Excerpt No. 0007
Every Harvest Begins Long Before Harvest
People love harvest.
The excitement.
The tractors.
The smell of fermentation.
The long days.
The photos.
It's the part everyone sees.
What most people don't realize is that harvest doesn't begin in September.
It begins months earlier.
Sometimes years earlier.
The decisions that determine harvest are rarely made during harvest.
They're made on cold mornings in January with pruning shears in your hand.
They're made when you're deciding which vine needs one more chance and which one doesn't.
They're made when you choose patience over convenience.
Or quality over quantity.
Harvest simply reveals those decisions.
That's one of the hardest lessons farming ever taught me.
You don't build a great vintage at the finish line.
You build it one ordinary day at a time.
Long before anyone is paying attention.
Life has a way of working the same way.
Good marriages aren't built on anniversaries.
They're built on ordinary Tuesdays.
Healthy families aren't created on Christmas morning.
They're created over thousands of dinners around the same table.
Businesses aren't defined by their biggest sale.
They're defined by hundreds of small promises that were quietly kept.
Harvest doesn't create character.
Harvest reveals it.
Every season there comes a moment when people say,
"Looks like you're going to have a great harvest."
I usually smile.
Because by then, most of the work has already been done.
The vineyard has been keeping score since the first cut of winter pruning.
I think that's why farming has made me more patient.
Nature isn't impressed by urgency.
She rewards consistency.
Show up.
Pay attention.
Do the work.
Repeat.
The vineyard has never once asked me to be extraordinary.
It has simply asked me to be faithful.
Day after day.
Season after season.
Maybe that's why I love this work so much.
Farming reminds me that the biggest moments in life are usually the result of a thousand small moments no one else ever saw.
The applause comes at harvest.
The work happened months ago.
As I write these pages, I keep reminding myself of something.
This Almanac won't become valuable because of one great entry.
It will become valuable because I keep showing up to write the next one.
Just like farming.
One season.
One lesson.
One page at a time.
Filed Away
Harvest doesn't create character.
It reveals the character you've been building all along.
Keith Saarloos
Farmer
Saarloos & Sons
