No Thruway

The constant "beep, beep, beep" has been the familiar sound this week on the vineyard homestead. Bulldozers, backhoes, and big hydraulic excavators are disrupting our relatively idyllic vineyard lifestyle.

Apparently, there's a problem. Our road is closed. There's nothing wrong with our road. Our road, 38 3/8 Road, is a potholed, dusty gravel farm road. The potholes are fine. It keeps the locals from driving more than 25 mph in the front of the house. The dust is bearable. Ask me again in August. And the gravel hasn't broken my windshield yet. Except for the goofy address, all's good. The address by the way is how many miles we are from the Utah border. Some may celebrate, some may dread. So anyway...

About three months ago, our neighbor with the young peach orchard was having some problem with flooding. We had a similar problem with flooding when we first moved here six years ago. It seems flooding would be the norm.

Legend has it that before the vineyards, this area was initially a swamp. We believe this to be so because the Colorado river is just a couple of stone's throws away from us. Starting in 1905, the Palisade Irrigation District (PID) started constructing large dirt-walled irrigation canals above the area to water Orchard Mesa. And that lent itself to a lot of water seepage. So the land was way cheap (pretty much unliveable) until a smart fella started building subterranean water channels in the area. The water would then runoff into the underground channels as opposed to stagnating at ground level. This idea really caught on and now the entire Vineland area has underground piping that moves the ground water back to the Colorado river.

Well that infrastructure was built a long time ago. And now it's time to replace it again. We've been told that basically the Palisade Drainage District (PDD) is broke and can't do anything to fix the leaking, corroded, crushed underground piping. That the affected landowner has to pay. Crazy, huh? That's because landowners in the area are only required to pay $5 per acre per year. That must of been the rate turning FDR's administraction. It doesn't seem like they've EVER raised their prices. Thus, each landowner takes on the staggering cost of repairing a broken system that will affect everyone downstream and upstream as well.

Thus, at 38 3/8 Rd we have a f*!+ing mess. Mess aside, it is amazing to think there's this huge spiderweb-like subterranean piping system under our feet that keeps us afloat. I just hope OUR subterranean piping system doesn't go the same way as this fiasco. That flooding we had six years ago was in the center of the vineyard.

Well, the excavators have gone home and the beeping has stopped. Time for a delicious local Grande River Vineyards Syrah. Not too spicy, heavier than a Merlot, but not quite a Cab Sav. You can drink this wine with or without food, but I bet this is going to go really well with the pork loin Kenny's making.

Remember.....imbibe and enjoy.