The Other Side of the Dream Story on Living at a Vineyard in Willamette Valley

Last updated on June 18th, 2024 at 02:35 pm

Is your big dream to live in the country, grow grapes, and create wine? Spring has come to Willamette Valley, and my American dream life is now spent physically in the vineyard.

“Whether the weather is cold or whether the weather is hot, we’ll weather the weather, whatever the weather, whether I like it or not.”

This is a literal and figurative mantra of mine.

March is a month that I enjoy learning how to tie down the Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir Vines on the trellis wires in the vineyard. The warmer temperatures and a good dose of spring rain for the new blueberries, trees, and shrubs I love to plant, and OH, the babies, babies, babies born out here in our neck of the woods are treats of life that make my heart positively sing this time of year.

The baby calves, the baby goats, the teensy-weensy lambs all nuzzled up to their mamas make me weak in the knees, I swear, here and now!

Rain or shine, the babies around our “neighborhood” are being birthed, and the sight of these little creatures taking their first breath or wobbly steps does my soul a great, great service.

My little son, daughter, and I caught a glimpse of some of the baby calves, but the rain and wind have kept us inside the minivan this year. We also viewed the lambs that dotted the pastures from binoculars at a distance because the road conditions were too icy for safe navigation.

Harrumph. Not the same.

March was supposed to be the month that I really got to the business of leaping over the winter hurdle of my personal fitness/weight loss goal and running at full speed toward the maintenance portion of my best size and shape, taking my health and physical form to a new frontier and embracing wellness. My plan includes a cardio/toning/strength workout that has been extremely successful for me, which is called landscaping and farming.

The first days of spring were packed with the garage cleaning extravaganza in preparation for the incubator my sweet farmer gal friend is lending us so the children and I could experience hatching our own chicks this year.

For the past three years, my little son, daughter, and I have enjoyed “chick day” at our feed store, where we pre-order and pick up the fuzzy balls of cuteness. But it’s time for something more enriching, and lord knows I love to try new things. A thorough hen house cleaning with fresh straw spreading and creating upper window/ventilation was on the spring cleaning list, right at the top. Our girls are laying like crazy, so I must give them more light and air and a nice environment for roosting and production.

Here’s where my “Living in Wild, Wild, Western Oregon Wine Country” reality show stepped in. It took hold of my dreams and shifted their shape for most of the month.

Snow. Rain. Wind. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

This month was unusually crazy, with riotous weather causing everything from uprooting trees and falling on vehicles, houses, and power lines to flash flooding, severe water damage, and property destruction.

Some of our neighbor’s vineyards, lining the edge of the south-facing slopes, were caught up in mudslides that washed across the gravel road just to the north.

Most impressive to me, and thankfully my ultimate inspiration to get over myself here and carry on, was not the fact of the weather but the sight of the full-time vineyard crew, which consists of a little more than a dozen men and women of varying ages working through it all beginning at 7:00 in the morning and ending at around 4:00 in the afternoon, Monday through Saturday.

Sideways rain stinging and pounding their dark complexions, the unrelenting wind smarting any exposed skin without regard, and snow sometimes landing and sticking on eyelashes are part of the experience of the hard-working team of individuals who are not taking on this grueling vineyard work because they choose to, but because they have to, to make a living and support their families.

Talk about March Madness.

The dormant vines did NOT care about the feathery flakes or pay any plant matter to the icicles that collected on the fruiting wires the whole month, day in and day out. Still, I’ll tell you for sure that even through the work gloves, the finger pain from the grabbing and twisting yet carefully wrapping, vine after vine, row after row, acre after acre, was just one thing the vineyard crew had to come to terms with to do this brutal kind of labor.

It is what they do, and they do it well.

Compared to these seasoned individuals, I did little to nothing in my time pruning a few rows. It was welcomed and hard work for me, certainly. Still, it was my choice to learn this new vinicultural skill and not an employment necessity as it is for these undaunted, highly tolerant, and oh-so-weathered wonders—the vineyard workers.

For the first time ever, I was humbled instead of annoyed by the sight of the bright blue portable toilet, which my little son thinks is ridiculously misnamed “Honey Bucket.”

It moves as the workers do and is currently, yet temporarily, parked 500 yards directly outside my living/dining room window’s vineyard view. While it doesn’t evoke very savory thoughts to dine by, we have other rooms in which to enjoy ourselves, not to mention our two warm, clean, cozy, private, full bathrooms with perfectly working locks to use whenever we need to.

Absolutely, I’ll get to the garage, the gardening, the new baby chicks, and those last ten pounds. Still, before I waste one more second on what I didn’t get to this month because the weather was too harsh for comfort, I will share a heartfelt “Muchas Gracias” to those hard-working, family-loving, no-wasting time, beautiful people who play a crucial part in helping my talented winemaking husband and me craft the well cared for grapes to delicious wine for you to enjoy.

What on earth will I do with the probable April showers that lay ahead? Well, whatever it is, I’ll be ever grateful for my American Dream Grape Life and March on.

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Shellie Croft

Shellie Croft is a winery vineyard owner and worker, a proud mama of two lovely children, an elegant baker and cook, and a writer who loves to write about her special recipes and living her American dream as it unfolds on her farm in the heart of Oregon’s Willamette Valley wine country.