Romantic Watering

Ok, now where was I....oh yeah. So there's a fine balance between soaking the vines and flooding the neighbors, cool or not. All that water needs to go somewhere and we don't have a ditch for it to go anywhere but on somebody's land. Thus, that makes us pay attention to where all that water goes. For the entire 2 1/2 acres, it takes about 24 hours to water, that's with flooding....but not too much.

After the gates are open, I put on my muck boots and suddenly there's something romantic in my stride. Not the kind of romantic love, but the Victoria Barkley (played by Barbara Stanwyck) on Big Valley kind of romance. This is my land to till and nuture. It's up to me to make this vineyard grow and prosper. I love it! I saunter out to the field, readjust all those gates open, and feel the magic of water.

Without the water, the field would be a sandy plot of sage brush and junipers...maybe. The power of water brings life to where no life would be. The water changes everything. The area where we live is a different micro-climate due to the life the water brings.

I can hear the soil sucking in the luciousness of the cool water, and feel the vines bending towards me to caress my arms in thanks as I walk down the rows. Muck boots on, shovel in hand, a keen eye I, Victoria, am now one with mother nature.

Kenny and I use walkie talkies to communicate when a row is completely watered. We also have random hand gestures that can go from very useful to downright obscene after 12 hours in the vineyard. After the row is completely watered, I put a flag at the end and Kenny turns down the flow out of the gate to a trickle.

Then we wait and soak. I love to sit on the water pipe and hang out. The pipe is cool because of the cold Colorado water running through and it feels great in the heat. And after 10 in the morning and before 8 at night, there's always heat. The coolness of the pipe and the sound of the water like little babbling brooks out of each gate are really soothing to the senses. Kind of like a meditation work session, if that's even possible.

So after the vines have enjoyed their drink, we pop the end pipe cap. This is so all the silt of the river doesn't stick in pipes, making them weigh a ton, but instead it goes to the end of the field. There's not that much. It's not like we have another Mt. Garfield piling up, so it's no problem. We close all the gates so that bugs and varmits don't make a pipe their home. And then we move the pipe, section by section to the far side of the south vineyard so that we can mow, and weed and spray.....then we do it all again.

Here's a website where you can get information about where we live http://wikitravel.org/en/Colorado%27s_Wine_Country