we also decided to start up a small Christmas tree plot. Diane, through years of subjective analysis, has decided that Fraiser Firs are the best trees for indoor decoration, so she went out and bought 50 trees. I felt that it would be a good tradition in 6 or 7 or 8 years to invite old friends down around Thanksgiving and have them cut a tree for their holiday celebration. We placed them in a plot to the rear of the farm, and shy of the deer once again making their presence known, they are care free with the exception that they are one more thing that Jerry has to water by hand, since there is no water there.

The next real trigger point is November 1st. Why November 1st you ask ? During September I had asked Farmer Mac who is farming all the land I haven't converted yet with soy to give me the best guess as to when he will harvest the beans. His guess at the time was November 1st being the first frost, so within 2 weeks after that time he would be stripping the fields of their bounty. We need Block 2 for our next expansion, which we want to start preparing in the Fall. Through trial and error in Block 1 we need to get the posts in the ground and do a few other things before we start planting in April. More detail on that later. October will be planning for another year, and another chapter.

Rule #1:Never Let The Weeds Get Ahead of You, Rule#2: Never Let...

As you can see by the title, I am obsessed with getting rid of weeds. I feel they are the major hurdle in achieving a smooth-running, and professional looking vineyard. Of course this also includes the fact that weeds steal important nutrients from the ground, or water required in the growing of the grapes.
The summer of 2009 has fallen into maintenance mode. We for the most part have gone through the vines the first time for their required pruning. It seemed to take forever but that task is behind us. There will be a second pruning later in the summer to rid of growth we don't need considering next year's plan of attack. And if you're putting energy into shoots that just get cut off any, why keep them ?
We also are doing our weekly mowing to keep grass levels low.We don't want them to grow high enough to go to seed; that's a problem we don't want to add to the list. Jerry is also wrapping up the stapling required to support the wires at the 3rd level. We still need to put the top wires in but there isn't the necessity to get it done this year.....we will need them for next year however, especially for the Nortons. That is a good end of season or winter project. So that leaves us the continued watering and deciding how to tackle the weed issue.
We have done al little of everything in that regards. We have tilled, and that works rather well though slow. It takes a good 3 full days to till 42 rows over the 3 acres. The 12" wide tiller is perfect for each side of the wires, giving us a 24" wide till region. The tiller has one speed though.....slow. We have also done some post emergent spraying, which works OK providing the weeds are 6" or so. Taller weeds just stare back at you and ask what you're doing. There are other "agent orange" sprays that'll kill everything they touch which we don't use. Our vines are not mature enough to risk using it. We also have used the weedwacker to some extent. Be aware of the fact that as the string wips around a 1000 miles an hour it can't differentiate between a weed and a 2 year old vine. It is really heartbreaking to watch a trimmer during a moment of lost attention absolutely wipe out an otherwise healthy vine. After a weedwacking the post emergent spray needs to be applied anyway.....which means hoping the wind dies down in a timely fashion to allow you to mount the backpack sprayer and spot spray between each vine.

I think I have a strategy figured out, and 2010 will be the official test. During February or March (the ground never really freezes here in Virginia) we'll till the rows, and then immediately follow it with a pre-emergent spray. It will be a matter of judgement thereafter as to whether or not more tilling is required, or if we can then stay ahead of it with post-emergent spraying. I really would like to keep the weedwacker out of the formula for no other reason than the aforementioned damage it can cause.
There are some spray systems out there that will allow you to mount a directional wand or boot that directs the spray straight down. This reduces the need to have a windless day for application. Nothing's cheap in this business so I'll have to further take a look at it in the off season.
Time becomes even more valuable next year, in as much as we plan another 3 acre expansion which will require its own set of priorites which will yell for attention against Block 1.
Ken has made progress as well (remember Ken ?). We have an area that sits on the side of the gently sloping hill that we have declared to be our future herb garden and picnic area. It had basically been allowed to go wild. Small evergreens sprouted randomly throughout the area. Poison ivy had found a home in and around the cow fence that was bordering it. We developed a plan to remove the fence, relocate all the small trees to make sort of a wall around the area, kill off the poison ivy (what is God's purpose for poison ivy anyway ?), and start mowing the area. He did all those things and it actually looks civilized now. The designated picnic area will make a quiet hideaway adjacent to the Block 2 grapes, under the trees overlooking the herb garden and the rows of vines.

There is never a shortage of work to be done on a vineyard. It can easily encompass 7 days a week with no end in sight. And when I am down at the vineyard I have to go nonstop to try to make up for lost time; I never really succeed at this. When I drive home I already miss it. My pad of paper is on the passenger's seat next to me to take notes as I remember things. I generate a To Do list for when I get back. All the things that need to be done before I head back south again.

GERIATRICS, THE STUDY OF

The irrigation system had been working perfectly over the last month, and now the new priority was pruning. Jerry had been working diligently though the process is slower than a turtle. Rightly he had been clearing the weeds as he proceeded vine by vine. However, with his concentration to detail and lack of experience, the removal of weeds made progress seem like it was at a standstill. Where I figured he might have gone through the entire vineyard by the time I returned, he was barely 1/4 of the way through. It was time to "bring out the guns", so Diane and I drove down (sorry, Diane took AirTrans, I drove) to help in the pruning.

Pruning is not overly complicated, though if you try to learn it from a book it can be quite perplexing relating the pictures to what actually occurs. Each vine has a temperment of its own, and decides to go in a different direction than what you expect, or its neighbor. A pruner must look at the vine, focus on the final intent of this year's pruning, and then get in there and start chopping no matter how painful it may be.



I call it painful because, as I had previously mentioned, we had let the vines go in year 1. Out of the grafted vine there may have been as many as 5 or 6 shoots that had grown. Many of these had made it easily up to the 3rd wire (54" off the ground) and had a fair amount of leaves to support its growth. But this isn't training a vine to go where it's needed, and unfortunately many of these shoots had to come off in Year 2 to allow the main trunk to grow and thicken.



As you touch each vine and follow the growth pattern, you make cut decisions that just have to be done. After awhile you start apologizing to the vine, maybe if you're tired and slap happy making noises of angst as you snip here, and then there. The pile on the ground can get disturbing, but it's "for the cause". And then you think about next year's strategy, and maybe some pruning should have been done in Year 1 to help alleviate the job required in Year 2.



Pruning is made simple once you can identify the parts of a vine, see what it did from the year before, and have a true understanding of the training process and that year's goal.



The basic parts of a grapevine are, from the ground: the trunk, arms or cordons, canes, canes beget buds, buds beget shoots, shoots beget nodes, and nodes beget tendons, leaves, or fruit. We can split hairs on this a bit, but for now remember that as each year progresses everything gets redefined one step closer to the ground. By that I mean shoots become canes and canes become arms as each year moves forward. Now you may think that with this trading down so to speak you will eventually have a vine that goes the length of a football field, and you wouldn't be far off if it isn't for the yearly pruning to keep the vine on track and trained properly.



Goals for each year vary some based on trellising methods, but for VSP (vertical shoot positioning) the idea in year one is to get the trunk to grow vertically up past the first wire with the real intent to to grow a widespread root system that will support future growth. Year Two, this year, we were trying to get one single vine well past the second wire (our wires are each 18" apart, so the 2nd wire is 36" off the ground). So of the many shoots that grew from last year, we needed to find the cane (last year's shoot is this year's cane) that was the strongest but also went in the general direction we were hoping for. All the others needed to be pruned off.



Next year's goal (Year 3) is to start developing the arms which will go out left and right off the main trunk. I won't go too in depth on next year, but consider that the cane we are taking care of this year will ultimately become an extension of the now trunk, and from this we must develop the arms.



If I haven't lost you yet, remember that Year 2 pruning is basically from the ground up to the first wire. All the work is in the first 18", and the only way I know of to do it is to get right down on the ground and stare at the vine. Up, and down, kneeling, and pruning. Tieing where appropriate to a bamboo stick adjacent to the trunk, sending the vine up to the first and maybe the 2nd wire where tendons can grab once grown. Do this 45 times, the approximate number of vines in each of our rows, and then do it over and over. I thought I was in shape before I started, but after a couple of rows I just couldn't do it the "normal" way. I was in such pain I had to literally crawl to the next vine to proceed. It was torture. And the following day was more of the same. Maybe the joints knew what was coming, but it was a weird combination of knowing they would be exercised to death again or just giving up to the need to move on regardless of the tightening or pain.



Jerry, certainly more agile than me and several inches shorter in height experienced the same thing. It never really got any better. As for Diane, she never complained (I must have been complaining for the 2 of us !). She was also assigned to the Nortons which, even after she pruned them still looked like bushes. They are a very aggressive American variety and would get a different training/trellising method than all the others.



When the week was over we still hadn't gotten over half done. Jerry was now an expert and continued in our absence. Couple this with his mowing duties, and our spray schedule, you can see how he knocked off a half row here, and a half row there. He also had to complete putting staples in to get the vines trained up to the 3rd set of wires. And then there was the weeds, oh those weeds; they will haunt me until we find a system to tackle them.

