The grape harvest is well underway. After a year of worry about not enough rain, too much rain, too cold, too hot, the grapes have ripened into a bumper crop. Running over seven tons to the acre, farmers are rushing to get in as many loads as possible before the processing plants stop receiving.

The harvesters and their sidekick tractors are busy all hours of the day and night and it's not unusual for the pickers to work until 9 at night, sleep for three or four hours and go back out at one or two in the morning. The drivers of the semi loads are under similar hours. Wake at 3 a.m., haul a load to the plant, wait in line for perhaps hours, return to the field and pick up another load and repeat the process. From the growers and their employees perspective, it is intensive labor for six weeks, going with little sleep.

There is something about seeing the harvesters and semi trucks loaded with grape bins that evokes ancient feelings of satisfaction and comfort in me. I feel an unexplained pride in each truck that passes by, knowing that it is loaded with a crop grown by local farmers, going to market to supply the world with grape products, from juice and wine to pastries and jellies.

I savor the aroma of ripened grapes in the air. It's a heady smell and I breathe deeply, almost hyperventilating in my urge to breathe it in again. The harvest will be over all too soon, but there is work to be done year 'round in order to insure next year's crop will be as good.