Saturday, March 14, 2009

A week at the office

The work day starts promptly at ten of eight in the morning, after the ritual morning greetings of course. The way it works is the first person to arrive simply parks him/her self in front of the equipment shed. The second person in shakes hands and exchanges "good mornings" with person one. Person three says good morning and shakes hands with persons one and two. And so on and so forth until our last arrival has made the entire handshake circuit, thus ensuring that not one minute of work is done until every member of the team has shaken hands with and greeted every other. Next we get a brief overview of the boss man's expectations for the day and receive our morning work assignments.

Monday: I'm on net pulling with Shannon and Bones. About a month before harvest, the sugary goodness of ripening grapes becomes an irresistible temptation for the local avian population, and thus nets are needed to protect our precious pinots and whatnot. A tractor, with Bones at the wheel, drives between a couple rows, slowly letting out the net from the large spool and threaded through the twenty foot-high boom attachment on the back. Shannon and I walk along behind the tractor a couple rows further out on either side. It's our job to stretch and pull the net so that it fully covers a bay of four rows of vines. Shannon is a full-timer and is absolutely indefatigable. It's all I can do to keep up with the pace she and Bones are setting, and by the time morning smoke-o (that's what Kiwis call break time) comes, my arms, chest, and shoulders are on fire. Never have I had a more intense upper-body workout than that first morning of net pulling. After a sweet fifteen minute respite, we're back at it til lunch. Another hour and a half of upper-body torture. The news I receive at lunchtime, that we're finished with net pulling for the day, is music to my ears. The afternoon will be spent helping the others "digging in."

I quickly discover that I've simply escaped one form of physical torture only to be introduced to another. It's not enough to simply drape the nets over the vines, they have to be secured all the way to the ground. This is done by digging them in. A two person team goes down between two bays of nets, one person digs a hole in the ground between the rows, then the second person stretches the ends of each net over the hole, and the first person replaces the earth he/she just dug up. The process is repeated approximately 250 times to complete one "dug in" row. Shannon and I make a pretty good team, and we're able to rock 'n roll through four rows that afternoon. By quitting time, every fiber of my being is exhausted. Upon returning to the hostel, I laid down on a lounge chair on the back patio for 45 minutes trying to summon the energy just to take a shower. I slept well on Monday night!

Tuesday: I'm digging in with Lewis. Lewis is an 18-year old kid, with the boundless energy of, well, an 18-year old kid. Witty, clever, and with a store of movie knowledge well beyond his age, he's an absolute delight to work with. While talking movies, we bust out five rows without even thinking about it before lunch time. Our post-lunch pace only slightly slower: four and a half rows. I slept well on Tuesday night.


Wednesday: I'm net pulling and digging in with Austen, a nice, but quite unenthusiastic, German fellow. Within 15 minutes of starting the day he turns to me and says "this work sucks, yeah?" Then throughout the remainder of the day he proceeded to ask me approximately every fifteen minutes or so to check the time on my watch. When I report to him the updated time he quickly does the math and reports back just how many minutes we have left to smoke-o or lunch. I don't think I checked my watch once while working with Lewis the day before, and the time flew by like nobodies business. This day drags on for an eternity. Still, despite Austen's grumblings and his ever present inquiries as to the hour, our morning session of net pulling goes rather well--much better than on Monday in fact. The reason being, we've got Ned behind the wheel of the tractor. Ned sets a much more forgiving pace than does Bones, and Austen and I are able to keep up without too much of a struggle. We were actually able to pull more nets at this slower pace than at Bones' breakneck speed because we didn't have to stop nearly as often to fix our mistakes.

The afternoon session of digging in, however, was not so smooth. Austen's lack of enthusiasm for the work translated into a frustratingly glacier-like pace. We barely completed two rows the entire afternoon. Oh well. I still slept well on Wednesday night.

Thursday: I'm on net pulling (again with Austen and Ned) in the morning and digging in with David in the afternoon. The morning goes well. David, my afternoon workmate, is in his fifties and is a self proclaimed expert on every single topic of conversation. He's also a bit of a one-upper. You know the type. If you know the prince he knows the king; if you've run a marathon he's run a triathlon. That kind of thing. I think he's also pleased as punch to have me around. The lone American on the crew, I'm a frequent target of David's critiques of the "American" way of life. He's pretty harmless though, and when we come to points differing opinions we're able to agree to disagree. Plus, an afternoon immersed in discussions of geopolitics flies by pretty quickly. I slept well on Thursday night.

Friday: We spend the day net mending. After several years of use, the nets develop some sizable holes that need mending so as to deny our winged friends access to the delectable treats contained within. Using a special needle and twine we spread out and walk each row mending holes as we come across them. It's an incredibly easy task, and not nearly as physically taxing as the other jobs I've done. It also affords a good bit of solitude, perfect for quiet contemplation. A very Zen-like job for the end of a long hard week. We knock off thirty minutes early in the afternoon and gather at the picnic tables where we're greeted with four bottles of wine from the tasting room, nine glasses, and a plate of bread, butter, cheese, crackers, and apple and orange slices. Not a bad way to wrap things up if you ask me. I slept very well on Friday night.

One week down. I don't know if I've ever worked so hard, slept so well, or been so happy! Looking forward to week two.

Cheers!

3 comments:

  1. What Fun! Wandered into Mt. Aspiring NP yet?
    Thanks for sharing....have a great week #2!!

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  2. That picture makes me want to destroy my 10' x 10' cubicle. What hostel are you staying at? We enjoyed a great 6 weeks at Holly's. It's under different management now, but very comfy.

    Be careful of too much geopolitical talk amongst the vines. While there in '04 my friends were smack dab in the middle of an Iraq War debate with a Belgian when Nick berated them and told us to only talk about loving and happy things while near the grapes. They soak up the good energy and affect the taste. I think I believe him since I believe '04 wasn't a very good year for the pinot.

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  3. My absolute favorite entry so far.

    You're not watching the Ferris wheel. You're not riding the Ferris wheel. You're inventing the fucking wheel. (I changed 'f' words mid metaphor. I'm postmodern, I can do that.)

    ReplyDelete