"Let's plant a vineyard" they said. "It will be fun" they said.
What no one accounted for was the bitter cold and punishing winds of the Panhandle of Texas in April during a freak cold snap and late freeze! We would not be deterred though, no matter how cold, tired and sore we were. The Country Sister and her family were are little more acclimated to the harsh weather and back-breaking work of digging into the unforgiving soil of the Panhandle, but the City Sister and her crew powered through and worked from sun up to sun down and somehow survived!
As difficult (read:miserable) as that week of planting our vineyard was, every minute of it was also kinda awesome because we all knew we were planting a dream and a legacy. The dream of a vineyard had been cooking for several years for the Country Sister and her Farmer husband. There had been years of research, trial plantings, taking courses, planning and then some more research. Then the City Sister and her husband joined in the planning and dreaming and before we knew it, the plow was outfitted, all 6 of our kids were put to work and we were all on our hands and knees delicately planting our first 5 acres of baby vines. Five acres that we knew would need lots of love and attention, but that could also potentially carry on to the next generation of our family, leaving a legacy that we all had a hand in planting...literally.
Thinking back to that long, cold week in the dirt, it is not the hard work that I remember most. It is the hours and hours that I got to spend working side by side with my sister, my husband, my brother-in-law, my kids and my nieces and nephews. Watching the youngest boys create a game out of throwing mud clods at their big brothers. Listening to my youngest niece chatter about anything and everything under the sun. Singing old 60's songs with my oldest niece while we crawled along the ground making sure the vines were straight. Watching my husband teach my oldest son how to lay irrigation and perfecting the "lasso" technique of unrolling the lines. Learning more about farming than I ever wanted to know from my brother-in-law. And laughing so hard we cried with my sister.
Now that we have a thriving vineyard it is so fun to see our hard work pay off and watch our dreams and legacy grow. But I think there is an even greater legacy that we planted that day...the legacy of our families. The Country Family and the City Family. The Pipkins and The Bakers. The legacy of laughter, hard work, big dreams, sacrificing together as a family, loving each other even when we are exhausted and covered in dirt, and the legacy of crazy big love. That is the legacy I am most proud of.