Harvest and the return of the relentless barker

Harvest continues here in the vineyard. We’ve wandered around the vines and taken some photos and talked to the incredible hard-working crew. They probably wonder why this wacky American keeps showing up and taking photos of them working. I admire them working in the heat and handpicking all of these grapes. So daunting. The weather alone would be too much for a lightweight like me. At least the weather has cooled a bit but there are still a lot more grapes to be picked.

This morning I noticed the huge harvester and a tractor with an empty trailer heading past the house. I ran downstairs and asked Bob if he wanted to go for a walk to find it. Off we went following the fresh tracks in the dirt road. It rained a bit overnight so it was very easy to see where they went. We had been on this road (a term I use loosely) before. We couldn’t hear the harvester but the canyon goes down deep there so we persevered.

As if on cue just as Bob said, “Does this take us past the house with THE dog?”, the relentless barker reared his ugly head. Okay, to be clear he is not ugly. But the barking ensued. And he barked. And barked. And barked. And barked. Oh, and followed us as we turned back the direction we came. And barked. And barked.

So, because we could not hear the harvester and therefore had NO idea where it was and due to the relentless barker we headed back toward home. We stopped at a point to look over the canyon and listen. There it was. A distant sound of leaves being shaken. To give you an idea of where the view was and why we couldn’t just see it…it’s down there somewhere.

 

Until today they were only picking the white grapes. We had some rain last week which helped to slow the ripening process of the red grapes which, gave them more time to focus on one type and not the entire vineyard.

For the record, I have not given up on seeing the harvester at work. I will keep following the sound and the tire tracks until I see it in action. In the meantime, I did catch it passing back past the house a short time after we returned.