grapevine.

I’ve been made fun of for saying, “Oh that person reminds me of my friend from Mast (an outdoor store I worked at in Asheville).” Kasey finally said, “everyone here reminds you of someone from Mast.” But our new host, Kris, is truly like a Mast model. He wears the plaid shirts and the floppy sun hats, has the friendly smile that oozes the Mast slogan “have fun and share it”, and loves the outdoors. Kris and Leah work on a vineyard that supplies grapes to the local wineries. In fact, we’re wirelifting grapes for Richmond Plains Winery tomorrow for $15/hr (Minimum wage is around $13).

Through the grapevine, I heard Brittany singing “I heard it through the grapevine.” It’s an interesting job, partly relaxing while strolling through the beautiful vineyard, partly challenging when you come across a wire with a lot of tension and you are 3 inches too short to get it to the next peg. The grapes are smaller than peas right now and taste like sour pieces of plastic.

We’re staying in the loft above the garage (pronounced ‘gay-radge’ here). Kris put mattresses on the wall up here in the loft as the insulation. Leah said, “So it’s a nice place to actually bounce off the walls, if you feel up to it.” They have a son around 2.5 years old named Finn, a dog named Huck, and when they said their newest baby was named Tom, I thought, wow, they must love Mark Twain. Tom, Huck, and Finn. When asked about it, Leah said, “Oh, what a coincidence. I had never thought about that.” You can’t make this stuff up.