Excerpt No. 0009

Why I Still Get Up Before Sunrise

There are easier ways to make a living.

Trust me.

If your goal is comfort, farming is a strange career choice.

The weather doesn't care about weekends.

The vines don't know it's Christmas.

Harvest doesn't stop because you're tired.

The work is never really finished.

Tomorrow morning there will be another gate to fix.

Another vine to check.

Another decision waiting to be made.

So people sometimes ask me,

"After all these years... why do you still do it?"

The honest answer is...

I don't know how not to.

There's something about walking a vineyard before the world wakes up.

The air is different.

The light is different.

The valley hasn't started making noise yet.

For a few minutes, it feels like the land is speaking in a language that disappears as soon as everyone else wakes up.

Those mornings have become part of me.

I've watched the same vines wake up every spring.

I've watched them struggle.

I've watched them surprise me.

I've watched them outlive expectations.

In some strange way, they've watched me too.

They've seen me become a husband.

A father.

A business owner.

A little older every season.

The vineyard has been the one constant through all of it.

People think farming teaches you how to grow plants.

It does.

But mostly it teaches you how to grow yourself.

It teaches patience when nothing is happening.

Faith when you can't control the outcome.

Humility when nature reminds you who's really in charge.

Gratitude when everything comes together for one beautiful harvest.

Those lessons are worth more than any bottle we've ever made.

I don't wake up early because I have to.

I wake up early because I don't want to miss what the vineyard is about to teach me.

Some mornings it's a lesson about grapes.

Some mornings it's a lesson about life.

I've learned not to assume I know which one it's going to be.

Maybe one day someone else will walk these same rows before sunrise.

Maybe it'll be one of my kids.

Maybe it'll be someone I never meet.

I hope they pause for just a minute before they get to work.

Because if they're quiet...

The vineyard will probably have something to say.

It always does.

Filed Away

The vineyard has never once asked me to be somewhere else.

So every morning...

I show up.

Keith Saarloos
Farmer
Saarloos & Sons