A GUSHER !

I was a little nervous leaving the vineyard to 2 guys I really didn't know, and whom really didn't understand fully what we were doing at the vineyard in regards to planting, pruning, trellising, weeding etc. etc. I had no choice though, but at the very first chance I jumped back in my truck and headed south to Virginia to see how things were going and to try to get back on track with the irrigation project.
Needlesstosay, that was my mission (once again), to finally get water through the drippers. We had now gotten all the right parts in, and we were ready to go through all the glueing to get them in place and hooked up. I was somewhat confused at how the main plumbing lines were configured around the filter tanks and had to touch base with Scott Wright who consulted on the job. He "straightened me out" so to speak. All the quarter turns were mounted backwards, so the handles were't doing what we thought they were telling us was happening (hey, not me !).
The time had finally come to turn on the pumps. We were like nervous fathers waiting for the nurse to tell us whether it was a boy or a girl. I sent Jerry down to the vineyard, and via cellphone we went through the countdown as I was ready to toggle the power to the 2 pumps.
When you first flip a switch you are never really sure what the first noise will sound like. Will it be a low quiet hum or will it seem like nails rattling in a pail ? The first sound was a clunk, and then a churning as it pulled the water up from the creek into the filter tanks. Was it time to turn on the booster pump ? There were no instructions for this, but I had put several pressure gauges in the system so I observed these as they signaled the flow of the water down the lines. Pressure had built so much at the booster pump that the gauge maxed out......there's something that needed to be changed......so that told me to kick that pump into action.
I told Jerry that here we go, and flipped the switch to the booster. How much time to get water down the quarter mile of pipe ? The answer.....less than a minute.
"Jerry, let me know when you see drips."
"OK, I'm watching" responded Jerry.
"WE GOT WATER....WE HAVE A GUSHER !!!!!!"
"A gusher ? What do you mean, a gusher ?" I said.
"It's coming out of the ground !"

Not the response I was ready for, but I decided I'd better turn the system off and drive down and figure out what Jerry was talking about. I was eager and timid at the same time. What was I in store for.....was all the work to this point in jeopardy ? My truck raced down the dirt driveway kicking up dust in its wake, and as I turned off the road and towards the row with all the above-ground filtering and regulating assembly, I saw immediately what he was talking about. There was a major leak at that spot, and in less than a minute's worth of pumping we now had a small lake. The water had shot up through the earth and was shooting water in the air......Old Faithful, vineyard style. Or was it more like the oil that the Beverly Hillbillies saw ?
Could be worse I guess. If there ever was a question on how you would spot a leak in the field, the answer is easy.....look for the lake. It did prove to us that the system worked, and we did have enough pressure getting down to the lines. But now we kicked into repair mode and started to dig out the mud surrounding the 2" pipe that was 24" down. There was alot of dirt / mud you can imagine. And in order for us to get to the pipe and elevate it to some degree so the water would back off allowing us to re-glue the joint, we had to dig quite a big hole. We were full of adrenalin however, and now our mission was clear with a true sense of victory ahead of us. It was one of the most rewarding repair jobs I've partaken in. A few hours later the fix was completed, and we decided to let the glue rest overnight for an early morning christening.

I didn't crack open the bottle of Champagne yet, but I did put it on ice. After nearly a year had gone by working on this project. Thousands of dollars, not to mention all the man hours that had gone into it. It was my number one project for I don't remember how many trips I went down to Virginia for. It was now time.

One of the things we did was place a half dozen buckets throughout the vineyard to check on the dripper flow. One of Ed's concerns was that the far end of the vineyard wouldn't get any water after the water passed all the outlets upstream. Interesting question, and we were ready to see if it turned out to be valid. With pails in place, I once again flipped the switches. First the creek pump, and a minute or so later the booster pump. There was now a familiar hum to the sound of the pumps, with initial gurgling of air in the water lines purging itself out to a nice constant flow. Jerry was down at the vineyard and when he saw water coming out of the drippers located above each plant he called and said it was "a pretty thing". I had to go see for myself, and as I slowly drove down the driveway I reflected on all the work that went into this project, which would be just one of many to come.

It was "a pretty thing". Each of the drippers letting out a slow sream of water, theoretically above each plant. I had thought we had installed drippers rated for 1 gallon an hour. Our test showed they were 1/2 gallon per hour drippers, which was fine as long as we knew. That allowed us to just time how long the pumps would stay on. Ed's concern for the most part was resolved. The most distant drippers were operating similar to those closest to the input line. It is amazing how accurate these little tiny plastic drippers are.....the test drippers all operated within a couple of ounces of the measured gallon mark. Not too shabby.

My next step was to come up with a daily chart for Jerry to fill in. He had to monitor the rain and factor that in with his daily pumping schedule. I came up with a ratio of inches of rain equating to gallons of watering. It was based on guesstimated rootgrowth after one year which for lack of any other direction made sense as we were trying to get 6 gallons of water to each grapevine per year. Next year it would take fewer inches of rain since their root structure would reach out farther.

It was now time to make new priorities, and pruning easily became the top one. Though I jumped into this now massive project, I really didn't get too far before my week once again expired. As Jerry was pruning and Ken was working on special projects, Jerry was doing the weeding as he went along and progress went way slower than I envisioned. Ken helped on some of the weeding to accelerate the pruning, but it seemed like the weeds were growing as fast as he was weeding right behind him.

Don't let up. Don't give in. I knew the weeds had a winning streak going but I wasn't going to give up. They "took out" Ed. There had to be a solution to this problem. I just had to do more reading and find out what everyone else does.....and there was the pruning that needed to get done.....the sap was running and new growth was appearing.

CHANGING OF THE GUARD

It was now May when I finally returned to the vineyard. Ed had sent me a disturbing text message a couple of weeks earlier that said to find someone else to take over the vineyard responsibilities. Ed was always a straight shooter with me so there was no question that he meant it. What was the straw that broke Ed's back I'm not really sure. I think it was a combination of things.....Spring was in the air and for a retired fireman maybe he wanted to get in some fishing. He saw the weeds popping up again and we really didn't find a successful plan of attack yet to keep them in order. Ed had a loving interest in all the grapes that he worked so hard to keep alive, and to now fighting more weeds must have felt like a losing battle. Also the vines were growing in all sorts of directions and they needed major pruning in 2009. We had left them alone the previous year so we needed to spend some real time in training them. Because the vines were still small, most of the pruning was close to the ground; this in itself required alot of knee bending and hip turning, both of which would have affected Ed's "war" injuries. And then the irrigation system still needed tweaking.....the parts we were sent to tie the secondary line in with each of the rows didn't work, and we needed to order different ones. I'm sure Ed saw it as a never-ending project.

So I went down to Virginia and started to do some tilling to help out on the weed problem, leaving only the weeds left directly under the wire for another method to conquer. When Ed showed up on that Monday he proceeded to use a Stihl tiller to reach in these tough spots, but by this time they were already 12" tall and easily bound up the tines. An hour of this under his belt pursuaded him to once again bring up his notice to depart, which I having no real say in the manner graciously accepted. Prior to this I had put a classified ad in 2 local weeklys, and I was going to be interviewing possible candidates in the next day or two in hopes of finding another Ed.....someone who could truly take care of the grapes in my absence.

Farm work is hard. It demands your full attention, from sun up to sun down, maybe up to 7 days a week. Some jobs can't be done when it's raining, while others can't be done when it's windy. Being too hot initiates certain action (or inaction), too cold forces priorities to change. And as I said in a previous blog, grapes need your full attention.

On the one hand with unemployment so high you would think I would have received alot of candidates to apply for the job. On the other hand the locals know how hard farm work is, or maybe there was some hesitation on being able to learn what was required in a vineyard. There is quite abit of bull work, but there also is a very methodical approach to the work that needs be done. All in all I interviewed maybe 8 to 10 people, one of which had vineyard experience who played hardball relative to the wage he wanted. I'm not sure who lost in this case, but we couldn't meet eye to eye on terms so he didn't come to work for me.

I ended up hiring 2 guys, Jerry and Ken. Jerry was to be my primary vineyard person, while Ken was to be a backup but primarily assigned to special projects. We had quite a few little things that needed to be done to achieve the ultimate look, and none of these projects really became priority #1 when I went down there, but they still needed to be done nevertheless.

So towards the end of the week I ended up hiring them, with Jerry receiving one day's training before I had to return up North. Ken received no input from me at all, so I put his start date on the back burner until I could return.

Jerry's main assignment was to prune grapes while I was gone. I'm sure he must have been a bit tentative with only a day's worth of training and no one to refer to when he came across a tangled vine. He also did a little weeding by hand using a cultivator (claw) and took over the mowing responsibility. He had his work cut out for him with 2000 sprawling vines to prune, and knowing he was shy on the pruning I wasn't horribly worried about returning to a bunch of sticks sticking out of the earth where full vines had been. And there was also putting some of the finishing touches on the drip system.....I wasn't sure where Ed had left off so Jerry went around and inspected each vine and dripper to assure they were all in place.

