Update

Well here is a little update without any pictures. MJ and I are back in the same town. For the past two weeks we have been in Austin, and then this past week I have stayed in Amarillo for a leadership training. Here is a run down of things happening in our lives:

• Marriage is great, our four day trip to Austin two weeks ago was so fun
• House is great, showers will be finished on Tuesday, plumbing done Monday, we move in at some point Tuesday or Wed.
• Vineyard is growing, despite the damage noted below, they are growing and some are growing fast!!
• Work is uncertain. Toby Tucker our Assist. Sup is leaving us and that may mean a change for the administration of CISD. I have no idea if this will trickle down to me or not, but one thing is for sure, change is often not welcome, but is often good. We shall see.
• Parents, My, Joe's, parents are coming on Thursday, and I cannot wait. It should be fun to hang out with my parents in Childress, TX considering they spend most of their time in the small town of Chicago. Should be interesting.

That's all for now, I will post some pictures of our vines growing soon.

How are your summers going?

Pictures of Damage

Here are photos of the damage in the vineyard after one week of recovery. Looks as if some will be fine. In the photos there are some new leaves that look healthy. But as you can see there are many plants in the vineyard that are very damaged. At the bottom I included some of the star vines that are actually putting out little fruit clusters.

Stress

This is something I have never experienced before, crop damage caused by a crop duster. In our vineyard on Sunday I was casually walking through doing weed control and began to notice plants with leaf damage. Some plants were entirely torched while others were just a leaf or two. It is the opinion of the experts that the vineyard was hit by a vapor cloud of 24d, a nasty chemical, that was not concentrated very high so the damage is not as bad as it could have been. Either way I have a hard time with some farmer spraying their field and it damaging mine. If you cannot keep your stuff in your field, wait for a better time to spray and leave my stuff alone. Some people will say, "That's just farming," but this is not cotton, these plants are planted once and will grow for 30 years, so this stuff effects growth for years. Frustrating.

My hope is that these very tough plants pull through and continue to grow. It will take about two weeks to really see if any need to be dug up and replaced, so we shall wait and keep our fingers crossed.

Here is the damage.......

This picture shows damage on the leaves to the left and healthy leaves on the right.


This one shows the damage on the top of the plant where the newest buds have come out.


And this picture shows a plant that is almost completely damaged

Growth

Growth is something I try to achieve daily and lately I have found growth in a few areas that truly needed it.

#1 My marriage, although a relatively newly married couple, MJ and I have grown thanks to the attention of our Church, pastor, friends and family. If you have not heard Trey is preaching on Marriage the entire month of May. So come on by at 10:20am on Sunday and hear some truly impacting stuff.



#2 My faith. Thanks to a new friend, Jenkins, I was introduced to a book that has made me think more than I ever thought it would. It is called "Blue Like Jazz." Besides making me think and clarifying many issues I have always struggled with, it has sparked conversations with my wife on our spirituality. This is a gift since we have not shared much about this since our dating days.

#3 My move. Moving to Childress has allowed MJ and I to invest in something that could truly change our lives, a vineyard. We have jumped in with both feet starting in March and continuing on to planting the week of May 2nd. Now twenty or so days later we are looking at something that inspires me, growth. Growth of a plant, 2000 of them. It is so hard for me to explain the impact this has made on my life, but to produce something simple but profound, makes me feel like a man. I know we have a long road to go with this endeavor, but the growth is invigorating.

Here are a few pictures.....of the growth in the vineyard.....

Planting

Well it is finally done, well except for 29 plants. We planted on Saturday and Monday and all 2000 Sangiovese vines are planted. As we were finished we figured out that there were 29 plants missing and the nursery in Washington State is sending them as fast as possible. A special thanks should go out to all who helped, it was quite an experience. Here are a few pictures.

This is Joe planting the first vine..



MJ got a little dirty too, we were both sore.


The boys post hole diggin'



The crew that helped on Saturday. They are from Left to right: Curtis and Nancy Simpson, Quade Brewer, Taylor Morgan, Chance Cozart, Sawyer Bocanegra, Joe and MJ Waldron, Seth Simpson, and Parker Morgan.

Something Great

Well this weekend MJ and I were a part of something great.

First we spent the night at the Kirkpatricks, enjoying company and new friends. That was fantastic. We all laughed a lot.

Saturday morning I was invited to golf with my brother in law Britain. It was a little more sunny than expected and I got burnt to a crisp. Shot a good round of golf for the first of the year, and actually witnessed a snake killing on the 16th hole. That was the highlight of the day, good job Ray.

Immediately following the round of golf MJ and drove to Oklahoma City to participate in the OKC Memorial Marathon. Nine runners from Childress participated and they all did awesome. Three ran a half marathon, Randy Allen ran a full marathon (amazing), and MJ and I participated in a marathon relay. We each ran a leg of the relay. Each leg was of various lengths and in the end, the five of us completed a marathon together. Our Team included Joe and MJ Waldron, Haley Allen, Lindsey Keys, and Lee Ann Dean. Our time was somewhere in the neighborhood of four and a half hours. But that is not what we ended up talking about.

During the race we all just could not help but be touched by the spirit of the event. The wheelchair participants, the runners running for a cause or to tribute someone lost, were all so inspiring. As hard as it is to explain, it is a feeling I will never forget.

Lastly, my hat goes off to Randy for doing what so few in the world would even consider. He completed a 26.2 mile marathon in a little over 5 and a half hours with the last 13 or so miles into a 20 mile an hour head wind which in his words "ate my lunch" and was "ridiculous." Pushing him through the last half was a relay member. Lee Ann Dean ran her leg of the relay then waited for Randy to get to her station and ran the remainder of the race with him. That means she ended up running nearly 17 miles or so to help a friend who could have used a little company.

This is the whole group

This is our relay team

And this is the relay crossing the finish line, minus Lee Ann who was still running with Randy Allen.


It was awesome and now we have state testing at school and the vines are being delivered on Wed. the 29th. So the vineyard will be in full swing this weekend. Planting 2000 vines as quickly as possible. anyone want to help?????

Carpet

Well we have made some progress on both the vineyard and the house. In the vineyard the long process of getting all the structure in is about done. What was going to take about 10 days has taken over a month. Don't get me started. I do not have a picture to show, but the irrigation is hooked up and running, and all that remains is the fence that goes around the whole vineyard. That should be started today.

The house has changed dramatically. The carpet was installed on Thursday. Two guys from Carpet world in Lubbock came Thursday morning at 9:00 am and left Friday morning at 6:00 am. That's right they stayed all night until it was done. I guess they finished at one in the morning and slept a bit before they drove back to Lubbock. Anyway it looks amazing. Val Podea and his brother Chris started the stair railing, and Joe Stalcup finished the stain and lacquer on the cabinets.

So here are a few pictures, one is an up close of the carpet so you can have an idea what it really looks like.

More to come....

p.s. Anyone want to help plant vines on April 25th? We need around 15 people to really make it work fast and effective. Let me know.