Bed by 10 pm, awake by 1 am. Breaking your sleep schedule for a night pick is no easy chore. Normally I wake up in the middle of the night for a piss break because maybe just maybe I tied on one too many before bed, not to strap up my boots and head out to a vineyard.
Tuesday morning we picked for two parties at Los Leones, one of which being the owner of the ranch who was onsite to observe gentle handling of his grapes. This was only my second night pick and I played a bit of a different role pulling the light tower aside the picking tractor. Even though there were a couple tractor driver's on Eugene's crew, Dave preffered to have them focused on picking rather than jumping in the cockpit. I obligingly signed on for the job.
Needless to say I wasn't born in a tractor seat. First, I almost toppled a couple pickers as the tractor didn't shift properly into snail speed, then I tripped over a pair of post wires on a tight turn and finally the lights bumped into a pair of tree limbs as I pulled another turn too wide. Three mistakes into the pick and a finicky lightower out of adjustment and I was ready for the pick to be over. My legs were jello and Eugene's crew had nearly pushed me over the edge with smart ass comments.
As the sun came up it was off to a second pick on Chalk Hill with you guessed it Eugene's crew once again. Eugene is a hardworking boss and a solid dude but I was already fed up with his crew. Work is work so I pulled fruit up and down a Chard block and deleafed, hoping to get out as soon as possible.
Pulling into Windsor I began to feel the affects of my sleep or lack thereof the night before. Fading in and out, head bobbing I bolted to Healdsburg to refuel at the Flying Goat. Quite possibly the only thing that saved me.
Finishing out the day I bumped into a roadie with a flat in front of one of our ranches. His bicycle cost close to three times that of my grandmamobile and his front wheel was lighter than my coffee mug. Attempting to offer help if that was what was needed I asked if I could be of assistance, my last semi-serious job being that of bike shop apprentice. Now normally I don't get too worked up if a customer doesn't know how to take care of a minor repair (hell, that's what keeps shops in business), but this guy couldn't open up his Mini Morph pump. When I mean open up, I mean the open the top arm that compresses the air, the arm you pump up and down.
So here I am in California, busting hump to get by in a state with an overpriced standard of living and there are hordes of filthy rich cyclists lining the backroads without a clue of how to swap out a tube and I am thinking to myself 'Where and at what juncture did I take a wrong turn?'
Then I ate an ice cream sundae for dinner and passed out. Why is it that you don't discover ice cream dinners until your late 20s?
Tuesday morning we picked for two parties at Los Leones, one of which being the owner of the ranch who was onsite to observe gentle handling of his grapes. This was only my second night pick and I played a bit of a different role pulling the light tower aside the picking tractor. Even though there were a couple tractor driver's on Eugene's crew, Dave preffered to have them focused on picking rather than jumping in the cockpit. I obligingly signed on for the job.
Needless to say I wasn't born in a tractor seat. First, I almost toppled a couple pickers as the tractor didn't shift properly into snail speed, then I tripped over a pair of post wires on a tight turn and finally the lights bumped into a pair of tree limbs as I pulled another turn too wide. Three mistakes into the pick and a finicky lightower out of adjustment and I was ready for the pick to be over. My legs were jello and Eugene's crew had nearly pushed me over the edge with smart ass comments.
As the sun came up it was off to a second pick on Chalk Hill with you guessed it Eugene's crew once again. Eugene is a hardworking boss and a solid dude but I was already fed up with his crew. Work is work so I pulled fruit up and down a Chard block and deleafed, hoping to get out as soon as possible.
Pulling into Windsor I began to feel the affects of my sleep or lack thereof the night before. Fading in and out, head bobbing I bolted to Healdsburg to refuel at the Flying Goat. Quite possibly the only thing that saved me.
Finishing out the day I bumped into a roadie with a flat in front of one of our ranches. His bicycle cost close to three times that of my grandmamobile and his front wheel was lighter than my coffee mug. Attempting to offer help if that was what was needed I asked if I could be of assistance, my last semi-serious job being that of bike shop apprentice. Now normally I don't get too worked up if a customer doesn't know how to take care of a minor repair (hell, that's what keeps shops in business), but this guy couldn't open up his Mini Morph pump. When I mean open up, I mean the open the top arm that compresses the air, the arm you pump up and down.
So here I am in California, busting hump to get by in a state with an overpriced standard of living and there are hordes of filthy rich cyclists lining the backroads without a clue of how to swap out a tube and I am thinking to myself 'Where and at what juncture did I take a wrong turn?'
Then I ate an ice cream sundae for dinner and passed out. Why is it that you don't discover ice cream dinners until your late 20s?
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