ROME WASN'T BUILT IN A DAY...OR 2

2009 was a year of few setbacks, mostly being progress measured in small steps and renewed optimism. The irrigation project was still front and center as we entered into the early Spring. The electrician had completed his work in the pumphouse, along with wiring everything he could do short of the hooking up of the main line which required the trenching. Ed was as determined as I was to get the system up and running. He still had memories of his watering last year, and he saw the emphasis that had put on getting it all in and I think he just wanted to see it in operation....finally.
We found a rental place in Petersburg that had Ditch Witch trenchers so we rented one for a week's time. I personally didn't have a clue as to how much time was involved in digging all the trenches we had in mind, but a week seemed an adequate amount of time to do the job. Ed picked it up one morning and with it we were off to the races.
First, the trench for the electrical lines. Ed had run one before, so he felt comfortable taking this machine and starting her up. Just aim Ed and he was off. This machine, if you've never seen one in action, resembles a huge chainsaw on wheels. The chain and bar gouging the earth and sending the dirt off to the side with no effort at all. It could do a couple of feet a minute, digging at a depth of 18" to 24". Here we found a use for the now infamous yellow plastic line with all the colored tape markings. Ed needed a guideline to follow, and since you have to walk backward when digging a little guidance to maintain a straight line came in handy. Within a short period of time the first trench was done, whereby I immediately called the electrician and told him we were ready for him to hook-up the complete irrigation system. He would come the next day to finish the job inside of just a few hours.

Now we were ready to go from the pump house down to the vineyard. Line of site , along with the yellow line got us to the driveway, and now we had to sort of follow the road. We made our guiderope 15' from the center of the driveway, where the only real issue was missing a telephone line that was buried near the house. The utilities have what is equivalent to our "Dig Safe" up north, and they had come out on one my previous trips to mark its location. When all you need to do is make a trench, progress seemed to advance rapidly. It is just a matter of grinding it out so to speak, and taking a turn down by the vineyard to make a trench that follows the end of the rows. With the power now hooked up, we could almost feel the excitement in the air as we were getting near to the end. Well, not quite. We still had to assemble all the PVC pipe, where the major run was using 2" diameter pipe. But that was later in the week, and lugging all the pipe to its approximate location needed to be done first.
A mile worth of pipe is alot of pipe. Even though we had only a quarter mile run down to the vineyard, we were putting pipe in for the next 2 or 3 year's worth of expansion. The vineyard was defined as Block 1, and along the way we passed by 3 future blocks that would eventually need irrigation. With that in mind, and the complete manifold already part of the pumphouse planning, it was decided to run the major lines to each of these blocks too. In the trench then we initially ran 4 lines, and as we got to the junction for each block we capped the specific pipes off, locating them on the surface with a identifying marker, and then continued on. Once we got beyond Block 2 which was just "upstream" from Block 1, we just had a single pipe to contend with.
As we approached Block 1, we took our bend and surfaced by the first row nearest the driveway. Here we have a final filtering and pressure regulation for the 41 rows of drip lines. Once tied to this, we dropped back underground and proceeded down the end of the rows, putting in tie-ins for all drip lines. The tie-ins popped above the surface at the end of each row, theoretically being protected from mower damage by the end post lines and anchors once in place.

We had come a long way, but once again my week ran out and I had to return to New England with the job unfinished. There was still more work to be done by Ed in the meantime to get the irrigation system finalized. There were a dozen or so drip lines that had to be installed. And more drippers had to be inserted above some of the plants. Spring was with us also, so Ed's responsibilities of mowing were started up again, and we had gotten our replacement vines in that needed to be planted where the dead ones had been identified. I was gone but eager to get back; we were so close to getting the irrigation system in and the weather was due to get warmer. The vines needed water and I was determined not to have Ed carry it in his truck like last year.

WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE, BUT...

The remainder of 2008 had one major theme....getting water to the vineyard. Ed was spending hours lugging water from the well to the vines via the 55 gallon drum method. Surry County was in its 2nd year in a row of drought conditions and getting water to help the vines survive was paramount.
The rest of his time was mowing, or doing all the little things to help the cause. There was little time for weeding, though he squeezed some time in for drilling those wire holes we now needed to hold the drip system piping.
Every trip I took had irrigation as the priority, so, recognizing it might take me twice as long to figure out how to do it, Glenn Slade made a recommendation whom I contacted to help jump start this project. Scott Wright was a retired Va.Tech guy who was an expert in irrigation systems. Though he spent most of his consulting efforts on golf courses and new developments, he took on the challenge of a vineyard. With my significant weakness in Fluid Dynamics in college, he was able to quickly calculate the size pumps I needed to pull water up hill from our source, get it through all the filter systems that we had lined up, and then shoot down the driveway over a quarter mile to get to the end of the rows, taking into consideration the pressure loss over that distance.

It was more than just a tinker toy set to assemble. We needed to pour concrete to make 2 pilings to support the first in line self-priming pump (there is a real play on words) near the creek, make our equivalent of an aqueduct to get the water up 20' or 30' of hill , get a shed built to hold all the equipment, design a manifold system for the first block and allow for all the subsequent expansions, not to mention getting it all wired up with 220v and run all the pipe.

We now recognized that we had alot of work to be done, and it wasn't going to be done overnight. Ed dedicated his time to drilling the holes and running the wire, and when that was done he stretched out the drip lines and installed all the drippers ( 1/2 gallon per hour)......one for each plant. This took him into the Spring of 2009. As for me, I spent all my time on the forward end. Figuring out where to put the pilings and getting them ready for the concrete, making the small design changes I wanted on the shed, which Amish Sheds out of Petersburg was able to do in a very skilled timely manner, and then after it was delivered (dropped in place on a dime I might add), I assembled the irrigation system just as Scott had designed it. With a few twists and turns, a missing part here, an additional part needed there due to extra bends in the flow or my particular required quirks, I got it finally together in mid-Winter. It was time to get an electrician in to do the first half of the wiring, which included all the hook-ups, electrical panel in the pump house, and tieing the the creek pump to the main box.

The 2nd half of his wiring had to be held back until we made all the trenches for the pipe. He needed a trench to bury his source line which came 89' across the driveway from the service barn. This was scheduled for April (April seems to be a popular month in a vineyard) when we hoped everything else was all wrapped up so we could dedicate our time to dropping almost a mile's worth of pipe and tieing it into the 41 drip lines that Ed had put together during the winter.

Our vines were now dormant during this winter period. It wasn't particularly cold by northern standards. We had done our inventory in late Fall to see how many vines we needed to replace that didn't make it through that first year......maybe a hundred or so.

We had decided to make 2009 a "recovery" year. We just had too much on our platter to deal with to worry about an expansion. We had to finish the irrigation system or it would have been crazy to hand water all these vines 2 years in a row. We needed to replant some of the vines. We needed to start and maintain a spray schedule. We needed to do some serious pruning to get the vines trained on the trellis. And we had to resolve the weed issue....somehow.

A "TELEPHONE POLE FOREST"

The hydraulic post driver was now fully operational, and on my return trip this was the top project for Ed and me. All the vines had been planted, and during the last couple of weeks Ed had been trucking water back and forth from the house well to keep the new plants watered. With 2000 vines at 1/4 to 1/2 gallon a day, that's alot of trucking. Ed was probably the only one wishing for non-stop rain just so he could skip doing it. It wasn't like he was carrying pails upon pails; he had a 55 gallon drum in the back of his truck that he filled and then used a standard hose with "gravity feed" to water the vines. It was still alot of work even with this. Couple this with the mowing he did weekly, and a certain amount of weeding, and you can see how his time was spent.

When these poles were dropped we only had half a clue as to how we were going to proceed with the job. One of the things we did was break all the bundles, determine which end would go in the ground, and predrill our first wire holes that were to be 18 inches above the ground surface after they were pounded in. It just made sense that it would be easier to drill them lying on the ground instead of in a vertical position. We loaded about 20 poles at a time onto the pickup truck for distribution, using the tape marks on the yellow rope we had also used for plant location. This is when we found another problem. Turns out the rope really did stretch, especially over 450' of row length, and that everytime we moved the rope a bit to plant the vine (or auger the hole), the rope was really pulled out of position, affecting every location down the line. What a mess. Plants were to be 6' on center, poles 24' on center. Putting the first vine 3' from the first pole, then going 6', 6', and another 6', (leaving 3' to the next pole) we would be giving each vine 3' in each direction for trellis training and growth. Our actual measurements were close at best, and putting some plants literally on top of a true pole location at their worst. It bothered me (and still does) to no end how 2 educated guys couldn't get a simple pole / plant layout to work in a simple grid pattern. We did the best we could though, compromising in some areas and moving vines in others. We decided future layouts would use a steel cable only, and discard this rope idea.

This problem, though accentuated by this rope idea, was really due to not getting the poles in the ground first. Pole pounding is a long tedious process, and we wouldn't have been so inclined to use the yellow rope if we only needed to be true on center , which we used a surveyor's transit for, and be 24' apart, easily measured by the cable or a long tape measure. Once the poles are in, laying out the plants would have been easy.

