One
People ask me why I have come to settle in the United States. Some obviously want me to say that I think that this is the greatest nation in the world, perhaps because they really believe it, or perhaps because it would reaffirm something they are no longer so sure of. Those people are not interested in getting other answers, and it is easy, sometimes even embarrassing, to see the disappointment in their eyes when I don't tell them what they expect. Those who are critical of the United States wonder why I have left a place like Sweden to come to such a backwards place as this.
I tell them all that fate and love of a particular woman born on this continent conspired to bring me here. That is always a perfectly acceptable answer. I smile at the fact that everyone likes the idea of love being so powerful that it can take one's life beyond one's control, and even though it is true, shadows of a more complicated answer sometimes flicker in the back of my mind.
My wife Cynthia and I, and our two sons Nils and Carl, have lived on these eight acres saddling a small ridge for ten years now. We are still just getting acquainted. I am here to bring rush and movement to an apparent standstill, to allow for an inner settling of old, stirred-up debris. Days go by when I don't leave at all, just crisscross the land on foot in a steady string of projects, pushing materials in a wheelbarrow or carrying tools in buckets. Daily tasks within the wheel of seasons give the mind a certain elevated clarity. But then, sometimes, I just take a break from what I am doing and make an effort to stop my thoughts altogether, open myself up and invite the outside in. When you listen hard you can join another.
Of all the views here I like the one of the hills and the mountains the best. Many times a day my eyes wander across them: Highland Butte, Goat Mountain, Seosap Peak, Bracket Mountain, the entire Molalla River watershed. When it snows up there, the clear-cuts stand out like large white rectangles, and the logging roads trace the contours of the folds like delicate, surgical incisions. The view of these different patches of the rejuvenating forest, in a good afternoon light, is a beautiful quilt of green and white hung on the wall of the world.
At midday I go outside to get a load of firewood from the pile behind the chicken coop. Loading the wood into a big canvas bag I notice unusually symmetrical cirrus clouds drifting in from the east. I think of Strindberg, who kept a daily cloud journal one summer in the Stockholm archipelago. He suspected that there was a correspondence between the shapes of the clouds and his mental states. At the end of each day he would carefully record his emotions and thoughts, and make detailed drawings of the dominant cloud type. But at the end of the summer his observations proved inconclusive and his mind moved elsewhere. Still, stoking the wood stove, I can't shake a nebulous feeling that I felt just like those cirrus clouds as soon as I saw them.
It has been a cold winter. Nils and Carl found a frozen brush rabbit in the vineyard today, in the same area where Cynthia had seen one during the snowy weather six days ago. She kept pointing it out to me, "There, three rows down, just where those big weeds are. Don't you see him? He is sitting down, between those two plants!" I looked and looked but saw nothing, not having seen him move.
Today his body was still frozen solid, rigid in a sitting position, eyes open, as though ready to take off if frightened. The icy chunk of his body made me think of a story an aunt had told me, of a neighbor boy she had known when she was a girl. This was up in the north of Sweden, before cars. The young man had skied to the next village to visit a certain girl, and had stayed late talking and drinking too much. On the way home he had stopped to rest, and that was how they found him the next day, sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, eyes open, face relaxed, body frozen all the way through. He had not even tried to make a fire. The parents had to thaw him out in order to straighten the body and get it into the coffin. Once in the coffin the body had been stored in the woodshed all winter, as was customary at that time, until spring made grave digging possible.
I take the frozen rabbit to the compost bins over by the garden, with Vidar, one of our cats, following. Later in the day he has eaten one entire back leg.
We first called our vineyard Beavercreek Vineyard because we live outside Beavercreek, and thought that the beaver was a fitting emblem in a state flying a golden beaver on the flag. Then I discovered that there already was a Beavercreek Vineyard in existence, which is not surprising considering the number of places in Oregon called Beavercreek. I called the owners of the original Beavercreek Vineyard, and they did not like the idea of us assuming the same name at all and elaborated on legal rights and attorneys. So we began tossing ideas around for a new name. For weeks we swung back and forth between the serious and the silly: Clos de Sapins. Vinland. Gopher Crest. Castor Creek. Cynthia & Laurentius. Skookum Hill. Ad Infinitum.
In a dictionary of literary terms I finally found a new name that sounded just right, Epyllion. An epyllion is a little epic which belongs to the genre of short picturesque poems. It is considered an idyll presenting an episode from the heroic past, but it stresses the pictorial and romantic rather than the heroic. Often it involves love between shepherd and shepherdess. Still, in spite of its definition, literary scholars argue that the term is really useless, so what could be better than that--a really useless term full of agreeable meaning.
Freezing rain starts falling in the evening, coating everything with a quarter-inch layer of clear ice. I never thought that a gravel driveway could become slippery, but it can. At night it looks like the uneven surface of exposed aggregate concrete, polished and shiny. I have to walk in the grass in order to stay on my feet when I go down to close the gate for the evening.
