Seasons in the Vines

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I'm sitting in my usual leather chair.  A gift my father gave Tom and I more than ten years ago when we still lived in Missouri.  Tom is out having coffee with a friend and took Colt with him.  Henry is upstairs laying in bed but just came downstairs and now sits in one of our loaner chairs.  My shoulders are tense and my upper back is sore.  This morning technology made me mad.  REALLY mad.  I frankly wanted to smash my computer against the wall.  Why is it that something that should be so easy is complicated?  The frustration over trying to transfer photos between devices ended in tears spilling down my face.  Why am I so angry?  Why isn't this working?  Why aren't the multiple "How To" sites I'm reading off the Internet providing any help?

So here's what I set out to do.  Over the past year I've taken pictures at the more than 30 wineries we've visited.  Pictures of the vines, the fields, the grapes.  Pictures of nature, pictures that show the year's progress, the changing seasons.  And I love these photos.  There is just something simple and beautiful about a bunch of grapes.  No selfies, No people, No animals (okay, maybe one ladybug and one ACD).   Just photos.  Photos that show the evolution and growth of grapes.  The progress of the year reflected back at you by little buds, green leaves turned to gold, green grapes turned red, and barren, craggy trunks and arms.   
 
I thought on this first day of Autumn/Fall that I'd do a bit of a love letter -- or love collage, rather -- of the vineyard photos I've taken over the past year.  Photos that show the seasons, the cycle of growth that culminates in the harvest.  I wanted to write a beautiful post -- an ode to grapes.  But words now escape me.  They seeped out with my frustrated tears earlier this morning.  So maybe I've ended up doing the best thing.  I'm going to let the photos speak for themselves because I think they do.  Perhaps you can tell me what you feel when you look at these photos.  What the seasons represent to you.    
Spring, (Primavera), Summer (Estate), Fall (Autunno), Winter (Inverno)
 
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.  ~ Galileo Galilei



The juice of the grape is the liquid quintessence of concentrated sunbeams.   ~ Thomas Love Peacock

 
      

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