There are 2 sizes of poles. The 10' long end posts, that are 5" - 6" diameter, that go 3' into the ground, and the smaller much easier to handle 3"-4" line posts, that are 8' long and go in the ground only 2'. Though the hydraulic driver was able to handle the end posts, it did take seemingly forever to drive them in. Remember, the posts have blunt ends and had to go in 3'. Driving straight down, with all the earthly resistance , is a tough job even using hydraulics. It maybe took 15 minutes to pound one in, and we had 82 of these to do ! We resolved the time issue by using a post hole digger to start the poles, digging down maybe half the required depth and letting the driver do the rest. It cut our time in half, thank heavens. And you couldn't even get these to vibrate once they were in. Line posts comparitively, were a snap. Their biggest issue was because they were smaller, if they hit a rock or a hard spot they would go in crooked. Though we were really aware of this, Ed ended up digging out maybe 20 of them to straighten them . The vineyard was now easily identifiable when someone drove by on State Route 10. There were nearly 500 poles in the ground, dwarfing the vines they would someday support.

As you can see, it took some time to do this part of the job. Oh, and those pre-drilled holes ? We couldn't see them after we brought the poles out and put them in position, and the poles sometimes twisted when they were put in, which would have twisted the wires had we used them. We also changed our minds sometimes on which end of the pole should go in first. Enough of that. We gave up and just decided to ignore the hole locations and to drill them later. When we finally got to this, we set up a portable generator on the back of the truck and used a drill with a level on its face to keep it aligned, and placed the bit on a jig that located the hole exactly 18" above the ground. It was much easier than we would have guessed, and alot more accurate.

When we finished with the hole drilling, it was now time to run the lowest wires. Bamboo stakes were used to support the vertical growth of the vines, but the wires were needed to run the black flexible PVC pipe needed in the drip system. But now was the time for chasing the latest problem, and strange as it may seem getting water to the plants efficiently had to take the back burner. We were getting eaten alive by Japanese beetles, which came out in droves on June 1st. And with the hot humid days before us, weeds as well as airborn fungi & mold became our primary concerns. I raced out to our local AgriSupply (local is 50 miles away) and picked up a backpack sprayer. We only had 2000 vines, and none of them were above knee high yet. I felt it would be able to do the job. Wrong again. A backback sprayer only held about 5 gallons, which didn't get us very far. The very next day I raced out once again to pick-up a 55 gallon ATV-sized sprayer which I put in the back in my truck, locked and loaded to spray the vineyard.

The good news ? 55 gallons was enough to do the entire vineyard, riding along down each row in my truck, using a hand wand to direct my spray on each vine. The bad news ? Though the rows were supposed to be 9' on center, they weren't, and I got my truck wedged in-between 2 endposts, bringing my nice shiny truck to an end. There was no debate on which was the immovable object. The truck now has "personality" with what I call "story lines" on its right side showing that this is no longer a highway truck, it is now a working farm truck. Needlesstosay, when Ed saw what I did to my truck, proclaimed I would get in a boatload of trouble with the Mrs., and that he wasn't going to subject his nice shiny F150 truck to row driving. Once again, Weeds 2 - Opposition 0.

IT DOESN"T GET ANY EASIER...

No, it really doesn't. If you think about getting into farming because it has sort of a richness to it, getting oneself integral with the earth, first remove the romance and supplement it with long days, backbreaking work, and never-ending tasks. Now figure that mother nature is going to test your stamina as well as conviction and that is more like what you're in for with starting a vineyard.

Unlike large scale commercial farming, this is truly hands on. Every vine will get looked at and touched numerous times during the growing season, and then a couple more times when they are dormant. Unlike a field of soy that is planted, maybe sprayed a few times, then mechanically harvested, the vines will demand your time, all the time. No sooner do you finish going through the vineyard are you then called back to the beginning to start it all over again. Enough of a warning as 2008 begins.

This is the official first year. We prepped the land for all that that was worth. We fertilized and lymed. To some degree we put in a ground cover that can without a doubt be confused with a blanket of weeds. Now was the time to officially become a vineyard. We had ordered about 2000 grapevines from Double A Vineyards out of New York State, with an April delivery.

For all this to get a jump start, and recognizing that I still had "a real job", I hired a retired fireman by the name of Ed, "Big Ed". Picture combining Santa Claus with the fried chicken Colonial, and add 12" to his height. This guy was huge. He had soouthern sensibility and was able to speak his mind in a well thought out way, without stepping on your toes. He was not afraid to get right into the thick of things and provide the know how and where-with-all that was required to get the job done.

Our "plan" was to till our rows and set in all the posts before the plants arrived. Through experimentation with a 3-point auger on the back of the tractor trying to set fence posts in the prior year, I had decided that the soil, which was a sandy loam, didn't have enough structure, moistness, and clay to hold the fence firm after a year. The very best alternative was purchasing a hydraulic post driver that hooked up once again to the back of the tractor, that could drive a 10' blunt end post up to 3' in the ground. This was another multi-thousand dollar piece of equipment that was not in the original capital goods plan.

Now one would think tilling a row 42 times would be an easy task. I just took my large 5' wide tiller that I had used last year to prep the 3 acres, and removed tines to give me 24" of till width. Now the engineer in me decided the best way to maintain a straight line was to build a sight that mounted on the hood of the tractor, much like a sight for a rifle. Keep the 2 pins lined up, aiming for a spot at the end of the row, and presto, a straight line.

I put the New Holland in the lowest, slowest gear I could, and started her up. I held that line as best I could, bumps and all, and 10 minutes later I finished the row, ready to start another. Once again I lined up my sights, focused on the target at the end of the row, and began.
When it was time for me to analyze my work, I got off the tractor and eye-balled my lines. What a let down it was. I had made the most beautiful set of parallel curves one could make. Turns out the tractor tilted when it got to gradual changes in slope, and without warning it just tilled followed the path it was aimed at, with the sights ever so slightly tilting in unison. It was a lost cause and another failed experiment. I found it was actually straighter to just aim visually with the endpoint and accept whatever variance there was in the tilled row.

Now we were ready for the posts. We tried to mount the hydraulic driver on the back of the tractor, only to find we needed a chain hoist to rig it up the first time. The machine weighed a ton, and it was impossible to get it in position without help. Surry Equipment became involved, even though the driver was purchased over the internet (hey, I saved $600). They helped to get it mounted, and then when the main cylinder sprung a huge leak and needed to be replaced, they were able to fix it and get me back in the fields. Problem was, the place I purchased the driver from sent us the parts (it was under warranty), though I struggled to get the right parts in and when it was all said and done, they wouldn't cover the labor cost that Surry Equipment put in to getting it to operate right (there went the savings). It is a great machine, but it goes back to my trying to save a little by not buying locally. In my defense I didn't know Surry Equipment carried anything like a hydraulic post driver until I had them look at it after the fact.

All of the juggling of replacement parts for the driver took nearly 3 weeks, and needlesstosay, that was long after the grapevines arrived. We had no visual clues on exactly where to plant these creatures, excepting for the tilled rows which were already labeled as no where near straight. Here came my next engineering brainstorm, a "prestretched" length of marine polypro rope, where we marked every 6' with a piece of colored electrical tape. My father, who came to the farm to watch this adventure unfold, helped me with this huge 500' spool of bright yellow cord putting on the colored tape. Green for the plant, and black for the posts. Plants were 6' on center, poles 24' on center.

The grapevines arrived right on time. We purchased about equal quantities of Seyval Blanc, Cabernet Franc, Viognier, and Norton. Heading out to Row 1 we decided to tackle the Seyval Blancs first. We laid out the yellow cord the full length of the row, about 450', pulling tight and whipping it to move it where we wanted it to go. We then tried to use a small auger on the end of an electric drill to make our holes. That didn't work; the auger got clogged too easily and really didn't give us the diameter hole we needed to plant the vine. Then Ed grabbed a post hole digger, which worked fine but after a few holes we multiplied our efforts by 2000 and decided someone would be carrying us away on a stretcher were we to keep using this method. I then went to Home Depot and rented a gasoline powered auger. To put this on the back of a tractor, or a truck, and drag it around a vineyard trying to center the bit over the correct spot was downright slow. Ed and I pushed and pulled the auger around the vineyard, up one row and then down the next. It took 3 days to do 2000 holes, but we did it. Behind us Diane and my father planted the vines, and when we were done we jumped in to move the project along. It finally got done, and because none of the irrigation lines were in, the vines had to be hand watered to keep them alive. I applaud Ed for doing this, because without his help they would have surely died with Surry County going through its 2nd drought season in so many years. I had to go back to New England after this, and my return trip would be timed with the post driver finally able to be utilized. Even with the posts in, there was still alot of work that needed to be done......

2007 - GRASS vs. WEEDS: WEEDS WON

Each year tends to take on a personality of its own. There is always something to do in a vineyard, whether it is a new one or an established one. There are only so many man hours available, and as priorities change they jolt the overall plan. Certainly everything needs to be eventually done, but some things just seem to push their way up in front of all the others.

