Talk to the Key

Picture this. An increasingly silver haired, slightly out of shape, fortyish woman bundled up in an old parka, scarf and hat. She is inching her way down a vineyard row riding a bright blue broken-but-reclaimed sled disk which is now in a slightly jagged crescent shape, atop soil moistened by the four-season days of a Northwest spring.

As odd as it makes me look, I’ve no compunctions about using a sled instead of a low chair or foam mat – those things designed for abating gardening stress to one’s body. It’s less expensive. It provides a temperature barrier between me and the earth beneath. It protects my clothing from premature disposal and the thick plastic will last a long time. With gratitude in my heart, I use what someone else flung away as unusable. Neighborhood children abandoned this treasure. It got cracked on basalt boulders lining the easement road through our property and slid off Weaver’s Hill into an adjacent neighbor’s border of briars during the last snowfall.

I couldn’t let it remain there as refuse. One of the few things my Dad taught me before he died was to see potential in people and things; he taught me to find value unashamedly in what others leave behind. So there I am, armed with bright yellow gloves and a weeding claw scooching down the rows on an equally bright blue piece of “garbage” totally enjoying life.

Pressing the tines of my weeding claw as deep as they’d go then angling them up to the surface in a methodical side-to-side motion, up came weeds of various root types. Some had grown thread like tassels, some resembled carrots with long thick tap roots while others could pass for trees turned upside down.

Press. Scrape, scrape. Pull. Slide. …Tink.

Amygdaloidal Basalt

Colorful Gneiss?

The tines hit an obstacle. Grateful for the land’s “production” of rocks (they do seem to rise to the surface more numerous with each passing year), I got ’round their edges and freed the larger ones to serve our vines as winter mulch. During the rest of the year their piles are used as necessary heat unit storehouses piled at the base of individual vines. Smaller ones I’d leave scattered in the row wherever the claw left them. In my vivid imagination of a mature vineyard here, these gifts of the land to Weaver’s Hill eventually become so abundant each row will be full of them. 

Occasionally, up comes a stone so unique in color and/or form it’s set in a place of honor. Finding such a treasure gives me a joy second only to the wonder of bud-break. As time is measured in the vineyard, this is the time when the earth says, “Hello” and we get to know each other. I’m still learning about these rocks and trying to identify each of them. If you already know them, please leave a comment.

Last year during soil exploration the land said, “I have a pH of 6. I put pockets of spice like color wherever I choose. I’ve clothed myself in a variety of textures. I’m anything butboring. I dare you to define me.” This time, like a small child free to choose any candy in the store, my eyes were wide with wonder and excitement. In this visit, the ground whose company I thoroughly enjoyed said, “ I am Glacial Till. See the wonder of Washington.”

With each new revelation, with each new discovery, it seemed as though thousands of years came together for one purpose – my child-like exuberance.

Here on the Key (A local nick-name for the Key Peninsula located in the southern middle portion of what we call the Puget Sound), treasures of the ages were gathered by glaciation – that rolling, slow moving, pressurizing action of mile deep ice sheets Over time, their wealth was dropped off at our door step. The stones I so enthusiastically accepted were partly the result of a glacial land forming event called a Moraine and partly from a glacial melting event called ablation. Moraines are a collection of gathered glacial debris. Since we are situated at the terminal or end of the Vashon sheet’s glacial action, we benefit from the debris both under the ice (basal till) and the accumulations deposited by its melting surface structure (ablation). The ridge forming the uppermost part of Weaver’s Hill – at least as I imagine it being formed – is one huge esker or ridge of glacial debris. Our very own treasure chest of Washington State geology.

Evidence of moraine activity here is confirmed by WSU Puyallup extension  where nearby Key Center is described as a mix of glacial till and outwash, saying, “Sometimes we find a mixture of parent materials in the same profile. This profile has both sandy outwash and compact basal till.”

Other regions in Washington fascinate me. I love Walla Walla. Steve and I have visited at least three times and plan to visit again. I love the vineyards. I love the people. But in terms of geology, their large black cobbles look to me as if the Jolly Green Giant’s pet rodent pooped all over everywhere. That rock “poop” is beneficial to the vineyard ecosystem and helps to define their AVA just as much as our glorious till defines ours.

How many years does it take for a glacier to form, to travel as it grows, to gather its treasures and carve out landscapes? How many years does it take to melt, to clearly reveal certain sections of itself to friends who take the time to say “Hello”?

I felt so happy and important I could hardly contain myself.

Our WSU friends warn, “Evaluate soils like this carefully to determine how best to use them.”

I hear most frequently that good grapes don’t grow in this area. Without malice, proud eastern growers have caused west side growers to despair and some have given up completely. How sad. Wine sales people bolster confidence in the west by saying, “Nothing good comes from that area.” Which they follow up with a snicker and a “knowing” nod. They say our land is only suitable for the throw-away stuff.

The discarded debris from a Canadian glacier in the south sound IS valuable. Through formidable glacial action God created the Key and primed the pump for an excellent classroom, a vineyard – Weaver’s Hill, among others – by depositing a wealth of mineral content and forging water access that is absolutely amazing.

Some folks say awful and ignorant things about “discarded” people too. At this Season of remembering Christ’s death and resurrection, I am reminded what was said of him, “No prophet comes from Nazareth. Check and you will see. Nothing good comes from there.” Those people were wrong about Jesus. Lord willing, these naysayers are wrong about the Key. Those of us growing grapes here are looking for wonderful harvests. Will our Hill produce great wine? I don’t know, but the potential in the root zone is definitely there.

Like the glacier breaks and carries pieces of the terrain on which it flows, so too, the broken pieces of our lives come together. As the protecting shield of ice evaporates, exposing us to conditions of the climate – perhaps in a place far away from the place we began – joyous times of fellowship await those who take the time to pay attention… those with enough child-like adventure in their souls to care.

Go on. Talk to the Key. I dare you to say, “Hello.”