We returned to my uncle’s vineyard this week to help him harvest the last five rows of grapes. This time it was just an intimate party with my aunt/uncle and several of their good friends. For those of you playing along at home, the mystery of the mystery grapes was simply that Uncle Bruce planted them thinking they were the same variety as the other grapes. Then when they came up, they weren’t what the label on the seeds had said they were at all. Moreover, even the university experts in Lexington were unable to identify them. They must be some variety of wild grapes that got mixed in with his seeds. Whatever they are, the bees love them.
This is the shed I’ve been sketching. Um, it’s still not finished yet. The sketch, not the shed. The shed used to have a horse inside, back when my uncle tried to keep animals.
These are the grapes of wrath. Harvested just before the onset of the winter of our discontent.
Everyone, meet Kate. Kate was a major reason I didn’t finish my sketch yesterday, but she’s such a sweetie I have to forgive her. During the bigger harvest party there were too many people and she hid in the barn the whole time. I didn’t get to meet her until just yesterday. Kate runs from people walking toward her, but she loved me because I was sitting still most of the time. So she would follow someone out into the vineyard until she got bored or spooked and then she would come back to me for lovins. If I didn’t immediately drop what I was doing and tell her what a good dog she is, she would push on my arm with one of her paws and get all up in my face with her doggie breath!
The fungus among us. Aren’t they amazing? Click the pictures for a closer look. These mushrooms and lichen were growing all over a stump near the shed.
The vineyard from far away. I was distracted from my sketching and decided to go for a walk.
“In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”
- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 25
“Man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe,
grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges
ahead of his accomplishments.”
- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 14
(I *think* that’s my uncle in that picture. I don’t remember exactly.)
“Before I knowed it, I was sayin’ out loud, ‘The hell with it! There
ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do.
It’s all part of the same thing.’… I says, ‘What’s this call, this
sperit?’ An’ I says, ‘It’s love. I love people so much I’m fit to bust,
sometimes.’… I figgered, ‘Why do we got to hang it on God or Jesus?
Maybe,’ I figgered, ‘maybe it’s all men an’ all women we love; maybe
that’s the Holy Sperit-the human sperit-the whole shebang. Maybe all
men got one big soul ever’body’s a part of.’ Now I sat there thinkin’
it, an’ all of a suddent-I knew it. I knew it so deep down that it was
true, and I still know it.”
- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 4
“How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped
stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can’t scare
him–he has known a fear beyond every other.”
- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 19
( Those are my parents, folks. Dad says Durhey. )
“Whenever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there.
Whenever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there… I’ll be in the
way guys yell when they’re mad an’-I’ll be in the way kids laugh when
they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folks eat the
stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build-why, I’ll be there.”
- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 28
“Fear the time when the strikes stop while the great owners live -
for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken …
fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for
this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is
man, distinctive in the universe.”
- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 14
The barn Kate likes to hide in. My uncle had a TV and mini fridge in there so the guys could watch the game. UK vs. ‘Bama — we lost, but we played better offense than they did, or so I hear. I’m not ready for some football.
The view from the back porch. It’s times like these I think to myself… I gotta get me a piece of bottom land.
“Is a tractor bad? Is the power that turns the long furrows wrong? If
this tractor were ours, it would be good - not mine, but ours. We could
love that tractor then as we have loved this land when it was ours. But
this tractor does two things - it turns the land and turns us off the
land. There is little difference between this tractor and a tank. The
people were driven, intimidated, hurt by both. We must think about
this.”
- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 14
“The migrant people, scuttling for work, scrabbling to live, looked
always for pleasure, dug for pleasure, manufactured pleasure, and they
were hungry for amusement.”
- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 23
We grilled bratwursts for dinner, with baked beans in a metal crock, and my cousins’ grandmother made some amazing apple crumble and banana pudding.
And to finish, here’s some Autumn imagery for ya: some great pumpkins and a cute little jumping spider.
Whaaaaaaa??? …the Hell?