Just as 2006 was the year we bought the farm, initiating the steps required to fulfill the big dream, 2007 was the year for planning to make sure we were doing everything "right". The demands for the land seemed limited in this Year 1, so we were confident that we could do the small amount of ground prep. that was required and layout the vineyard in a very logical and methodical way.

For anyone who has purchased their first house, you must remember the days when you have this project to do and that project to do. And everytime you went into a hardware store there was another tool you needed to buy. At first it may have been simple things like shovels, hammers, screwdrivers, or saws. As honey do lists got longer, maybe a hand power saw or a table saw was required to "properly" keep a true edge and complete the job in a professional a manner. Hand tools range from $10 to $40, and when you start getting up into the bench tools and equipment the prices for these "must haves" jump up to $299.95. Now take this concept and transfer it over to a farm. Starter tools or equipment cost a minimum of $400, but after getting the few you need at this price the new level of pain quickly jumps to $700 to $1000. This level is also quickly exhausted and the new level is $4000 to $6000. Putting aside the required purchase of a $13,000 heavy duty farm tractor, what we're talking here is real money.

All I wanted to do in 2007 was plant grass. We have 32 acres of land, of which we figured 25 could be farmed. Our game plan was to convert it to vineyard about 3 acres at a time. With all the costs involved in this conversion, including posts, wire, irrigation, not to mention all the grapevines and labor associated with it all, we figured 3 acres was all we could handle. The balance of the land that we weren't converting would be leased for the farming of corn, cotton, peanuts, or soy.....the typical crops rotated through the lands down there in Virginia.

What is there to growing grass ? It started with doing our homework regarding ground cover in vineyards. There is a fair amount of information on the web regarding this, but like all information you obtain this way it ranged to "why bother ?"........the rows were primarily bare dirt in Napa, to just letting the natural weeds do the job, to having a proper ratio of ryes, fescues, and clover We opted for the blend and took significant pains in trying to develop the correct mix that we were going to use. With this mix formula we went to a Johnson's grain store right in Surry to place our order, months in advance of our need. Steve Johnson became our first "go to" guy in setting up our vineyard. We also got a soil test, which led us to having Steve make an application of lyme and later fertilizer to bring all the readings of to par.

Steve took our order for seed, gave me a price, and recorded our need date, leaving me now to go to Surry Equipment to get what was needed to cut this new bed of grass that was going to come up in that Spring. Dave Berryman was the inside sales guy who helped us here. What was great about Dave is that he listens, puts his advice forward whether it is in agreement or not with my original thought process, and is willing to provide never-ending help to get us what we need. He realized I was a novice at all this without reminding me of what little I knew.

Word to the wise.........if you are going to make a major investment in a machine, especially one critical to your operation, like a tractor, stay local. Sure you can price shop to make sure you're not getting hosed, but nothing beats calling your local provider to fix a problem, immediately if need be. That sense of security is worth the few extra bucks you might spend, if you do have to spend extra at all. Most of these guys will treat you very fair because they want all your business, not just what little they win via the cheapest bid.

I've mentioned the tractor, of which I bought a shiny new New Holland 30 hp. with PTO / 3-pt. capability. This is a bare necessity. But to ready the earth you need sometning like a tiller, and I bought one that is 5' wide. Makes the one you rent down at Home Depot or Taylor Rental look like kid stuff. I could do my garden at home in 5 minutes with this baby ! And then you need a spreader of sorts, and of course it needs to be adaptable to the 3-pt. system, and then finally you need a finish mower. Farm equipmentt is not cheap, but in its defense it is the most solid equipment you can buy. Simple in design but solid in construction, it is heavier than lead and is meant to handle alot of abuse. That being said, it does need a minimum of care and if you can shelter it after use it'll last a lifetime. At least that's how I justified all this capital expense for the first 3 acres.

When the time came for me to pick up the grass seed, it wasn't ready. Also, the mix I wanted wasn't available either. My brain was ready to burst. Here I was traveling 12 hours to get to the farm only to find out that the best laid plans hadn't been laid at all. The seed wouldn't be available for a couple more weeks, and I couldn't make the trip back down to Virginia to spread the seed in that time slot. I had to hire a guy down in the area to spread the seed. Though the price I paid may have been fair, it still was a tough nut to swallow not wanting to delegate the task from the beginning. I felt my first chance to start the process had been taken away from me, but I had to accept it and move on.

Weeks went by and Steve got the seed to the contractor. Following that I was like the father of a newborn. I would call Steve and ask him if it had sprouted yet, and over the coming weeks he gave me the play by play. He drove by the farm regularly and took a quick look as he passed. Route 10 however is maybe 15' below land level, so his grass reports were from a distance and based on quick visuals. His reports were positive though and with that I settled into a position of confidence that we were back on track. I scheduled my next trip down a month after the seed went in with the intention of mowing the 3 acres with my new toys.

Weeks went by. I was getting edgy. I was eager to get down and start the physical part of farm work. When I arrived I felt the same as Jack felt when he saw the beanstalk. The grass was waist high ! I knew the land was fertile, and things grew down here like crazy, but I never could imagine the growth I saw. After a nights rest to recover from the long drive, I immediately got the tractor and mower ready for the cutting that needed to be done.

It took most of the morning to cut through the large stems. White powder covered the blue hood of the New Holland. All the stalks looked chewed up instead of showing a nice clean cut. I swear some of them were big enough to be used for lumber, but the tractor and mower survived the ordeal.

My major thought was that I can't wait 4 or 5 more weeks for my next mowing, I had to do it sooner. I scheduled my next trip for 3 weeks away. And three weeks went by very fast only to have me find once again grass that was 3 to 4 feet high. I tried identifying the grasses, and though I knew what rye was, and what clover looked like, I had no clue what fescue (2 types) looked like so I just identified them as such. Foolish me.

Glenn Slade is the local Virginia Tech. Co-Op agent for the area. He was the first person I had talked to to try to understand this farming jazz and what the county could offer in regards to advice. By his own admission he knew very little about grape growing. Whenever a farmer had an issue with one of the big 4 crops he is able to get the answers needed. I went in after one of the mowings and just talked to Glenn about my observations, and out of simple curiosity he decided to come out to the farm and see what was happening. What it did was confirm how much of a city boy I was.

Glenn is an optimistic guide of guy in a real world kind of way. He is himself a farmer of many decades along with holding the Co-op Agent job. He came out and in his matter of fact kind of way he was able to identify every kind of weed I had growing in my fields. Weeds ? I asked him to identify the fescue for me and with some hard searching he was actually able to find small clumps of it here and there. The 3 foot grass was really marestail and a couple of other potent weeds. You see, down In Virginia you don't plant grass seed in late Spring. It only gets burned out and the weeds dominate the landscape. It wouldn't be so bad but later after the grass lost the war several people who were well aware of the goings on could have told me that the seed wasn't going to take.

I guess it is what it is........locals don't want to butt into someone else's business unless they are asked to, especially if it is to a new guy on the block who is planting grapes for the first time in that county since Jamestown was founded.

Recognizing that sometimes you get dealt a bad hand, I decided to overseed in the Fall, preferably in October. Up north we wouldn't think of planting that late, but in Virginia there is still enough time to establish the seed. And it is when the weeds are dormant and won't conflict with the growing grass. Our first big lesson learned.....and not to be our last.

In October one has to think about the following year. You see, with vitus vinifera grapevines they have to be grafted with American rootstock, so early ordering is a must to assure timely delivery. I chose "Tax Day"....April 15th, for our first 2000 grapevines to be delivered. I'm not sure how appropriate that date was, I just knew it was one I wouldn't forget.

DO WE OWN THE LAND OR DOES THE LAND OWN US ?

Diane and I were now the proud owners of a soon- to- be vineyard. Well, I guess it isn't technically a vineyard until we plant our first vines, but that will come in ample time.

Shortly after the long distance closing we made it down to Virginia to see what we had purchased.We decided to spend a long weekend down there, getting the keys from Mike, and opening and closing all the doors and drawers to get a basis point on what we needed to do over the coming months before we could use it as our working retreat from our professional lives up north.

What we found was a fairly well built house (fortunately), though the interior design was somewhat confusing and the last time the interior was updated must have been back when the Brady Bunch was popular. We could see where the previous owner must have taken the advice of the realtor and completely painted the interior.....and I mean completely painted the interior. Ceilings, walls, moldings, door, cabinets.....all one color, a sort of beige. Look at it this way, it made for a great basecoat for our redecoration plans !

