anyway (or else felt I really needed help), because by the end of the decade she and my father had moved to McMinnville, seven miles from us, where they spent the rest of their lives.
Our house stayed warm because we kept the huge brick fireplace in the living room going fall, winter, and spring. We had plenty of firewood from downed trees, and a big fan in the fireplace sent waves of heat through large vents to warm the rest of the house. We splurged on new carpet for the living room, a gold shag found at a discount warehouse. Shag was in fashion, and we bought a special rake to make the long threads lie in the same direction. But even with the carpet neatly combed, the place was never more than tolerable. We were near our vineyard and the rent was only a hundred dollars a month, so we put up with it.
As an urban girl, my gardening experience had consisted of growing a sweet potato propped on toothpicks in a glass of water, a grade-school science project. In Oregon, surrounded by fruit trees and plenty of land, I felt compelled to have a vegetable garden. I went wild with the Burpee seed catalog, inspired by page after page of captivating photos of pristine vegetables. The seeds I planted would surely grow into that picture-perfect produce if I followed the instructions on the seed packets. But did “plant in full sun” mean I should plant the seeds on a sunny day, or in a sunny spot? One gardening book advised, “Harvest during the full moon.” Should I pick my vegetables under moonlight, or could I pick them in daylight if there was to be a full moon that night? I laugh now, but at the time I was genuinely confused.
That first spring, after savoring the catalog descriptions all winter, I planted everything that looked interesting, from peas to pumpkins. I kept the growing season going right into fall, but I was way out of my league. Overwhelmed by the successes—I’d never seen so many zucchini—I was also befuddled by pest problems. I had no idea whether the cute little bugs I saw crawling around the plants were going to help me or destroy the garden. I knew ladybugs were good, but how about the ones with black spots that were yellow instead of orange? Captivated by the wonder of working with the earth, I came back every year with a little more knowledge and renewed hope. My garden taught me that every year gave me another chance, the secret to a farmer’s optimism.
While our grape cuttings in the front yard sprouted leaves and roots, we searched for vineyard equipment we could afford, which meant it had to be secondhand. The weekly agricultural paper listed the farm auctions and used equipment for sale everywhere in the valley. We needed a tractor and other equipment, so Bill and I, with Nik in the backpack, attended farm auctions almost every weekend. When we found the right tractor at the right price, an early 1960s Massey Ferguson orchard model, we happened to be at an auction at the other side of the valley. The only way for us to get it home was for Bill to get on the tractor and drive it. As he bounced along country roads in the open air at less than fifteen miles per hour for the two hours it took to get back, Bill didn’t need my sympathy. So proud was he with our new purchase, he confessed he felt like a king piloting his carriage. Nik and I rattled along behind him, in case the old tractor broke down, in our ’54 green Chevy pickup, which we called Truckeroonie.
Truckeroonie had been Bill’s first vehicle, bought while we were at Stanford. Despite a two-year rest while we were in Chapel Hill, it was feeling its age. Bill commuted to Portland in the VW camper, so when Truckeroonie broke down, I was at the wheel. I learned never to go out in it without rain gear, rubber boots for walking in the mud, and a backpack for Nik. I will always be grateful to Hank Paul, the local mechanic in Dayton, the nearest town, who got used to my sudden appearance in his shop. His scruffy little white dog, with the shaggy hair over its eyes, always scampered out to greet me. Hank would stop what he was doing; Nik and I would climb in Hank’s big pickup, with the dog; and we would drive back to wherever Truckeroonie had stalled so Hank could get it going again.
With its old green cab, worn leather seat, and long wobbly stick shift, Truckeroonie had taken us camping in the California redwoods country, where we had slept under the towering trees, and to the San Francisco Opera House, where we had watched Rudolf Nureyev make jaw-dropping leaps across the stage. Truckeroonie was our transportation, whether I wore dirty jeans and hiking boots or a slinky black dress and high heels. One day, Bill came home with a shiny new sky-blue pickup. We sold old Truckeroonie to a farm kid excited to get his first wheels. I had a lump in my throat watching him drive it away.
Always on the lookout for used equipment, when we heard that the local pole-bean farmers were switching to bush beans, we jumped at the chance to buy their used poles and wire. We sorted through piles of old bean stakes to find the strongest, straightest ones, and then Bill soaked them in foul-smelling, poisonous pentachlorophenol so they wouldn’t rot when he put them into the ground.
Not all our penny-pinching deals worked out. The spring after Nik was born, Bill bought an old Cat 22, a small Caterpillar bulldozer. The farmer guaranteed that it was almost ready to go. The cans of parts sitting on it, he assured us, would go together quickly. For the next two months, Bill and his dad spent many hours in that farmer’s field, forty miles from home, trying their best to put the thing together. Nik and I started out going along, but got bored sitting in the field watching them try to match the pieces. They got it running enough to load the little crawler on a trailer, along with miscellaneous cans of parts, and brought it to the vineyard. When, at long last, Bill proudly tried it out, he discovered it would turn only to the right. Neither he nor those he consulted ever did get it to work right. It was a long time before he was able to chuckle at his great money-saving scheme. We sold it for parts to someone equally ambitious about making an old Cat 22 run again.
Bill orchestrated our first vineyard planting in the spring of 1972. Bill’s family—aunt and uncle, cousins, and sister—came to help. When we were ready to put the plants in the ground, I drove the tractor, with Nik in the backpack, freeing Bill to carry the heavy bundles of dormant plants and pails of fertilizer. My job was to drive down the row, stop at the right spot, and drill a hole. The auger was mounted on the back of the tractor, so lining it up with the marker stake required prolonged twisting to look behind me. Nik had a great view of all the activity, but at seventeen months he was not happy being cooped up and his weight in the backpack made my job even more tiring. My back ached after the first hour.
August 1971. Bill Blosser (left) and me (right), with eight-month-old Nik on my shoulders, taking a break as we work on our new vineyard property. Bill is wearing his French vigneron beret.
I was rescued by Bill’s parents, Betty and John Blosser, who took their vacation time to drive up from Oakland and work in the vineyard for a week. Bill’s dad, an orthopedic surgeon, had a grin from ear to ear as he took my place. He loved driving the tractor. I never heard him complain about the twisting, or about back pain. Grandma Betty freed Nik from the backpack, played countless games of patty-cake, fed him, and made sure he napped. I gratefully accepted her help. From then on, until they finally moved to Portland, John and Betty came up every year, and we intentionally postponed major projects until they arrived.
We planted five acres that first year—one White Riesling, one Müller-Thurgau, one Chardonnay, and two Pinot Noir. When it was all over, we walked to the top of the hill and surveyed our new vineyard. I stood next to Bill, who had Nik on his shoulders, and looked out over the valley. Little sticks poked out of the reddish dirt in neat rows, and the freshly turned soil smelled clean and sweet. I was sweaty and hot, but a chill went up my spine. We had done it. We had literally put down roots.
WHEN PEOPLE ASKED, AND they always did, why and how we ever decided to start a vineyard, I was slow to answer because I really wasn’t sure how it happened. I said we were part of the back-to-the-land movement of the early 1970s. I said it was because we had more guts than brains. But I winced inside as I answered. Yes, starting a vineyard was unconventional, even outlandish, but neither of us were known for eccentric or bizarre behavior. We
