Reviewing the holiday cards we received this past year, I came upon a few above that captured what 2020 was all about. What a year! In March, we all took a seat on a long, never-ending roller coaster of emotions. And, here we are, back in Spring again, full of hope and promise that we will emerge from the ashes of 2020, born anew. Some are making plans to travel, see family, and dine out once vaccinated. All of us are desperately waiting for life to regain some kind of normalcy. I know I am.

I’ve heard people say that being in quarantine and staying and working at home is like living in the movie Groundhog Day where TV weatherman Phil Conners experiences the same day over and over again: each day the same as the last. Even though some aspects of a farmer’s daily life during this pandemic felt like a repeat of the day before, we experience the passage of time with the growth of our vines and the development of our grapes. The daily scenes of quarantine – working and schooling from home within the same four walls with the same view – is starkly contrasted to the vines perennial growing cycle. Nature keeps marching on unaware of the quotidian goings-on of us humans. The vines were not concerned that I was really bad at teaching Common Core second grade math, or that I couldn’t find toilet paper for the umpteenth time. I actually took comfort in seeing the vines change while we felt like the earth stood still. I recognized and felt fortunate that my work routinely brought me outside into the vast open air where I could take social distancing to an extreme: just me and 280 acres of forest and vineyard. So, in that sense, things felt somewhat normal: we just kept farming grapes in the vineyard in 2020, as usual.

Everything is Fine_VW spring 2021