ChrisinCowiche
Posts: 7845
Joined: 12/16/2009 From: Cowiche, WA Status: offline
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I've posted a few places on this forum about our little vineyard project, but today was "official" groundbreaking, beyond removing some trees a few weeks ago. Those trees, in the form a burn pile, are visible in some of the photos, but I thought I'd share some of what is happening today in Goat Rocks. For those unfamiliar with the area, the Goat Rocks Wilderness is an area between Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams in Central Washington State, known for mountain goats and rocks, hence the name. Geologically, this area was formed when a Volcano erupted about a million years ago, think Mt. St. Helens, which is also close by, on crack. When that Volcano erupted one of the lava flows came back east toward the current City of Yakima, Washington, and formed what is now known as the Naches Heights plateau. In 2011/2012, the Naches Heights AVA was established as a wine grape graping area, subdivided from the greater Columbia Valley, based primarily on its unique geology, andesite rocks/boulders, and overlying blown loess soils, known locally as Tieton Loam. Here is a refresher link via the excellent article written by Sean Sullivan when the AVA was designated. http://www.wawinereport.com/2011/12/in-depth-look-at-new-naches-heights-ava.html We've chosen to name our vineyard, and our winery, in honor of these ancient rocks, the Goat Rocks. Without further ado, here are some photos from this morning. My buddy Jim is driving the bulldozer and though he is "retired" he is one of the best operators of heavy equipment in all of Yakima. I asked him if he was worried about tipping over, some of the side hill grade is at ~18 % and we talked about terracing, "No, piece of cake". You can see my shadow in some of these as the eastern morning sun rose behind me. Sometimes that shadow is really a small black dog, our winery dog, Chiva. I went up top to take some photos of what is going on up there, where another 2 acres awaits the next phase. Plenty of rocks still littering the landscape up there. Finally, I went across the pasture to the other side, near our local high school, appropriately named Highland High, to get a shot of what our neighbors will see. OOPS! Edit to make photos a bit bigger.
< Message edited by ChrisinSunnyside -- 4/21/2015 10:33:38 AM >
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