There were little things that bugged us.....toilets all seemed to have small leaks in the flappers, one of the dual ovens didn't work, the well pump seemed to be set wrong, and there was a leak near the hot water heater. Oh, and there were the field mice that decided winter was coming and the house provided an opportunity to stay under shelter. All of this was irritating but not too unexpected moving into an old dwelling on a farm. But then came October.......5 inches of rain inside of 24 hours washed out our driveway ! And I mean washed out. A Sherman Tank would have had difficulty getting up the driveway. The way we heard about it was from our oil man. We had ordered a delivery of heating oil to top off our tank but when he drove into the property he was unable to traverse the washout. They called with the bad news, and $4500 later we had to bring in a crew to regrade the driveway and put in a gravel base which had been swept away. Diane and I went down to the vineyard to watch them do the grading, and along with this issue Diane discovered that the furnace didn't work either ! The good news was that the local Surry Hardware store was also an all-purpose operation that had someone on staff that fixed these kind of things, and within a very quick timeframe they got it working properly.

Welcome to the neighborhood !

All we could do was grin and bare it, and start planning for the upcoming year of land prep. and planning, and getting the house so that it was livable. Pray for no more catastrophies. A vineyard is an expensive enough venture without these unknowns creeping in.

Virginia Real Estate 101

The vineyard currently is in its 2nd full year of operation, and following this little excerpt the stories will be more attuned to setting up the vineyard and getting the real process going. But to complete the story......

As I mentioned Mike Lyttle was a key player when it came to finding the "ideal site". He knew what we were looking for, and he also knew vineyard land requirements, which were not necessarily the same. You see, one can read all they can and talk to as many people as time allows, but the fact is that theory and actuality seldom cross paths. Sure, we wanted a south facing slope. Sure, we needed a water source for both irrigation and to make a microclimate. We wanted soil that drained well and was somewhat fertile, and a group of neighbors that would be both helpful and open-minded to what we wanted to do. And of course we wanted to fit in, a couple of Yankees coming down into Southern territory. All this is well and good, but the fact of the matter is that half of those starting a vineyard inherited their land while the other half just had to grab the best piece of land available and make the best of it.

I have seen PBS specials showing grapes growing basically out of a stone covered land with pebbles as big as golf balls, and I have read how there are vineyards in every state of the union. So, even though theory is great, it comes down to finding the best piece of land possible, combined with the right cost, and all with the right timing.

Diane and I had a target for first crush, and knowing this we backed into our start date, and then further into our "time to start looking" kick-off. In this venture there is nothing available that would lead to a quick reward, unless of course money is no object and someone could purchase a running vineyard / winery. There are many out there. It was money we didn't have though (more on that later) and besides, I already defined what makes me happy and the major item is by making something from nothing, which raw land to vineyard to winery certainly meets that bill.

Mike ended up taking a map and making a circle on it. Periodically he would jump in his car and drive this loop, looking for Real Estate signs along the way that might show land for sale. He did this for several weeks, maybe a couple of months, when he finally came across a decent sized piece of land that was undeveloped, over on the Surry side. It was 85 acres with a couple of small out buildings. Perfect land, 5 to 10 minutes from the ferry with good road access.
Typical of how things seemed to go when searching for land 600 miles away from home, Mike sent us pictures and as much legal info. that he could dig up. He highly recommended the land, and from northern standards (that's all we had to go by) it seemed reasonably priced. One catch though, they didn't want any title search or surveying of the land to confirm what they were selling ! Huh ! As good as it sounded they were unwilling to allow the time needed to do a full due diligence. The deal was like that of 2 buddies shaking hands and taking each others word for it. Hardly how we handled real estate in New England. Unfortuantely we had to let it go. Too much to risk on a wing and a prayer. I did see the land at a later date though and it was pretty. Some local developer bought it and apparently is trying to solicit potential buyers for smaller parcels.

It wasn't long afterwards that Mike found another property, also in Surry. Camera phone pictures, as well as internet photos started coming in rapid fire. He had driven around the property with had one major driveway, a ranch style home with a service barn, right on State Route 10, all situated on 32 acres plus or minus. Everything down there is "plus or minus". He dug up what existed of a plot plan and more with his fair share of difficult conversations with the seller's realtor, and once again strongly suggested we put a bid on it if we wanted it.

Real estate, especially that with value or location, doesn't come up often in Surry or in that neck of the woods. We were told that generally a family has to have some financial difficulty to spin off a piece of land and not leave it to other family members, though that wasn't the particular case here. We are talking about land and homes that have been in the family for generations and generations. If it is a nice piece of land, locals will grab it before the sign is put in the ground out by the road. Good real estate is on the market for only days, if it ever gets that far. It was a pace I wasn't used to in New England (who says the south moves at a slower pace ?). We were going on pure faith, site unseen except for Mike's pictures and input. We put an opening bid on the property with what we felt were normal conditions and contingencies, and this is when the fireworks began.

I have purchased alot of real estate in my days. Personal residences as well as commercial property for my business. After a while you begin to see the pattern. All the legalities, the surveys, the financial approvals. There is a way of doing things, and it pretty much has to follow a certain order to be done correctly and efficiently. But the realtor (or is it Virginia'a way of doing things ?) would have none of it.

I suggested getting a survey to be taken, at my expense. The map we were given had borders that were defined by colored rocks, fallen trees, sites in the distance, you name it. With the survey I suggested that if it came out more than the plus or minus, I'd pay a prorated increase, and that if it came out under I would pay less. They would have nothing to do with it......the price was set, not negotiable for even the most valid reasons. Where have I heard that before ? And then to make it contingent based on financing, even with a time constraint, they didn't care. This was the price, they expected a buyer to have a trunk of cash, and that was that. The realtor even tried to tell me that the acreage was probably more because of the rolling hill in the back providing more square footage of workable land. Trust me , it gets worse but I'll stop here. We had to rush and get financial approvals on land that wasn't even a signed deal (who does this kind of thing ?).

In any event, we finally made an offer. Diane and I hadn't seen or walked the property at all. And they approved. Two weeks later we made it down to Surry to see what we got ourself into, including driving up the driveway and turning around and driving away. Once the seller's realtor found out we did this she called Mike and yelled at him for our "trespassing" ! You figure. And then when we needed one more day to get the banks and signatures to sign off on the closing, she refused saying the seller was going to Florida the next day and couldn't move the closing (sorry, we were told by neighbors that he never left for Florida). We used Federal Express to shuffle all the paperwork, and for the first time I didn't get to go to my own closing due to this strict unilateral deadline.

I had a strange combination of feelings. Frustration at how complicated the purchase and closing had become. Grateful that Mike made some really good calls on the real estate, and the extra effort he put in dealing with the seller's realtor. Bewildered at how this level of legal transaction can be treated so casually. Miffed at how we were basically introduced to southern hospitality with such a negative attitude. And wonder....wondering what we got ourselves into purchasing land, a house unseen with the next 40 years of our future being started on a once again on a wing and a prayer.

But the fun, I mean work, had just begun.......

THE END OF THE ROAD

By now we were fairly worn out. Looking at the east coast for prime farming land seemed like an act of despiration....a lost cause. After all, think of New England having any affordable farm land near the shore....I can't.

But we were determined to give this idea a try, so we went about mapping out the area and setting a target for our next trip down to Virginia to do exploring. We felt almost like Lewis and Clark, except we were going to visit Williamsburg as our vacationing excuse (see a theme here ?).

Luck have it, I was contacted by a real estate agent up here in Massachusetts who was putting together potential clients who might be selling commercial property, and in an off-handed way I thought I'd throw a teaser at him. Does he know of any real estate agents in eastern Virginia, with vineyard experience, that he could put us in contact with ? He didn't flinch and said he'd get back to me. Sure, I wasn't waiting for that call soon, but was I surprized when he called the next day and gave me a name of an agent located right in Williamsburg whom he said could help me.

With some cynicism I called up Mike Lyttle at Prudential and had a short talk with him, only to find out that his professional career started in Napa Valley, and that he had taken part in setting up several vineyards. Was I surprized ! He actually talked the talk, and walked the walk. I immediately called Diane and the 2 of us scheduled a trip south to talk to Mike about our needs and dreams.

We spent over an hour with Mike in his office going over what we theoretically felt were the requirements of our land and vineyard, and Mike constructively put his 2 cents in. He didn't have any parcels for us to look at just then, and I have found this to be normal procedure when we talk to people. No one seems to take us seriously at first. They let us go through the motions some more before they realize we are committed to the project. That was the case here too but what Mike did was map out a driving tour of the area so that when he did locate something that we would have a good idea as to where he was directing our attention. And that's when he sent us into "no man's land". You see, Williamsburg is a solid tourist destination, with its historical significance, Busch Gardens, and home of William & Mary College. Surrounded by old plantations and having a close proximity to Newport News and Virginia Beach, it is a major draw in the area. But Mike gave us a spot to look at that seemed worlds away. Just south of Williamsburg is Jamestown, and south of Jamestown is the James River. And south of that is Surry County, a still rural farming community with sparse housing. The only way to get across the river was via ferry, something Diane and I had never done, except for one trip in Europe. Ferry seemed like a real stretch as to what we wanted to do, or had planned. We didn't exactly jump at the idea, though when we started to do our tour we figured we might as well do it, if for no other reason than it being an adventure and that we could tell Mike we tried it and be able to say thanks but no thanks.

