Sunday, March 13, 2011

The Hatfields and The McCoys...

Now I am right in the middle of a big mess, a neighborhood feud of some proportions.  I am in the process of constructing an Entry Gate that will serve three families in the middle of wine country.  They battled it out in Court over a four year period with the fourth neighbor, country kind of issues: who builds the road, where does it go, who can use it, where are the property lines?  Who has easements and for what?  These are not City lots, we are talking hundreds of acres here.  We are talking serious money and power, "Dynasty" kind of issues over grapes not oil.  It really isn't even over grapes, it is a power struggle.  These guys all used to be friends, got drunk together celebrating the end of the grape harvest, a long season of hard work, gambling
always that this will be a good season.
      It is a beautiful surrounding with rolling hills, line after line, rows of well tended grapes each with their sentinel rose bush at the beginning.  The rose plant is susceptible to the same diseases as the grapes only more so.  If the rose shows signs of stress the grapes will soon follow and they are a warning to the farmer
to take better care of the grapes.
    There is no warning for bad energy, the wrath of frustrated neighbors, the shards of emotions torn apart which, one would think, could sour the wine.  It is so strange.  It is a beautiful surrounding, a tourist destination and I think of "Zorba the Greek", gypsy dancing girls, loud and wonderful music, barrels of wine
and a fine pinot noir poured into crystal goblets.  I see the setting sun just over the hill and green, lush plants with their succulent purple offerings.
    To this setting I was thrilled and honored to add my name!  I get the challenge of building an entry gate, an art piece, something that belongs and is appropriate, something I think will outlast the very grapes it is designed to protect.  What a fantasy world I live in!  I couldn't have been more wrong about that.
    My gate posts are 3/16ths steel, six inches by six inches, sunk four feet into the ground and surrounded in concrete.  This is a lot of concrete, not from bags mixed at the job but from a concrete truck, 3000 pound strength and a lot of it.  I want the posts to be strong.  Have you anticipated what happens next?  It has never happened to me before and I couldn't see it coming!
   Yes, the neighbor who lost the four year court battle just happens to own a backhoe, a heavy earth moving piece of equipement!  The next morning one of my gate posts was gone!  Dug up and hauled away, just like like!  I wonder what the grapes felt as the earth was being torn up so very close to them?  I wonder what kind of wine will be produced this year?  What kind of season these vintners will have?
    I am just a welder, an artist in my little backyard shop.  I will wait this out.
What I do is HERE.

5 comments:

Yvonne said...

Oh, no! Serious negative going on there. So sad when friends, cannot compromise and relationships are torn apart.

Anonymous said...
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Kay said...

wow what a story. Real life is more interesting than fiction! I would imagine that wine will have an unpleasant back taste. What a waste of beautiful land, grapes and earth.

Autumn Leaves said...

Oh so sorry to hear this bad news, Jerry. People can be so danged foolish.

SooZeQue said...

That certainly isn't going to make your job easy. I don't know why people like to keep turmoil in their life and do such malicious things to each other. Things like this are probably why I create my art only for me. If someone likes it they buy it. I've done one commission and had an upset stomach the whole time, just because of the ramifications of them wanting it the way they wanted or something. Plus there is the insurance thing that I refuse to be a part of. Sorry you have to go thru that Jerry. Maybe you need to cut your losses and run like mad far far away.