life in Carlton...

i cannot imagine a more perfect few day in a new life. in this new life of mine:

it began a few days ago when Gen and I went out in Portland on Friday night--what a great city! we walked around the city, got a free bike taxi ride to a crepe place and listened to some live music through the open windows of a bar. then we scouted down ice cream cookie sandwiches and ate them. yum.

saturday afternoon after i finished work we took one of Gen's new friends, Evan, with us to the coast, to a tiny town called Pacific City. There we made some new friends: about 30 people were sky diving and they kept just appearing in the sky, and landing on the beach. So i went up to this guy, Steveo who sky dives for a living, and we started chatting and he invited us to a party in town later that night. Which we went to, met some crazy folks and went back to the beach where we built a bonfire and slept out under the stars.

we drove back yesterday (sunday) and picked up Ryan, the other intern here at Carlo & Julian, and all four of us went to the drive-in movie theater in Newburg down the road. We saw Grease. Afterward, Ryan and I came home to our little cabin, and lay on the newly finished deck outside, and searched the skies for shooting stars. we saw 2. maybe 3. the bugs were quite deceiving.

i woke up at 7:30 this morning, as usual, and ryan and i made the trek to the main house for our morning coffee. I washed some clothes, hung them on the line, and started work. Ryan and I painted the porch of our house, then we scrubbed about 50 buckets that we'll use to harvest grapes, then broke for lunch of homemade quesadillas. After that we went into the winery and added SO2 to the barrels of last years wines--adding it works as some part of the second fermentation process. Next we topped other barrels (which means adding more wine so there's no empty space for oxidization to happen) and tasted different varieties, helping Felix decide which we were ready to be bottled. Felix, my boss, is great--he's from Argentina, and knows so so much about wine and wine-making. today he told us alot about the process of getting from grape to barrel to bottle. as expected, i asked a lot of questions.

so, then my working day was over. i called my sister and mom, and booked a ticket home for thanksgiving, went for a run around the little town of Carlton, played make-believe with 5 year old Madeline (the daughter of my boss) about trolls and magic spells, and then came to the house for a delicious dinner of wine (ours! of course), quinoa, veggies from the garden and chicken. I'm not sure, but I think the chicken was also ours and Felix (my boss) killed it earlier today.

now it is after dinner. I will play the piano for a bit, then head back to my little hut which has 1 outlet (we have to choose between light or music at night), and curl up in my sleeping bag, play some guitar and watch for more shooting stars.

tomorrow we are moving pallets around the winery, and cleaning everything in preparation for harvest and crush---which will start sometime later this week.

i love to be here. i love that i get to be here. i love that i am now learing about wine, that i will continue to learn more and more each day. I love that i live in a 200 sqaure foot shack that has no interior walls and only 1 plug. i love that i can see the milky way every single night, that we eat delicious dinners of homemade food, that i get to play make-believe with a 5 year old. that i live 10 miles from Genevieve and can go exploring Oregon wilderness with her and visit cute McMinnville whenever I have time off.

I am truly truly happy to be out here and I can't wait for our first load of grapes to come in so we can really get this crush-party started.