The ferry ride was novel. It almost seemed romantic. All in all it takes about 20 minutes to cross the river......it is fairly wide at this point. The ferry is large enough to hold well over 50 cars, so it took the waves well. The surprizing thing about it is that it is free. That's right.....I'll say it again....FREE !! Up where we live in Massachusetts it would be another way to sock the taxpayer.....easily a $5.00 charge. However, down here in Virginia they seem to have a sensible way of looking at things, and periodically they review the bridge vs. ferry debate and up to now figure the ferry is the best option available. Also Surry does not have alot of business for people to work at, and the trip to Williamsburg shouldn't cost an arm and a leg to just get to and from work. Wild idea, huh ?

Diane and I took the trip, and using a mapbook we zigged and zagged around the county to see what a true farming community looked like. Well, it looks like farming land, and lots of it. Small houses intermingled with the land, sometimes tucked way in the back by the forest line, but usually right on top of the road for easy access (most likely from the builder's point of view). All the roads seemed to meander, and most had names only the locals would remember due to their being named after civil war battles or families who had been there for generations.

One of the things we did find out though was that Virginia Beach was a mere 45 minutes to our east, as was Norfolk / Newport News. Richmond was 45 minutes or so to our west, and in less than an hour there were 3 major airports. Smithfield was just 15 minutes down the road (think Smithfield Hams) and was a small tourist attraction in itself. Taking into account the ferry ride and the fact that it seems you always had to wait to get on it (it runs a minimum of once an hour and more during rush hour, 24 hours a day) figure another 45 minutes to get into Williamsburg.

Little did we know that Mike would find the perfect property right here in Surry....a one horse town (OK, they got their first traffic light in 2008 !), and we would be the proud owners of a vineyard start-up. The fun (I mean work) was almost ready to begin !

THE SEARCH CONTINUES...IN CHARLOTTESVILLE,VA.

Charlottesville seemed like the next logical place for us to explore. Here was a place with all sorts of magnets.....Montecello, University of Virginia, and at the time it was listed as one of the top 5 places to live in America by a major news magazine. It was prime for the tourist traffic we needed to sell our wine, and had just enough rural atmosphere combined with modernistic fare to make it attractive.

As in the previous episode, we put our faith in a local realtor to help guide us in our selection process. We needed someone to help sift through the numerous real estate listings so that when we raced down there we could get right to the business of fine tuning the searches and visiting the best properties with the highest potential.

She was a petit realtor. All piss and vinegar with a non-stop gift of gab, and 3 cell phones in the car ringing all the time. Her reasoning was that she was all over the counties and some phone services had better reception in some areas than others. With my limited experience with providers I can agree with her assessment, though it was annoying to be carrying on a conversation with her while she fielded what seemed to be a never-ending stream of incomings.

There was no doubt that she was successful. If it wasn't for her horses and her farm, her second love had to be running around looking at real estate (which provided her the funds to support the farm). She even had hired a special assistant to field calls, set up appointments, and put together fact pages so she didn't have any paperwork to do herself. A real machine.

Which provides all the background one needs to understand how the process went on. Though it was done in what appeared to be a pure volume approach, it did lead to a couple of serious offers being made which I'll get to in a moment. She took my criteria, basically ignored most of it, and bombed me with 20 to 30 to 50 listings for me to review for each trip that I had planned to make to the Charlottesville area. I must have visited the area 4 or 5 times. My basic response was to review them, all of them, ask enough questions so that I could trim the list down to maybe a half dozen or so (which I thought the criteria I had provided would do), and then schedule a trip down to Charlottesville for a day or two of running around. Pictures are deceiving, as well as the brief descriptions that are in the MLS listings, and more times than not a quick look while passing in a speeding car was all that was needed to rule out a property. It comes down again to a realtor not taking my time seriously by checking into some of these properties first. It's the "let's jam as many properties down their throats" scenario and maybe one of them will grab if for no other reason than it will wear them down and desiring to get something positive for all the effort spent.

But this was no normal expedition. It is one that'll have to be right for the next 40 years, or for that matter work well with our plans and dreams. It is not a nice place that we will live in "close to work and schools" that'll last us maybe a half dozen years and then we move on.

We saw properties that were fully wooded, where it would take thousands of dollars just to clear. We saw land absolutely destroyed by loggers, with old decaying tree stumps clogging the landscape, costing nearly just as much to clean up before we could start. We saw beautiful pieces of property where a square was carved out of the middle for a small property spin-off by the previous owner. We saw once again those infamous power lines going right through the middle of the property with all their right-of-ways. We saw land hidden so far back in the woods that vines would never see the light of day, excepting maybe from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

But we did see 2 properties that were interesting enough to make bids on, and this is where the repeat trips and bidding process began. Usually I would screen a property, and if I got really excited (Diane has a scale she measures my excitement with to decide if she should get involved herself), the 2 of us would go down to Charlottesville together for a 2nd look, and ultimately an offer to be made. Of course these trips resulted in a minny vacations.....going to see where Jefferson spent his time, or a drive through of the UVA campus. Trips included visiting many of the other wineries where we participated in tastings, or going out to eat at the many restaurants that were in the area.

The first property was down in Nelson County, about 30 minutes just south of Charlottesville. It was a nice piece of land....no buildings, rolling hills with a blend of wooded acreage and cleared land being used to raise cattle. It was out in the middle of no where, and unfortunately many of the rural homes that one had to drive by to get to it were not right up on top of the attractive scale (we were concerned about first impressions of visitors, as well as the ease to get there from the city). At this time we had intentions to build a restaurant, and have a B & B , which as time has moved on we have adjusted our way of thinking.

The realtor managed to schedule a meeting with the owner, who apparently lived near Newport News (hours away) working in the ship building trade. It was a property left to him by his father, one the wife never had any real attachments to, so it was his to price and sell "to the highest bidder". And that is what he thought we were. We gave him what we believed was a fair price. He differed. My interpretation of his side of the negotiation was that (a) the area had been cited as a best place to live, and therefore justified a premium, (b) developers had driven up the price of land based on this best place annoitment, (though none of them were interested in land within 10 to 20 miles) (c) it had some timber on the property and it was priced to reflect the additional income stream that we would get from the land, and (d) we were Yankees so because all Yankees are rich he should get a piece of that pie. Hmmmmm, not a great middle ground for buy-sell negotiations. He was unyielding, and there were just enough things that made us uncomfortable that we moved on. Oh well.

And then there was the 2nd property we really liked. Picture a long driveway with gorgeous trees lining each side of it, from entrance to the circa 1800's home at the end. On each side of the driveway there were cleared fields, currently being used for hay to feed 3 Arabian horses back in the stable (that came with the sale I might add). It was a very nice property with only one big problem.....for some reason the owner wouldn't show us the inside of the house !

We did eventually decide to put a bid on the property, but being refused entrance put a big kabosh on this one. I can't understand what they were thinking, and my normally aggressive realtor couldn't figure it out either, though she stated that they had a set price (regardless ?) that they weren't going to move from primarily because they had no initial plans as to what they were going to do once the house was sold. They had a business in an neighboring town, and they needed a certain amount of cash to make the move, whatever that means to a buyer. It was a beautiful spot, but time wasted.

Diane and I were now frustrated beyond belief. We saw the clock ticking, all these wasted trips leading to no where (though we did taste some very good, and not so very good, wines in western Virginia). Every trip that went by got us further away from starting our dream, not to mention the difficulties in timing our vineyard purchase with the sale of other real estate we owned in Massachusetts. We had a buyer up there who was getting itchy for a Close, but whom I kept putting off until we found the right land to purchase. It was a tense time.

But then Diane came up with a despiration hail-Mary suggestion.......why don't we look in eastern Virginia ? You gotta be kidding......inexpensive farm land closer to the ocean and populated areas ? It made no sense, but as I said, out of complete frustration, what was there to lose....

THE SEARCH BEGINS (Really).....

Asheville, North Carolina was our first "port of entry" so to speak. Home of The Biltmore, east of the Great Smokey Mountains. It met our geographical restriction being halfway down the eastern region of the United States. We firmly believed that the tourist trade was going to be our main customer base for our new winery, and at the time we also thought about having a small restaurant and an inn tied in with the vineyard and winery.

The Biltmore had a significant draw for this type of customer, and they had their own winery too which proved to us that it was a viable choice for what we wanted to do. And of course there was our own vacation appeal to go down and check it out.

But before we went I tied into a local real estate agent and explained to him what we wanted to do, i.e. develop a vineyard with all its amenities. Within short course I was deluged with all sorts of properties that "met this criteria", maybe 20 or so. It took some time to thump through them, but I was able to narrow it down to three that appeared to have some potential. I felt this was the right way to go about it, that is getting a local realtor who "knew the area", zip down and spend a few hours to give an initial check, and then decide the next move. In theory this is great, in actuality it became an utter disaster.

I asked my realtor to personally look at the properties and provide feedback, and told him that we would dedicate 4 to 6 hours driving around and looking at the properties. When you are judging distance looking at a AAA road atlas, this seemed a fairly reasonable request.

