Sounds like a labor of love. Lots of patience involved.

He loves it - has fully retired from surgery this year (tho he really got into carving up a pig at another friend's birthday party last month). The man is happy on his tractor. I'll mention those thin wires to him.

I expect he will harvest in late Sept. this year - it's been way way warm esp. at night this year. I am just a consumer of wine (plus an observer and sometimes laborer)

Here are some more car pics from the vineyard:

I'm loving it.


It's not hard to figure out why everyone is being so helpful.


I'm a migrant picker of olives, but I think I'm more of a migrant picker of grapes sorta guy.

So guess what my wife roped me into doing yesterday? A doctor she used to work with has a small vineyard in Yuba City, and we spent the day picking grapes.

This has to be one of the greatest feats of social engineering. If I were to ask someone to come over to my house and spend several hours doing yard work in return for feeding them lunch, they'd laugh my ass all the way into next week. But apparently the romance of picking wine grapes is so strong that people will gladly do it for free. I bet if you were to hire the right marketing firm, you could get people to pay for the privilege of harvesting grapes.

Love that BMW!

Once us kids were all off to college and work my Dad decided that crops and cattle were to much work. So he planted Christmas trees.

Our holiday weekends would include planting parties and cutting/shipping/selling parties.

There were never many German cars up on that hill. There was a Range Rover (customer) who had to get towed at least twice.

The BMW CS coupe is now owned by a young guy in his mid to late 20s. His dad gave it to him. I know his mom (Triumph owner) and her husband (vineyard owner, not a car guy) who is his step-dad.

BTW - several people got stuck coming up a moderately steep gravel road to the site in the pic, including a woman who used to drive trucks in the Army (A-stan) AND some 4wd vehicles. The lady in the Triumph breezed right up wearing a scarf and looking like Isadora Duncan. Some people can drive and some cannot.

If I have any photos of wine-making etc. (that are not too revealing) I will post them.