Well, it is time we make a formal announcement. We have decided to put the farm on the market and leave Oregon. We have so enjoyed all that this great state has given us over the past years. It is amazing to think how young Lauren was when we moved to Bend, OR back in 2010. Danette has decided to step away from medicine for a while. This was a planned event at her 55th birthday, due to COVID -19 pandemic and the shortage of medial staff locally, she decided to stay on at Kaiser Permanente. Rod has accepted a postion at the Veterans Medical Center in St. Louis, MO. It will be an opportunity with teaching and a team, back to his roots. The move will put us closer to our parents who are aging and closer to Tennessee.
We have enjoyed the opportunity to go back to Rod’s roots of farming. We know we have an amazing vineyard management team who hopes to continue to participate with the future buyers in continuing to practice using safe and sustainable methods while bringing excellent viable fruit to market. We actually anticipate another great crop this harvest, but we have learned to allow the process to happen and until those grapes go onto the scale, they can not be counted. Please check out the amazing drone video our realtor had created to market the property.
The grapes are almost done with the process, veraison. This is when the green berries start to ripen and take on the beautiful purple hues we all recognize in wine grapes. The sugar content now increases, which brings the potential of even more predators than the deer we already felt we had conquered earlier this spring. Now smaller, less obvious invaders can become quite the threat to allowing maturation of the fruit. The hotter and dryer it becomes, as we go through our natural summer cycle, bees, wasps and other stinging insects can actually poke small holes in the fruit, which can be undetectable initially. Other even smaller adversaries are things like fungus, bacteria and smaller insects. While the vineyard management team has prolonged their normal spray program, based on findings on other surrounding farms, there is always still this possibility losing the crop. We continue to practice using a LIVE certified model, without the certification, which supports environmentally and socially responsible wine growing. Recall, we started to go through the official process during the COVID -19 Pandemic and we didn’t find that it was going to be cost effective for us to join.
We also agreed to participate in a Mealy Bug Survey. We put the traps out in the vineyard. We will collect data to send back to OSU extension office in 4 weeks. We do not plan to find evidence of this insect, but as there has been some noted in the Oregon wine country, there is vigilence as to its increasing presence as they too can cause damage. The team who know a lot more about grape growing than us has created small kits that will be reviewed and collected for evidence of the pest.
The rest of the farm has so many other things that continue to grow and bring joy to us. This will be our second season with a substantial pumpkin harvest. We have several varities of seeds that were left from last years harvest that our friend was kind enough to start in her green house earlier this spring. Our dahlias didn’t make quite the come back as in previous years. This year we collected and stored, as closely as we thought the directions said. Unfortunately many were lost to mold, as obviously not put in quite dry enough environment. Many don’t pull the tubers, and we hadn’t in years past. We wouldn’t pull them again, if we were staying here.
But we are not staying, we are preparing to move back to the midwest. Where it all started. Getting back to the central time zone will simplify a lot of processes. We will miss the cool 56 degree August mornings, waterfall hikes in the winter and most of all the friends we have made over our time here. We dont plan to leave until most of the fruit is harvested. Please come and see us, before we leave. There is plenty of room here or at the Barn Office. Meanwhile, stay safe, cool, hydrated and remember to look for joy in every tiny thing. It is out there, if you stop and slow down and acknowledge it.
Cheers for now. We hope to see you out in the field for our last harvest while living here. Rod and Danette