A few weeks later Diane and I were introduced to the mountains. We arrived as planned, checked into the hotel, contacted the realtor and confirmed our morning's appointment at 9, and settled in for what we thought was a well executed plan. I'm not sure what I pictured the realtor to look like when we met, but what I got was someone who looked like Mr. Brady from the Brady bunch.....a tall guy with a full head of curly hair and black horn rimmed glasses. Sorry, it didn't give me alot of confidence to begin the day. We were soon off to check Property #1 of 3 in his small blue sedan with uncomfortable seats and questionable shocks.

We drove off down the road and he started to look at some hand written directions to the land. This was before GPS became the big thing, and obviously the first time he had come this way. In fact, he hadn't visited any of the properties, and the input we had gotten during previous discussions had apparently been the best foot forward via MLS descriptions. Think "beautiful views of the mountains, clear water stream and pond for swimming and boating, perfect building site, ready access to State routes....." and you can see how I was able to narrow the search to 3 gorgeous sites.

Well, we couldn't find the first property right away. The car was hot, we were basically lost without a clue even though we knew the property was on that road somewhere. After an hour of going back, and forth, and back, and forth our realtor finally stopped at a trailer home overlooking the small back road and knocked on the door to see if THEY knew where the property was. He tried calling the listing agent too, and between the two we were able to find the well-hidden entrance down a ways. It was the starting entrance for some developer's plans for several upscale homes, with a fairly large chunk of land (with what appeared to be a concrete block 2-story barn) off in the corner. Yes, it did have a pond which I'm sure from one direction or another might have been picturesque, though not from where we entered from. The biggest boat for the size may have been a canoe or rowboat. Its farm land was overgrown and over-rated, and after the turmoil to get this far, we were ready to move on. The clock had been ticking faster than our progress; we were already half-way through the allotted time we had set aside, and we had 2 properties more to go, with a realtor who really had no clue where they were. Not good for the experience.

I don't even remember the 2nd piece of property, but the third one made a deep imprint on me.

If anyone knows the Asheville area well, they know of Lake Lure. Maybe 10 or 15 miles away from Asheville proper, it is a vacationer's vacation spot with an attractiveness much like Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. With all the water sports available for your entertainment, a place to go and just have fun, nestled in the surrounding mountains, it is just a nice place to escape.

We may not have taken the fastest way to get there, but we sure took the most direct way. A 2-lane road (hey, at least it was paved !) winding down a steep mountain side, first turning left, mandatory braking, then turning right, more braking, meandering our way down to the base of the steep incline until we reached the bottom. From there we drove just a little ways and found what appeared to be a cul-de-sac in the middle of no where. The car drove in, pausing in front of any visible sign, looking for the proper real estate ForSale sign for us to declare some sort of quiet victory. And there it was, a small driveway going into the piece of land for sale, and at the very end of the short driveway was a 2 story white house that was a handyman's dream (assuming he had nothing else better to do !)

The 3 of us got out of the car with some warped sense of enthusiasm, but like all abandoned properties we used a bit of caution as we approached the house. We gave it a circle, saw the screened in porch on the back, and immediately identified it as uninhabitable until it was given a major overhaul. Windows and doors were broken, junk all around; it gave abandonment a new meaning. We continued our tour, and as in all future real estate reviews Diane and I talked out loud on the positive things we felt about the land (Southern facing slopes are a good thing for a vineyard), and held off saying too much negative until we were alone and could vent.

We learned that to have land in the Asheville area required one leg shorter than the other.....it appeared that you were always on the side of a hill or mountain somewhere....no big pastures anywhere. And we were told U.S.40, the main Interstate in and out of there, was closed several times each winter because it iced over and trucks slid off the road not expecting the sheet of ice suddenly appearing on the occassional freezing night. Not a good sign. With this we also felt that if anyone had a little too much wine during a wine tasting, that we had better have great liability insurance, for they were sure to die in a car crash either going or returning from the winery. It was a tense enough trip being tired and sober, let alone a bit tipsy.

But one of the things you learn on these early reviews is what each of us didn't like, and Diane hated high tension power lines ! Not that I loved them, but what we found in future properties was that there seemed to be a large number of properties for sale with electrical power lines and their liens and right of ways going right down the middle of otherwise nice farming land. It's too bad I guess and I wish I had a solution to this eyesore but I don't. Maybe if I wasn't going to invest heavily in vines, posts, trellising, and wire it wouldn't matter. But since I am, it did.

You would think that was the end of this tour, but the finale was about to unfold. As we went back to the house and started towards the car, I looked at the front door of the house and saw that it had a stapled sign on the front door. What could it be ? I assumed a real estate sign, or maybe even a condemned sign after having taken a walk around the house. However, on closer inspection it turned out to be a posting by the DEA saying that there had been arrests there for drug manufacturing, and that they couldn't guarantee that during their sweeps they got all of the contraband out of there. If this wasn't an incentive to run clear, I don't know what is. Asheville was crossed off the list, and from here we were Charlottesville bound......

SO YOU WANT TO BE A WINEGROWER

I'm beginning this story a few years after its inception so that after you read a dozen or so entries you will be well on your way to understanding the trials and tribulations of taking this (insane) dream of having a vineyard, accompanied by a winery and restaurant, to reality. Hopefully I'll keep it in some form of chronological order, but I suspect that I will regress at times as I remember something seemingly important, or maybe entering specific data to technically support an entry so if you are really serious in following suit you can use the facts instead of dealing with only passing generalities.

I certainly will make at times some brash comments and conclusions, most of which would make a wine scholar's skin crawl, but so be it. You see, even someone who studies everything they need to study to begin a venture like this, and who asks a gazillion questions to all the experts out there , is going to find out that there isn't just one way of doing this. And most likely they are going to have to make a decision, since no one else will, to just get the whole project moving. You can nit-pick to death and never get moving, or just do something and learn from one's findings or mistakes.

IN THE BEGINNING.........

The decision to set up a vineyard and winery (I'm not sure which really came first, but most likely the winery) was way back in 2004. Sure, I tinkered with grapevines in my backyard a good 20 years prior, but I think it took the realization that retirement was in the not too distant future and my wife and I had to come up with a plan .

My wife Diane and I have been married for over 35 years now (that's alot of dog years !) and during this time, after going through numerous job changes and trying to learn what we both enjoyed doing together, we settled on drinking wine as something that made both of us smile just thinking about. We had tried cycling, but knees hurt, then we tried scuba diving, but the thought of all that water above us seemed generally hazardous. We were both qualified to sail 43' vessels, but sailing around the Boston Harbor over and over in a rental became rather boring after awhile.

I took up flying; even went so far as to get my instruments license. But entering another recession with a kid in college put the kabosh on that expensive hobby, not to mention never having a plane available when we needed it.

I took up running marathons, but after a fractured leg mid-way through the Wine Glass Marathon (Corning, N.Y.), building up again to run Boston which I eventually qualified for and ran on one of their hottest marathon days ever, I was pretty much limited from then on to short distances. My legs had been spent. And this kind of exercise didn't appeal to Diane anyway; it is a lonely sport.

All of this eventually led me to doing a financial review. Our kids were both out of college and more or less on their own. We had our house, and my business(think Dustin Hoffman in "The Graduate"), and some funds we had invested in. I came up with a number and with this, my mind spun with ideas on what to do for the 2nd half of our lives.

One of the reasons our marriage has lasted so long is that Diane and I have an unwritten rule in our house. It is the power of veto over whimsy ideas. We both have been "granted" this power, but I have to conclude that I seem to have more whimsy ideas, and hence more vetos, than Diane.

I made a proposal. Sell everything, buy a 40' yacht, and sail around the world for the rest of our lives (after up front boat expenses, it only costs around $15,000 per year to maintain this lifestyle), OR purchase land and start a vineyard, with the idea that a few years later we would build a winery and restaurant next to it. Even in hard times we would always have food and wine......what else do you need ??!!

Diane opted for the winery. She believed eating all that seafood would wear thin after awhile, not to mention having only me and maybe a stupid little dog or cat to talk to for weeks at a time might be a tad grueling. And besides, to find the right land to purchase would take some time, and maybe another great idea might replace it. Also, I was never one for vacations so to go on this land hunt gave us an incentive to pack our bags and travel.

2004 -2005 The Land Search

Our inital search for possible vineyard sites was focused on the mid-Atlantic. There were a few reasons for this. One, we didn't really want to be too close to any relatives. Far enough for a visit, not too close for continual path-crossing. This is probably more my idea, since half of Diane's family lived in the mid-West with the balance in New England in various townships. 2/3 of my family lived near Daytona with 1/3 on Cape Cod. Our kids were also spread apart, and were fairly independent, so no one needed hand holding. For this the mid-Atlantic states seemed like a good compromise. Take this with the fact that no one in my family truly enjoyed the snow and ugly winters , and tie it with the thought of an extended growing season as you traveled South, and the decision seemed a natural. Now it was time to zero in on a spot.

Needlesstosay my resident social chairman had thoughts on our first jaunt, to go to Asheville....