When Cynthia and I started planting our vineyard, we planted one half to the peasant French-American hybrid called Maréchal Foch and the other to the elegant pinot noir. Maréchal Foch, named for a famous French general of World War I, has grown beautifully, overcoming all obstacles created by two novice farmers. But the finicky aristocrat from Burgundy has given us nothing but trouble. It started when I bought the plants, sold as excess nursery stock from one of the major vineyards and wineries in the state. Many of them had cracks and very poor roots, and half never even sprouted in the spring. Of those which did, only a handful did well. In spite of promises of replacement plants I received nothing, sensing the shark teeth behind some of the wine industry smiles. Ever since then we have nursed the veteran survivors along, replacing the failures, fighting drought, weeds, gophers and chilly temperatures. Ten years later, still without a significant crop, we conceded defeat. Three quarters of the pinot noir has already been dug out, with most of the land going back into pasture for a few years while we reconsider our options.
Two years ago we planted half an acre to a new variety called St. Croix, developed by grape breeder Elmer Swenson in Wisconsin, and another half acre to a dozen different varieties. They are all hybrids that survive almost arctic temperatures, and like Maréchal Foch, they are resistant to phylloxera and powdery mildew, which will eliminate the necessity of spraying sulphur as a fungicide all through the spring and summer. Eventually, when we will have had a crop for a couple of years and seen what kind of wine these varieties can make, we will select the best and fill in the space where we started with the pinot noir.
Having to change the vineyard from our original vision is part of discovering and accepting the reality of this land. We are located high, almost eight hundred feet above sea level, and in winter most of the vineyard land is directly exposed to icy air masses from the interior of Canada which come down east of the Cascades and funnel out of the Columbia River Gorge. Changing our ideas is also the result of our growing understanding of what organic, sustainable viticulture ought to be. I have a suspicion that farming must be a kind of lifelong listening to what the land says.
The full moon comes majestic over the frozen Cascades. I am down with a cold and cannot sleep in the blue winter light. I toss and turn and think about what I have done, quitting the job that I have had for more than four years to take a sabbatical. I was a technical translator and in some ways it was a good job. It came to me not of my own volition, as an unforeseen phone call with terms too good to refuse. It took years to realize it did not take me where I wanted to go, even though it made this perilous freedom I have chosen possible. During that time, as I commuted away to work, something I thought existed here became more and more difficult to experience. I trust it will speak to me again.
Thoughts meander to the familiar resting places, making well-travelled paths. Hours pass. The winter moon slowly drifts across the open spaces; the house ticks and cracks as the wood contracts in the dropping temperature outside.
It is curious, but I notice that in the years we have been here, the temperature has usually dropped right around the full January moon. We saw that same pattern in Sweden too. And once in winter, during a partial eclipse of the full moon, the temperature actually rose about ten degrees centigrade. When the shadow on the moon had disappeared, the temperature fell back down again.
Early in the morning Cynthia goes to check if the water in the chicken coop has frozen, and finds the entire flock massacred. Bodies are scattered about, with blood sprayed on the walls and feathers covering the floor. Returning after dawn Cynthia and I count and find two bodies missing, the chicken wire pushed away from the ground, a dog scat in the yard, and white feathers everywhere. What a depressing silence ten dead chickens make. I load the strangely flat bodies into a wheelbarrow, throw a shovel on top and wheel them far into the vineyard where I dig a mass grave for them. All day my mood swings back and forth between fatalistic acceptance and anger. Later I drive in to Oregon City to rent a live-animal trap. In the evening I call my dog-owning neighbors to tell them what has happened, notifying them that I have a trap set.
The following morning I find Elinor, our other cat, in the trap. She has been caught, no doubt, by her own curiosity and the smell from the pierced can of cat food which I have used for bait. I let her out and set the trap again. Later in the day, while cleaning out the coop, on the top side of the small door leading into it, Cynthia finds hairs stuck, reddish in color, long, smooth and wavy, suspiciously similar to that of our neighbor's dog. I call this neighbor back. "They look like the hairs of your dog," I tell him, "Why don't you come on up and take a look and see what you think." He agrees to come up the following day as soon as he is free. In the morning the clear sky is a pale yellowish white and the ground is rock hard. As soon as they wake up, the boys tumble out in their pajamas to check the trap and come back yelling "We caught him, we caught him!" Cynthia and I hurry out with tea cups in our hands and look at the embodiment of guilt itself. Indeed, it is the dog we suspected. I put a bowl of water inside the trap, call our neighbor again, and wait for him to show up.
The trap sits in the shade of the north side of the building and I notice that the night's frost remains there. But I am still angry enough to leave the shivering dog where he is. The day goes by and, it being a holiday, I am surprised that no one in that large family misses him. At dusk my neighbor finally shows up with a resigned look on his face, quickly agrees to reimburse me the five dollars a chicken I ask for, then leads his stiff dog home.
Cynthia is in the middle of pruning the old vineyard. Pruning requires a creative approach. Even though every vine has grown differently, the end result should be the same: good canes for the coming year or, if there is no available cane, a rejuvenation spur so one will grow the following year. She comes through with a pair of loppers and makes the primary cuts, severing the thick canes from the trunk, planning and directing next year's growth. Then she comes through a second time with a pair of pruning shears, to trim loose ends, remove smaller canes in tight spots, undo last year's plastic ties, and rip the woody tendrils off the trellis wires. This kind of cutting can be done in any weather. Later, in or after rain when the wood is supple, she will come through again, to bend the new canes and tie them to the wires.
I prune the replanted vines, which vary in age. The bushy growth of the one-year-old vines is cut back to two buds, and the vertical two-year-old vines are shaped into straight trunks if they are thick enough at the top. If not, they are cut down to two buds again and have to start over. During spring and early summer they will send out some horizontal growth along the wires, and perhaps set some fruit. Pruning is the dialog we keep with each other.
The cold weather suddenly eases for a single day. The icy wind has stopped blowing and there is no frost in the morning. An immense mass of warm air, the one called the Pineapple Express, has unexpectedly hurried in from some far southern place in the Pacific. It smells sweet for the first time this year and in the afternoon I open the study window for the first time too, trying to decide if the sweetness is the smell of the ocean or of the land it has travelled across.
One night on Crete, climbing a dark hill on the outskirts of Iraklion to visit the grave of Kazantzakis, Cynthia and I felt another wind blowing in from Africa, bringing with it incredible smells of the Egyptian desert. It was such a dry, spicy fragrance we could not force ourselves to return to the exhaust fumes of the ancient city below, even though we had an appointment. We stayed late, made love in the empty park, talking and watching the lights of the city.
The magic of sunlight warmed our house today. When we built it, we simply did what canny farmers in Sweden did for centuries: Found the right spot in the landscape and oriented the house according to the four directions, put most of the windows on the south side and practically none towards the north. No firewood, no attention, no ashes, no effort, no expense. Tack sol!
Going to get a basket of potatoes from the wine cellar, I look at the stone wall I built and notice how well the moss has grown on the rocks in just three years, without any help from a human hand. The stone wall faces north and trees above shade it. The stones around here are reddish when they come out of the ground, but exposed to the weather they start to darken. Perhaps it is the chemistry of iron oxidizing. Today, the wet moss on them is a radiant green, in full bloom now, thin stems with tiny oval heads shooting out of the lush carpet. In ten years most of these stones will be completely black and covered with moss.
Potatoes--how suggestive and secretive they are in their bin, smooth and polished like glacial rock; how wonderfully they smell of the earth. I fill my basket with yellow Finns, the only variety we have left. The Nooksack is already gone and so is the Mandel, the blue German and Rote Erstling. We have to plant more. This is the best month of the year to boil yellow Finns, because their flavor is at a peak of richness, and they will not crack open, and it is too early for them to have started loosing flavor and softening up in the process of sprouting. All winter they have matured towards a firm waxiness instead of that dry, crumbling texture they had in the early fall.
On my way back to the house, I think of dinner: boiled potatoes with dill and butter, some sausage, fresh bread, and a simple shredded cabbage salad with salt, lemon juice and olive oil. Perhaps a Maréchal Foch of our first bottling to drink?
Tired of the 6 o'clock news I turn the TV off and step outside. It is already after dark and the evening has cleared into a cold stillness. East of our ridge a narrow tongue of fog crawls up the draw from the sea of fog below. The waning moon fills the fog with a strange fluorescent light. It will drop far below freezing tonight; I can already see the sparkle of crystals in the grass. I walk across the driveway to the lean-to shed where the thermometer is, and a neighbor's dog starts barking at the sound of my footsteps in the gravel.
After two days without precipitation I start removing the cut canes from the vineyard floor. Each row is about 220 feet long, with 27 vines spaced eight feet apart. On seven acres there are a hundred and twelve such rows, which would make a total of about 3000 vines if the whole vineyard was planted. Just to walk up and down all the rows is about four and a half miles. Now eighty four rows are planted, but only sixty eight with mature vines.
It takes several trips in each row to pick up all the canes and drop them at the end of the rows. Later I will load them into my tractor trailer. The work is monotonous and I get sore in strange places from all the bending down, but the body needs it no matter how the mind objects. In three hours I can clean about six or seven rows and haul the cuttings to the back where I have a huge pile of them. These cut vines are mainly carbon and water pulled out of air and soil; they are sunlight made heavy.
This is a job which must be done before the grass starts to grow and entangles the canes. For us, canes are really a resource. A few are cut into four bud sticks and sold as cuttings for new plants, and every year women will come and gather long ones for wreaths. Others will get the thickest wood for the coming summer's barbecues, but most of it is chipped for use as mulch and chicken litter.
While pruning our fruit trees, I spot a solitary heron flying low, just over the rooftops, turning to the north and gliding over my neighbor's farm buildings before disappearing from view. My eyes follow his slow flight like a prayer to an old spirit.